The Word Is Out

We've been thinking a lot about how we're going to move forward in our adoption journey once our homestudy is written. And, we've pretty much decided to stick with our current agency. This means that we will likely be adopting a baby from foster care. The program is called "fos-adopt" which I spoke about in my prior post about different types of adoption. Again, this is a program where children in the foster care system are placed with us solely for adoption. That means we don't take foster placements. We will take a foster child who is being placed up for adoption because his/her parental rights have been, or are going to be terminated.

What's the legal risk? If you are in to percentages? Like 2% chance of something happening that could result in the little one being taken away from us once we're placed with him or her.

We have also been asked if we'd like to be in the agency's relinquishment program. This means that if a birth mom contacted the agency looking to create an adoption plan for her unborn child our profile would be show to her along with a few other families. This would be a rarity, as our agency doesn't seek out birth moms, but they don't turn them away if they call in and want our agency to help them. If we were chosen they would facilitate and manage our adoption. But, they said they only get a handful of birthmom's each year so it is a long shot, but an option.

We can do both programs, but we are on the fence about the relinquishment because of our last situation. Part of me wants to do it, a newborn would be amazing, but another part of me is scared that she'll change her mind once again, I'll of waited out some length of a pregnancy and then be - once again- empty handed.

Hmmm....

Anyway, the title of this post implies that an announcement has been made. And, it has. We sent out letters with our Christmas cards announcing to our extended family, and some friends who didn't know yet that we'll be adopting a baby in 2012.

Here's how the letter read (the letter starts with updates about my husband and I and moves on to:

Now for the big news: as many of you may know, we have wanted to start our family for a couple of years now. Unfortunately it hasn’t been a simple plan. But we believe we are right where we belong. That being said, we hope to adopt our first child in 2012. We have finished the “home study” process and are waiting for our social worker to write our final document, so we can begin searching for our child.

We plan to adopt a child under the age of two. This decision is one that we have always spoken about, even since before being married. We hope that you can share in our joy and excitement as we wait for our social worker to find and bring this little one home.

Once we have met our kiddo, we promise to let everyone know. Until then, please keep us in your prayers.

 I hope you all will agree that this was simple, and to the point. The letter should of reached most everyone by today. Friends that already knew didn't get one...cause I was trying to save paper!

I'm going to be "off-line" for a long weekend as we're flying to the midwest for an early Christmas with my family.

I'm sure I'll have something to update on after our home visit on Wednesday.

Until then....