The process has begun

I love the transformations this blog has taken in a year.

Crunchy pregnancy
Health
Awareness
Infertility

and now Adoption. :)

S. and I have officially started the process of adoption. Because I've only told a few select people, I figured I'd just end here. We have decided to not tell the world yet - as a matter of fact we won't be telling anyone until we have our baby in our arms. But you lucky few who read this blog get to take this journey with us as it happens. The only thing we ask is for our privacy among our circles of friends.

At any rate, here's what we've done, where we're at, and what needs to happen:

There is a LOT of paperwork involved in adoption, so I'm told, and we are starting to see this. We first put in an application that's like "I'm 99% serious about this" to let them know we're interested. Then they send us more paperwork, you call references, read over the materials and if you're 100% serious, then you send in the retainer agreement with a non-refundable check to get the process started.

That is what we've done so far.

Oh, I totally forgot to mention - we are adopting internationally from Japan! Our program is pretty strict as Japan has a different outlook on adoption than the US. Here are the qualifications:

1. Under 43 and over 25
2. Married at least 3 years
3. No other children (either adopted or biological)

We are not allowed to chose gender, either, and the birth mother chooses us.

What we have next in our docket is to get our dossier started (which is basically a portfolio of references, bureaucratic documents, a photo album and a written story, and a bunch of other things), as well as our home study. The home study is where a social worker comes in to our house and interviews us, checks out our home, we get a health check, a fingerprint scan, and they check our finances. It's basically like a life invasion, but they want to make sure we can care for the baby. The home study takes about 4 months to complete.

After all that is said and done, then we wait. We wait for Jesus to tell a birth mom to chose us to be the parents of their child. :) This process can be relatively quick, as some references I talked to told us, or it can be lengthy. Much like trying for a biological baby, I suppose.

S. and I are more than excited and I'm constantly praying that everything goes according to His plan. I love prayer warriors, so please keep us in your hearts and minds.