Adoption update!

For those of you who are wondering about where we are in the adoption process ... here's the latest-and-greatest news:

1) We've finished our "interviews" with the adoption agency. The social worker now needs to start preparing a report.

2) Once she's done with the report, she'll get in touch with us to schedule a home inspection. (We need to get some fire extinguishers installed ... but we think that other than that, we are good to go!)

3) Meanwhile, we'll be working on creating a "family profile" that will be shared with prospective birthparents. It'll need to show them who we are and what our life is like. For many birthparents, it may be the only "contact" they elect to have with us, so we've got to give some careful consideration about what we'll include. We'll also run this past the adoption worker for a thumbs-up before we make copies.

4) We've found out that our insurance coverage doesn't cover an adopted child until the adoption is legally finalized, which often takes about 6 months after placement. So, we'll need to come up with some kind of interim coverage. (You all know me ... I've already emailed the adoption specialist to inquire if the state has some kind of program ... and I've called our --- yup, our insurance agent, who just called me back & said she'll have to do some research, too, and get back to me.)

5) We had a frank discussion with our adoption counselor about our upcoming vacations & how it'll affect any potential adoption. Ken & I had mapped out how we'd feel going on each vacation as a couple, as opposed to what it'd feel like with an infant along. We developed some pretty good strategies & were comfortable with the idea ... but now it turns out we'd have to get permission from the adoption agency to take the child out of state, and that our counselor is concerned about taking a newborn on a plane, from a health-risk standpoint. So, I need to revisit our vacation plans & see if we can get travel insurance & if it even covers adoption as a valid reason to cancel last minute! We've been told to live our lives as we normally would ... but I balk at the idea of sinking a couple thousand dollars into a vacation & then have to take it as a loss! Would I trade the opportunity to be a parent for a single vacation? Heck no! I just cringe at the idea of that money being wasted!

So the long and short of it is that we're still deep in the paperwork, but once we have the inspection visit, we'll be able to give the adoption specialist our profiles, and then we start the waiting process!

Thanks to everyone for your support. If you have any thoughts on how to help us out when the day actually comes that we bring a baby home, please feel free to let us know!