Today's Agency Meeting

The meeting was great!

Our adoption specialist, "S", is very nice and we are going to be working with her throughout the match, placement, and to finalization of the adoption. She could tell that we already were pretty well informed of the process based on the answers we had written to some questions. Anyone that knows us well would laugh that she was expecting maybe something a little different. We are two of the most prepared people you will ever meeting. I credit the book that the agency sent to us, it was chock full of information and answered all our questions. She said everything "looks fantastic" for us on our adoption planning sheet and that we couldn't be much more open to their typical birthmom scenarios than we already are. Our budget is good too.

S will get a proof of our family profile in a few days and she will make any recommendations to us about anything that might be missing, but she didn't anticipate anything based on what she knows about us so far. She will see it before we will. I should definately have it by next Thursday, but I'm hoping for earlier!

We should be officially active with the agency within 2 weeks!! This is of course dependent on if we have any work to do on the profile. The actual file to our homestudy is currently in transit. Hopefully it is on the way to the main office in Kansas but we know the report is done and all the clearances were clear. There are some contracts for us to sign, notarize, and return with our activation fee and then we wait. We wait to be picked. I think of the first Toy Story where the aliens say "Oooooooooooooooh. You've been chosen."

S told us that she has seen situations where a family is matched with a birthmom within days of becoming active with the agency. We should expect to be within the average for placement which is between 3 and 9 months, although it could be sooner. There is a lot of birthmoms coming in all the time, so who knows!

The agency places about 2-3 sets of twins a year. In that case, S told us that it would not increase our fees. I had to laugh because it kind of sounds like a "buy one, get one free" scenario! We indicated that we would take twins, but not triplets, on our planning sheet.

We have to give S a contact phone where she can reach us at all times. If we travel, we have to tell her how she can get in touch with us. At least we don't have any more trips planned out of the country any time soon! One of my friends is getting married in the UK in October but we probably aren't going to go. If we get matched quickly, then we might change our minds, but for now we are going with the flow! We have a few quick trips planned for here and there. For the most part, I think we have tried to keep it easy this year and see how it goes. We've taken our big vacation for the year most likely! Hopefully our next big trip will be to go pick up the baby at the hospital.

The stroller and car seat are coming tomorrow! Bill got a call from his grandma and she told us a BIG package was going to arrive at our house in the next few days. She bought us a glider and footstool for the baby's room! I am tickled to death!! Don't worry - I will have lots of pictures!