Adoption Words Defined

Two posts in one week-can you believe it?! Well, most of our paperwork (for now) is filled out and on it's way to where it belongs. Lately we have been filling out a lot of grant applications, but we mailed out the last one today! I thought I'd post today and define some adoption words that I will be using a lot over the next few weeks and months so I don't have to explain it every time I write about it. So here ya go!

Situation= a birth mom is wanting to give her child up for adoption

Profile= a photo book (think a Shutterfly photo book) with pictures of Heath and me explaining who we are, how we met, where we live, our family, our friends, how we celebrate holidays, why we want to adopt, etc.

Present= showing our profile book to a birth mother

So basically the process is we are made aware of a situation and get asked if we want to present to the birth mom. If we are interested we then get information about her and sometimes the birth father-mostly just medical stuff and why they are wanting to give the child up for adoption, etc. We then say yes we want to present or no we don't. The reason we would say no would vary for lots of different reasons, but we will say yes to most situations. From there, if we have said yes, then they will present to her and the birth dad if he's around. She will then choose from 3-4 families (typically). What happens next really depends on the situation. Sometimes you go meet her, sometimes you just go to the hospital when the baby is born...it all just depends and varies with every situation.

That is in no way a full explanation of all that goes on, but those are the basics so now if you see me talking about those things, you will know what I am talking about and what the process may look like!