Adoption Update: In the 'Baby Pool!'

We were both so freaked out this morning before our visit with our adoption agency to hand in our birthparent letter & album, to sign the agreement, and pay $1/4 of the basic fees.

Ken rarely freaks out, as many of you know. He read over the legal agreement with the agency and freaked over the supplemental costs!! Thank goodness Laura (the agency person who works with prospective adoptive families) was so helpful explaining what was unlikely, what was likely and how much each amount was probably going to be.

You ask, why do you have to pay to adopt a kid who is going to cost you tens of thousands over the years??

The agency staffers, usually licensed social workers, talk with birthparents and help them decide whether they really want to put their babies up for adoption. They visit us and decide if we'd be good parents and if the home is OK. They work with freaked-out adoptive parents like us at every stage from information sessions through the first six months after we get the babies, and they host support groups, visits with birthparents and other stuff through the child's life as well. They have a legal specialist to work on the legalities of reliquishing children and adopting them. They advertise, provide training and a zillion other things.

Then there's other stuff to pay for--for our homestudy we got fingerprinted, had our background checked and get safety visits from state & county officials (fire safety officers have been very nice!). In the future, we may need tohelp pay labor & delivery costs, and will have additiional homestudy updates and possibly other expenses.

But the good news is, we got all our questions answered, from how likely we are to meet the birthparents before they decide (about 1 chance in 3, to what support the agency offers now that we're in the baby pool (monthly meetings with families, an online group, emailing the agency staff with questions), to what visits with the birthparents and our child would be like (at the agency, with a social worker there, unless we got really comfortable with the birth family)

And both Laura and the person who works with birthparents liked our letter and album!!

So now, anytime between a month and 3 years from now we could become parents!

Thank you all for your support and assurance! I'll keep you all posted.