Our adoption journey

Here we are with our profile book

Kason and I started our journey to adoption in December 2011. That was the day that we first met with our adoption agency, Hope Cottage. As soon as we sat down with our social worker we were comfortable and knew this is where we were going to start our family. We went through an adoption education class that is required of all families wanting to adopt. In that class we met 7 other couples wanting to adopt. In that class we talked about the adoption process, met with a family that had adopted a child through our agency and saw other families profile books that helped us when we put together our own book. I was glad to see that there were so many families wanting to start or add to their family through adoption. After that class we started the application process. That was very thorough. It took several weeks to gather all the required paperwork needed to complete our application. Once that was completed and turned in the next step was the home study. The first part of that process we went to Hope Cottage to be "interviewed" separately about our family history (how we were raised) and why we wanted to adopt. The next step was to see our house and make sure we had a home that was safe to raise a child and then we were "interviewed" together. I was worried about the home study because I have heard from other friends that have adopted that it was like a white glove inspection of our house making sure everything was ready in our home to bring in a baby. I am not the greatest housekeeper so I went through our house and made sure all the little dust bunnies that have collected were wiped away. That was the cleanest our house has ever been! Our social worker came to our house and peeked into each room and looked under cabinets. It was nothing like I was told. Our home inspection was very casual, nothing that I had to stress over! At least my house got a thorough cleaning. During the home study process we started getting our profile book ready. The profile book is the book that the birth mothers look at when they are making a decision on what family to choose for their child. I actually had fun putting ours together. It was like putting our story together to "sell" ourself to a potential birth mother. Luckily I love taking pictures, so I had several pictures for our book. I realized that I need to be better at taking pictures of Kason because it was hard finding a picture of him! I'm always asking Kason to take my picture. We officially came on the market on 5/16/2012 when we signed the contract and turned in our books. 


As of 6/9/2012 we have shown our profile book 3 times. The first showing came on the same day as we turned in our books. Never did I think we would have a showing of our book that quick. The thing I like most about our agency is that we get to chose if we want to show our profile. Our social worker calls us and gives us the information about the family and child. We have to choice to show our book or not. Each time we get the call about a potential baby, Kason and I pray on it to see if this is what we want. It's a nerve wrecking wait to hear if the birth mom has chosen us. We know that God has already chosen our baby, and that makes each rejection a little easier because God knows that's not our child.