When Ryan and I first started getting the inkling that God was calling us to the adopt, our gut reaction was to start researching. We will be the first in both our families to adopt children, so we had very little knowledge of the current adoption process or systems and what to expect. The first thing we realized we had to decide was what type of adoption was right for us. There is international adoption, domestic infant adoption and fostering to adopt. All of which are wonderful ways to give children a home so we looked into each one and prayed about them. Finally discerning that domestic infant adoption was the one for us.

I was also so blessed that my amazing friend, Sarah, connected me with one of her friends who had recently gone through the whole process and just brought home her sweet baby boy not a week prior. Jessa was a wonderful source of information. I remember pulling out a notebook and taking a slew of notes as she shared her knowledge, advice, and her own personal experience. I learned a TON from that first call with Jessa and it helped us find our starting point.

So what exactly do you have to do?

The first thing we did was contact Lutheran Child & Family Services (or LCFS). We contacted them letting them know we were wanting to pursue infant adoption here in the U.S. and they sent us a 19 page packet of information we needed to fill. This first packet covered everything from our family tree to our own personal health and everything in between. We mailed this back in with the application fee and waited.

While we waited on LCFS we decided to start looking into Adoption Agencies or facilitators. We looked at a bunch of different options online but the one we felt most comfortable with is a facilitator called Angel Adoption. This company basically acts as your advocate to help match you with a birth mom. They advertise for you on a bunch of different adoption sites online as well as in doctors offices and clinics. When a birth mom comes to them they send your information to her if you might be a good fit for her wants. They also help connect us with an attorney when that time comes. We debated for a while on whether or not we wanted to work with an agency or facilitator at all… mainly because it is super expensive, but ultimately we decided that since we have no knowledge of this process – we would rather work with someone who will help us along the way than struggle along trying to figure it out on our own. The one thing with Angel Adoption is that they only take 6-8 families per month out of the 150+ that apply each month. So we feel incredibly blessed that we got chosen immediately and we’re hopeful that they will help us find our angel baby within our two year contract with them!

Then the second step from LCFS arrived in the mail… another packet. This one was 15 pages long but it also included three different essays that needed to be written. One Ryan had to write about himself. One I had to write about myself. And then one for both of us as a couple. I’ll be honest the questions they ask… kind of crazy and super personal. So if you’re considering adopting be prepared to share your whole childhood and life via essay. This step also required us to go and get fingerprinted and sign off on a government background check. So that’s been done and we’re just waiting for LCFS to get those results in the mail.

We just our next steps from Angel Adoption earlier this week. So now we are working on re-writing our information for their profile and gathering images for them. They are really specific about what they want. I mean they give you a word/character count for each section: About Us, What Led Us to Adoption, Our Home and Pets, Our Families, Our Letter, etc… And then exact numbers of images they want from us for each section as well. I think it might take me a couple days to get this all put together, loaded on a flash drive and mailed out to them. But I’m going to do my darnedest.

Once I get that done, all that will be left is waiting on our third and final step from LCFS – our home study. This part of the process can take 2-4 months. The first thing that will happen is we will be connected with a social worker, and they will be our case worker through our entire adoption process. We’ll have to meet with him/her twice at their office where, from what I understand, we’ll kind of be interviewed and also to teach us a little bit about how to be a good adoptive parent. The final step will be for her to come to our home and make sure it’s baby ready, which means child proofing our home and (believe it or not) having a nursery fully set up. This will be the last step in our process of doing… from there it’s waiting for the right birth mom.

Once we’ve been matched…

This most likely will not be a quick process. We could be waiting for the right birth mom for up to two years… maybe longer. There is also a good chance we’ll have 2-4 failed matches with birth moms along the way. What that means is we may get matched and at any point before she signs over her rights she could change her mind, and we’ll have to start all over again. So we know that this wait is not going to be any easier than our previous five years of waiting… but clearly we have a lot of practice waiting at this point.

There are some things Angel Adoption does that we really like. First of all, everyone who works at Angel Adoption has adopted in the past and a few of them were also adopted themselves. What we love about this is that the people who are helping us understand the system really well, but they also understand the emotional toll adoption can take and they do everything they can to minimize that.

One of the things Angel Adoption does for adoptive parents is that they only match us with a birth mom once she’s in her third trimester or farther along. This is for a couple reasons. Sometimes a birth mom needs some help financially, sometimes she doesn’t. If she does – that is something we can offer to help take care of for her. So of course Angel Adoption does not want adoptive families to pay a birth mom’s rent for a whole pregnancy… too many things can change in that time and that’s a huge investment. The other reason is because it is so much harder to have been matched and connected with a birth mom for a huge portion of her pregnancy only to have her change her mind at the last minute. So this choice on their part will help protect us emotionally, which we really appreciate.

It’s also good to know that the state of Illinois (and many other states) have a law set in place that will not allow a birth mom to sign over her rights until 72 hours after her child’s birth. This gives her the time to make sure she is confident in her decision and if she chooses to parent her child – she has the right to make that decision and of course we would respect that. So there is the potential we could be matched with a birth mom and everything looks good. We get the call she’s going into labor and travel to where ever she is. It could happen that after she sees her son or daughter – she feels the desire to raise him/her herself and changes her mind. And we have to start our process all over again waiting for the right birth mom. Or hopefully, she is 100% confident with her decision to allow us to raise her child and signs over her rights after the allotted time.

But that doesn’t mean we immediately become the legal parents either. Actually what happens is we are guardians to the child for the first 6 months of his/her life. Our social worker will come in at one month old, three months old, and six months old to make sure we are doing a good job creating a safe and loving environment for our baby. If at six months, the social worker is happy with everything we can finally legally and officially adopt the child and they will officially be a Gagnon. 🙂 (This was news to me so I was intrigued to learn how this worked.)

One of the things we created for our family was this handy little checklist. We thought it was a great way for everyone to keep track of where we are at in the process. If you’re interested in keeping track feel free to follow this link to download it: https://greentreemediaonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/30-10656-post/Announcement-Card-5X7.jpg

So that’s a little about the process we’re going to be going through. I know I haven’t said anything about fundraisers yet, but I’m still working on those. I keep getting caught up on trying to find something that’s going to work for everyone and I think I need to accept that isn’t how things work haha. So I’m hoping that next week I’ll have a couple different fundraisers in place for anyone who’s interested in that. Have a safe and happy weekend everybody!