We Picked an Agency - Booya!

We have officially selected an agency!

We chose.....drum roll.....Open Adoption & Family Services! They are licensed in Washington and Oregon with offices in Seattle, Portland, and Eugene.

Both agencies would have been great picks and feel very similar in their philosophy and approach to adoption. Ultimately the main factor for our decision was geography – OA&FS is just closer to home!

For example, both agencies require you to attend a seminar/workshop before signing up with them. With OA&FS it’ll be a drive to Portland, with Independent Adoption Center it would be traveling to one of their offices, the closest being Concord, CA (by San Francisco). IAC does have a New York office so we definitely thought about making that trip! What a fun reason to get to go! 

But along with the proximity to the agency itself, we thought about our proximity to our birth mom.

There's no guarantee, but by going with OA&FS it is very likely our birth mom will be from WA/OR. This will make all of our in-person meetings – our first meeting, being at the hospital, and ongoing visits – a lot easier. With IAC there was an 80% likelihood that our birth mom would be from one of the eight states with an IAC office location (California, Texas, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut) making the cost for traveling definitely higher. And not just during the adoption, but for every year after.

 

Originally I thought the distance wouldn’t matter -- a good thing even, creating boundaries simply through logistics. But the more I thought about it, envisioning the rest of our lives, and the more comfortable I became with the whole theory of Open Adoption, completely changed my viewpoint: I want contact with our birth mom to be natural, relaxing and fun. Something we do as a family whenever it feels right, not just when we can afford it. Five (Wow! We're going to be a family of FIVE!) plane tickets to Texas isn't cheap. We'd probably only get to go once a year and that would be our only big trip/vacation. Or it would mean not everyone could go and I don’t want that either. I did consider the idea that we could always just pay to have our birth mother fly up to see us, but in the end I just don't want to be limited on what we can do.

Also we thought about our proximity to the adoption community. Both agencies host events like summer picnics and holiday get-togethers for their families. Our ability to participate in these events and connect with others with families like ours increases enormously by going through OA&FS.

 

So our next step is to attend their pre-adoption seminar. The next opening is in June so we are scheduled for that. They limit the number of attendees to seven couples which allows everyone lots of personal attention and the ability to make strong connections with each other. After that we can sign our official contract and begin our home study.

 

The home study is pretty intensive and can take 3 - 4 months to complete. It includes things like background checks, personal biographies, home visits, doctor's exams, financial documents, etc. I'm not going to lie, it feels a little intimidating. But I'm assured it's about highlighting what makes us unique and great parents, not about finding faults. During that time we will also be putting together our "Dear Birth Parent" letter, family profile, photos, etc. (I keep joking that it'll be kind of like an online dating profile, but for our whole family - ha!).

 

THEN when that's all done, we will be put into the pool of families and wait to be selected by some amazing birth mom who wants to make us the parents of her child! OMG! Such a huge crazy exciting big deal!

 

So, until that happens, I am going to try to play it cool and not be super anxious or impatient. Just embrace the process and enjoy the journey.

 

It's an exciting road to be on!