Catch-22

Well, my honors students are dutifully plugging away at the research notes, so I have a couple of minutes to share news.
The mother in Georgia chose a family who already had children as she wanted her daughter to have siblings. Now, that is totally her right. I can understand that. I want my children to have siblings, hence the plural. However, that cannot happen until we have a first child. It has to happen to somebody. Most of us survive quite well until siblings come along. I know that there were several placements with AFTH for which we were probably considered, but mothers picked families with children. It's like the job interview that you nail, but they want you to have more experience. How can you get the experience if they won't give you the job?
Plus, you know there is nothing like trying to explain your life, relationship, views on adoption and parenthood, and personality in 500 words or less along with a handful of pictures. It's like an open house for your souls. Hm, they could have cleaned up more before letting people in. It's a little dusty in the religion center. Not sure how I feel about that.
Anyway, onward and upward. This at least means that all the paperwork we did last week and weekend are not in vain. American should have our materials in hand by now, so we will keep you posted on any movement with them. Our SW at AFTH is working on sending them materials American needs for the home study. Balls are in the air (heh). And of course there is always the chance we will receive a call from AFTH at all times.

A Pithy Title Is Just Not Coming to Me

Hello to All, I figured it was time for an update.
In our mailbox currently waiting for the mailman on Monday is a package of materials for American Adoptions. It includes 64 pictures and an eight page word document all of which is supposed to explain us to birth parents. There is also the APQ, Adoptive Parent Questionnaire, which covers all of the circumstances of a situation we would be comfortable with. They also sneak a quiz in there. They don't call it a quiz, but there are questions that you can only answer if you have read their 80 page manual. This is all stuff that we covered with our current agency in meetings and seminars. A national agency can't do that, so manual.
Another difference is that they use a graphics company to complete the profile, hence why we had to send pictures and a word doc instead of creating our own. This one will also be four pages long and cover a lot more than our current profile does. However, they don't do videos, so give and take. The give and take includes the fees.
Our SW at AFTH will also have to send them some information to update our home study. The more states involved with an agency the more guidelines you have to meet. And I have to get refingerprint which I don't get. THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED.
So that is where we stand with that. HOWEVER.....
We also know that American has sent our profile to a mother in GA who is looking to place her baby girl who will be born in March. This was another situation that the agency presented on the web site. So we will probably know something about that early this week. She had a good number of families to look at, so it's another dart board situation.
Of course, she will probably pick us now that we have finished all of the paperwork to join the agency. Because that's the way Murphy rolls.

Not This Time

I received an email from American Adoptions yesterday informing us that the birth mother chose another family.
We really liked the interaction with American Adoptions, so we are going ahead and joining. We originally shied away from a large agency because we didn't want to have to pay a lot of travel expenses, but they have a real need for families in their African American program. Larger means a bigger budget for marketing. The only thing I have really found unpleasant is that they require couples to be married which is a way of leaving out single parents and gay couples.
And we are having to really look at the finances. Yet another consequence of the economy is that there are more babies in the adoption system but less families able to afford adoption. We are feeling that pinch a little too. Our savings has taken a hit, and if we end up adopting through American, it isn't really more money than AFTH, but it is more at one big lump sum.
Personally, I am still pulling for AFTH. They are more local, more open, and can insure a SW will be at the hospital which American can't. But at this point, we want ourselves out there as much as possible.