Hello and welcome to our first adoption update! It’s been a really busy couple of weeks, but it’s exciting to feel the ball starting to slowly move forward! Below is a Facebook live we did to share the update, or you can read in more detail below.
Take me directly there…
We’ve Hired a Consultant! | We’ve Launched our First Fundraiser!
Click here to purchase a T-shirt
Our First Big Decision
There is so much to the adoption process and it can be really overwhelming. From home studies to adoption agencies, to post-placement visits and finalization – as a prospective adopting family, you’re thrown into a whole new universe.
Our first step, though, was to select an agency to work with. In fact, Colorado is an agency-only state, which basically means that you cannot do a private adoption using just an attorney. Which also means, adoption costs are a bit higher, since the agencies have a variety of additional fees. Colorado also requires that adoptive parents take a certain amount of hours of classes that will prepare us for parenting an adopted child, which we think will be a great benefit.
So when researching which agency to work with, the factor that we valued the most was wait times. The smaller, local agencies have longer wait times since they serve a smaller area and population. Nationwide agencies have shorter waitlists since they can work with expectant mothers and adoptive families in several states. There are also some agencies that are somewhere in-between.
Our hope is that we can be matched and bring our baby home within a year. After all, we’ve been waiting 2,244 days (6 years!!!…but who’s counting, ha!) to have a baby. So the shorter wait time, the better. That being said, we knew that working with a smaller agency wasn’t the best fit for us.
But then again, working with larger nationwide agencies can have their own drawbacks. You typically don’t meet face-to-face with your case-worker, and its a bit harder to get that “personal touch” since these organizations work with hundreds of families every year.
The good news is, there are people who have dedicated their professional lives to helping families navigate all these decisions. Adoption consultants can be a great middle-ground for having that personal connection and also the benefit of shorter wait times. They have a network of agencies across the country, and help you work with multiple agencies at once. This can open up the number of opportunities that are presented to you, and in most cases, can lower your wait time. In addition, consultants serve as your advocate and provide guidance through each step of the journey, while helping you navigate through the ups and downs of the process.
Lindsay has been scouring adoption support Facebook groups and has seen many posts by adoptive parents who highly recommend working with a consultant. So, we connected with and hired RG Adoption Consulting and are really looking forward to having our consultant as part of our adoption team. Our first meeting is this week!
FYD T-Shirt Fundraiser
We’re excited to launch our first fundraiser. We’ve teamed up with Bonfire, which is a company that helps you easily raise money by selling custom shirts.
Through Bonfire, roughly 40-50% of the purchase price will be donated to us and our adoption fund! But, you’ll need to act quickly as we are only selling these shirts through 11/15/2019.
We spent a lot of time on the design because we really wanted to create a shirt that people would want to wear. Our goal was to create a design that is visually appealing and shares our personal journey, but that others could find meaning in as well.
Here is the design!
These shirts come in various styles and colors!
What Does the Design Mean?
- The symbol of adoption is a triangle to represent the “triad” relationship between the child, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents.
- We loved that the direction of the triangle made us think of the valleys that we all face in life, but that detours (even the unexpected ones) can lead us to our highest peaks.
- The three mountains are all different sizes: a large (not fat, haha!) one for Dan, a medium one for Lindsay, and a smaller one for our future baby.
- The stars represent two things: a new dream and our faith that the stars will align to bring us the perfect child at the perfect time.
One Last Thing…
We will be doing other fundraisers over the coming months. We don’t have all of them planned at the moment, but here are some ideas we’re considering. We want to do a lot of different types of fundraisers so that more people have the chance to get involved and support us, but in the best way for them!
- Holiday cookie sale
- Crawfish Boil or dinner party
- Super Bowl football pool
- Raffles
If none of these fundraisers appeal to you, but you’d still like to support us, you can always donate to our adoption fund. We can’t express how much we appreciate all the love and support, both emotionally and financially.
Our readers, friends, and family are simply amazing.
We LOVE YOU,
Dan + Lindsay
