Here’s what the process looks like. First, we take classes. These are classes designed to prepare parents
for fostering and adopting, which I’m looking forward to. There are still a ton of questions I have,
but the first class is orientation/introduction, so that should be very
helpful.
It was actually a bit of a challenge for us to schedule the
classes. Most agencies have several of
their required classes on Saturdays since most people have Saturdays open. Well, Sesha is a wedding photographer and guess
which day most people get married on?
That’s right – Saturdays! After
talking with three different agencies and multiple people, we finally found an
agency that will be able to work with us to take the classes on different days.
After the classes, the next step is to get a home
study. This is where a case worker comes
into our home, interviews us, and ensures our home is safe for children. Then, they’ll write up a comprehensive report
on the type of environment our home will be for kids. This report will later be shared with the
case workers for different children in order to determine if our home would be
a good fit for those kids.
Obviously, the first step in getting our home study
completed is for us to have a home. Our
current apartment requires 60 days notice for moving out, which we put in
yesterday. That means we’re moving at
the end of June. If we’re able to
complete our home study soon after that, we’re hoping we’ll have kiddos in the
house by August. There are still a ton
of unknowns, so we’re not sure how realistic that timeline is, but it’s what we’re
planning on for now.
It’s also a big unknown which kiddos will be ours. There were four siblings posted on the website AdoptUSKids.org that Sesha and I had connected with, but they have recently been removed from the site, so we assume they’ve been adopted. We were disappointed at first, but we always knew it was a possibility and we’re also thrilled that we assume those kids are in a good home now. We’re still in agreement that we’d like to adopt a sibling group of four, but it’s now more of a mystery who those kids will be.
We’ve been very blessed by the number of friends and family
asking how they can help. One of our
biggest requests is prayer. Please pray
for our future kiddos – for protection and hope and encouragement. Please also pray for us – for wisdom and
provision, and for energy, because there’s a lot to do in a short amount of
time (Who likes moving? Raise of hands? Yep, nobody.).
Beyond prayer, all financial help is definitely
appreciated. We have to pay to get out
of our apartment lease early and then we’ll have to furnish a four-bedroom
house after coming from a two-bedroom apartment. We don’t know what to expect as far as what
belongings the kids will be bringing with them, but we imagine there will be
quite a few needs there as well.
There are a couple of ways you can contribute if you’re
interested. Sesha is selling some of her
fine art photography from around the world (click here to see). If you’d like to order something from there,
please e-mail Sesha (seshasmith@gmail.com)
because that will cut out the middle man.
Additionally, some *very* considerate friends will be selling
some products from the Thirty-One Company from May 1st through May 3rd
and donating the profits to us. If you’d
like to join the shopping party, please ask us and we'll invite you. I tried posting a link, but Facebook is apparently touchy and threw a little fit about it.
Regardless of if you’re able to help financially or not, we
truly appreciate you following along on our journey. I’m sure this blog – just like mine and Sesha’s
lives – will be vastly different after we get kiddos and I can’t wait to have
you all share in that adventure.
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