Our Adoption Process

OUR ADOPTION PROCESS AND TIMELINE:

Many of you have asked to learn more about the process of adoption, so we thought we'd share our experience here with you.

October 2008 - Research adoption and find a great adoption consultant
We first began to consider adoption in October 2008 when Jeff did some research on the Internet and contacted an adoption consultant named Kathie Otte to learn more. Kathie helped coach us on all of the decisions surrounding adoption like international vs. domestic, healthy vs. special needs, open vs. closed, etc. We liked the possibility of adoption, but at that point we had not yet exhausted the available fertility treatments, so we decided to wait before pursuing adoption full force.

August 19, 2009 - Decide that we want to pursue adoption
We decided to turn our focus away from fertility treatments and toward adoption in August 2009. And, as luck would have it, I was laid off from my job in early September which allowed me to dedicate all of my time and energy to the adoption process.

September 18-21, 2009 - Interview adoption agencies
With Kathie's guidance, we answered all of the difficult questions about the type of adoption we wanted and she directed us to interview three different agencies.

September 21-October 22, 2009 - Fill out applications and create a photo album
Adoption applications are extremely long and ask lots of pointed questions. First, you have to gather all sorts of documents ranging from social security cards to pay stubs to health insurance. Then you have to get a physical, buy life insurance, and in some cases you even have to provide a drawing of you house with room dimensions (thank goodness there are architects in our family)!

However, the most important part of the entire application (and my favorite part) is creating a photo album. The photo album is really your sales pitch to a birth mom about why you and your spouse would make great parents for her child. As you all know, I am an avid photographer so I wasn't lacking for materials for the book. The entire process took me a solid two weeks to put together. If you'd like to see a sample of the album visit http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/905337 and click on "Preview book".

October 22, 2009, 1pm - Mail in our application and pray
Once I received the printed copy of our photo album and got a replacement Social Security card for Jeff, I FedEx'd our album to the agency.

October 22, 2009, 7pm - Review profile of potential birth mom
(NOTE the time between step 5 and 6!)
Just hours after we had mailed our completed adoption application in to the agency in Dallas, Kathie Otte called Jeff and informed him that a small adoption law firm in Oklahoma City had a great birth mother named "Molly" who was looking for a couple like us to place her unborn child with. The baby was a girl and her due date was February 4th (only 3+ months away)!

We read her profile that evening and agreed that we wanted her to consider us as possible adoptive parents for her child. The next morning, I FedEx'd the extra copy of our album to Oklahoma City for her to review. We had hoped that she would be reviewing it the following week, but due to illness and other births taking place at the law firm, it was a longer wait.

November 12, 2009 - Match with a birth mom
Around 1pm, I received a phone call from Bobbie Bado (of Bado and Bado law firm in Edmund, Oklahoma) that the birth mom, Molly, had selected us as adoptive parents for her child! This news came one day after the big Women of Vision luncheon I had been preparing for that featured Barbara Bush. The timing could not have been more perfect!

December 4-6, 2009 - Meet the birth mom
Jeff and I headed up to Oklahoma City to meet Molly for the first time. It was a miracle that the flight wasn't cancelled because it was snowing in Houston and all of the flights after ours were cancelled. Once in Oklahoma, the weather was clear and sunny the entire weekend. Our meeting with Molly went very well. She was warm and inviting and had lots of questions for us. She also shared a lot about herself with us. Most importantly, she said that she had decided from the beginning of her pregnancy that she wanted to give this child to a couple who loved each other and who wanted children but could have none of their own. We were impressed with how level headed she was about her decision and how well she had cared for herself and the baby during her pregnancy. At the end of our trip we signed papers with Bado and Bado committing to work with them on the adoption of Molly's baby.

January 13, 2009 - Christi visits the birth mom for her last ultra sound appointment
I flew up to Oklahoma City for the day to visit with Molly another time and to accompany her to a doctor's appointment. I got there in time for lunch and we ate together along with our incredible case worker, Judy. At lunch I shared the name that Jeff and I had chosen for the baby with Molly and she loved it!

January 29, 2010, 1am - Wait for the call that the birth mom is in labor
The day before we got the call that Molly had gone into labor, we saw on the news that Oklahoma City was bracing itself for a terrible storm. We were concerned about this because it would mean that the airport would be closed and the roads could be dangerous if we needed to get to Oklahoma City at that time. So, of course, we weren't all that surprised when we got the call that Molly had gone into labor during this storm!