Fingerprints...check, check...Doctor...check, check...

Today's post is just an overview of the whole process and the many, many steps we have taken and will be taking.

1.Preliminary Application, Informational Meeting
Back in January we decided we may as well start doing something about the nudge God was giving us, and we filled out a preliminary application to sign up for the next evening informational meeting on domestic infant adoption with Bethany Christian Services in Fresno.

2. Seminar
In mid-March we attended that meeting in which they told us the next step is to attend a day-long seminar in Modesto, the next of which just happened to be that following Friday. We didn't want to wait two more months for the one after that to come around, so we got things straightened out and attended the March seminar the next week.

We left the seminar with a much greater understanding of adoption, specifically open adoption, and a list of things to complete in order to submit our formal application.

3. Formal Application
We took about two months to complete our application. It included all of our basic information, a financial statement (how much we make and how we spend every bit of it), and a spiritual questionnaire among other things. After that, they contacted our references (thanks again, everyone!) and scheduled our intake interview.

4. Intake Interview
Sean and I sat down together with two ladies from the agency for this interview. They asked us lots of questions from things like "How does your family feel about this decision?" to "What are your thoughts on discipline?" After the interview, they gave us an even larger packet of paperwork to complete.

5. Family Assessment
This paperwork includes, among other things, being Live Scan fingerprinted 3 times, having our doctors sign off that we are healthy and would make good parents, being certified in first aid and CPR (not, as I have discovered, just doing the little class at the hospital which is only CPR and does not even provide certification), having a will in progress and people named to take our children in the case of our deaths, and many, many, many more (open-ended) questions about our personalities, childhoods, marriage, and feelings about adoption and open adoption.

Whew! So that's what we're working on now. When this paperwork is all turned in we will start in on the following steps:

• Individual Interviews
• Home Visit - They check our house for hazards, etc. This will complete our Home Study and we will then be certified foster parents. We are not in a fost-adopt program, but we will legally be foster parents for the first 6 months that we have our baby.
  
• Profile - This is where we put together photos and information about ourselves for potential birth mothers to look at and possibly ask to meet with us.

It is a lot of work that we are happy to do knowing each step is one step closer to having our baby; however, I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if every person was put through such a process before becoming a parent.

Thanks for reading! I hope that provided a better understanding of how the process works.