Agency Found?

As you may remember, we were looking for an adoption agency to sign up with when I started this blog. We've researched so many of them!!! We checked out Adoption Network Law Center, which isn't quite an agency or facilitator. They're more like a hybrid of both. We telephone conferenced with them and it seems like a lovely center. However, in researching them more thoroughly, I've seen way more bad reviews and ratings than positive ones. So... now we don't know what to do.

I love that they seem to do very thorough background checks and that they have a fairly low match-time due to their aggressive marketing. But, the thing I'm currently drawn to about ANLC is that they have a financing application. We may need to get a loan, as we need $30,000 and only have $100 saved right now. The other bonus is that they take the payments in chunks rather than all at once like other agencies (American Adoptions, etc.). We need $6,800 to start the process... so that is our immediate goal.

If you know anything about this place, please leave us a comment. Or, if you have other suggestions. If you are uncomfortable discussing them in a public venue such as this, I will send you my e-mail address so we can talk privately.

So, for now... I'm going to declare them our top choice. Now... where to come up with that first $6,800...

Baby Shower Let-Down...

I was supposed to throw my sister's baby shower. We had already discussed it. I asked her to get me a list of addresses. I had a place picked out. I had an approximate date -- I was waiting to see if it would work for everyone.

Today, we get a text from the paternal grandmother to be (who my sister lives with) and find out that she's already planned it. She has a place and a date picked out. She wants us to decorate.

I'm very heartbroken that I wasn't told about this earlier. I've been planning it for months!

Is it wrong for me to be sad about this?

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I promise I'll post something happy soon...

Day 2 of classes...

Tuesday night was PRIDE training class #2. The video discussed different forms of child abuse, as well as attachment disorders. Of course, this was only really relevant for couples who are doing foster care. The entire class is virtually focused on foster care.

They focus primarily on re-unification and have pretty much said that adoption is the last option for a child and is not ideal. So, that leaves people like us, who are infertile, out in the cold.

We've decided to wait on foster care until a later time. This is our first child, and we can't have any of our own, so we wanted to start off with an infant adoption. We haven't parented before and would like the opportunity to start from scratch. We aren't ready, just yet, for the behavioral challenges of an older child adoption. We've told the agency we would like to do this eventually, just not this time.

The agency that we are using for the homestudy (Children's Home Society) informed us that they don't really do any infant placements, because there aren't many WV birthmothers coming to them. They told us that we could do our homestudy through them and our post-placement. We agreed to find a different agency (a national agency) to do the actual first-parents search and placement.

We filled out the application, we paid $58 to have our fingerprints done and background checks, we've photocopied our IDs, and we've visited the doctor and had a physical. I rearranged my real-estate classes so we could attend PRIDE training now.

Today, I got an email from CHS saying that they will not start our homestudy now because they want to focus on foster parents and not adoptive parents!!!

We have NO other option. I looked into DHHR and they only do foster-adopt/older WV child adoption homestudies. Burlington Methodist services charges $25,000 and will still require us to sign up with another agency (for a grand total of $50-$80,000). And, there are no other agencies near us. We have no one else to complete our homestudy.

We are at a stand still.

Why is this so difficult? All I want is to be a mother. Why won't anyone help us?

Parenthood For Me -- Grant Opportunity

If you are going through the adoption process, as we are, you are probably familiar with the LARGE amounts of money required. For most of us, this type of money is impossible to come by without a little help. Recently, I came across a new program that seems very promising. I had not seen any advertising for this not-for-profit organization yet, and merely stumbled upon it through last weeks Show and Tell.

Please help this organization get its name out into the web-o-sphere. This will not only potentially help many prospective adoptive parents, but it will also allow people to visit the site and donate to the growing fund. This is beneficial to the organization, but even more so to you! The more people that visit and donate, the more possibilities Parenthood For Me will have to help adoptive parents like us!

Here is some information:

Parenthood For Me (PFM) is now a national not-for-profit. Their mission is to provide financial and emotional support to those building their families through adoption or medical intervention. They will be accepting their first grant applications in January 2010. The first set of grants will be awarded in June 2010. Visit the website FAQ page to find out more details.

You can find them at:
http://www.parenthoodforme.org

And blogging at:
http://parenthoodforme.blogspot.com/

In addition, PFM is holding a giveaway on their blog in order to boost the public's awareness of the program. Feel free to participate to help out this wonderful organization!

And, if you apply for a grant -- Good Luck!!!

PRIDE Training: Day 1

Today was the first day of our PRIDE training, the nine week course that must be completed prior to finalization of our homestudy.

As you may remember, there was some drama over the day that was chosen for these meetings. Tuesday nights were one of the nights of the week that I was simply unavailable. I was quite stressed out over the thought of having to wait five months before we could get our homestudy done. Thankfully, I was able to work something out.

In order to attend the training, I have to travel to work with my husband and wait for him while he teaches. Today, on our way to his class, I managed to drive the car over a ditch. It was noisy and a bit scary, but we were no worse for wear and the car seemed to be just fine. I was a bit upset with myself for not seeing it, and I stewed about it while Nick taught.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, when we were getting into the car to head for PRIDE training, we spotted a flat tire. A FLAT TIRE!!!!! It was near 5:00pm and we had to be at the training by 6:00pm. We have a spare tire, but it is fairly worn. Not to mention, we live half hour away from work and couldn't risk riding all the way home and then all the way back out tomorrow. We had to go to the shop and have the tire fixed. By 5:00pm, Nick had the spare on and the old tire in the trunk, and we were on our way to the shop.

We must have sat in traffic for half an hour.

Finally, we arrived at the shop, only to be told we would have to wait one and half hours before they could get the car in to be worked on. It was already closing in on 6pm... there was no way we could make it to the class on time.

At this point, I was slipping into my "this is God's way of telling me something" mode. My mind immediately went back to finding out about my infertility... those horrible months where I blamed God, and figured that He didn't see me as fit to parent a child. I started thinking, "He must be trying to tell me something... the class was scheduled on a day that wasn't good for me and now that I rearranged my schedule, this happens. He really doesn't want me to be a mother." I know in my heart that this isn't true. I know that was my self-pity, my anger, my anxiousness talking. But, I was just so frustrated.

Nick was calm. He's always calm. This is definitely one of the reasons I love him so much. He balances me out. He was right there to put his hand over mine and whisper: "I love you." Even though he had every right to be upset with me for driving us into the ditch in the first place.

His calmness calmed me down. I went for a walk. I took some headache medicine. I called Children's Home Society (our homestudy agency), and told them what was going on. They were very understanding and told us to come on in whenever we finished.

Eventually, I forgave myself for the blunder.

At around 6:45pm the car was finished... much quicker than they estimated. So, we headed over to the class, and we arrived a little after 7pm.

Finally, we were there!

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Class One and Two (combined in one evening):

There were three other couples in the room when we got there. We apologized again for our tardiness, and then we introduced ourselves to the couples. The social worker allowed us to take the video they had already watched, in order to make up the missed portion of class.

For the remaining two hours, we discussed reasons for fostering/adopting, birthparents, reunification, and permanence.

Most of the information was introductory, today. But, we were given some homework to fill out, and a family tree assignment.

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I'm looking forward to the rest of the training. I'm just hoping that we don't run into any delays next week.