Adoption Made Hard

Are you interested in adoption? Do you want to know how to make it quick, easy, & painless? Then you have come to the WRONG place!

We knew that we have moved a lot but it wasn’t until we started the paperwork for the adoption that we realized just how many times we have moved. Let’s start with me (Kirk). I left the home I grew up in back in 1997. Since that time I have moved exactly once a year, which equates to 13 TIMES! Try explaining that to the case worker that came to do our home study. Next, let’s examine the whereabouts of my sweet wife over the past decade. Becca left the friendly confines of her parent’s house in 1999. She isn’t near as well travelled as me. She has only moved 11 times.

Not only have we each moved a plethora of times, but our family has lived in 4 different states in 8 years. Consequently, we need 4 different states to do background checks and child abuse checks. Fun stuff! Just filling out the address portion of the various applications takes an entire night for us to do.

Did I mention that our bank doesn’t have a branch within a 200 mile radius of us? You would have thought that with us moving so many times that we would have finally “cut the cord” with Wells Fargo, but that isn’t the case. One of the only things that haven’t changed in the last decade is our BANK, and you need certain managers to sign and verify certain documents. On a positive note, I do have a notary in my office that we have at our disposal which is REALLY helpful.

Also, if you are interested in adopting and you have multiple children it may be wise to wait until they are all sleeping through the night, weaned and potty trained.

In regards to any sort of update, we had our home study last week. The home study included a young lady asking us 6 hours worth of in-depth family and marriage questions. Oh, that brings me to my next piece of advice, if you have a choice when doing your home study; try to have it done in ONE day. Ours was split into two (not by our choice) and so she saw our kids in the evening, which anyone with young kids knows that evenings are when we are NOT at our best as a family! Regardless, we made it through and are now just waiting on my passport (I am only well-traveled within the US) so we can wrap up our dossier.

Needless to say, here's two reason's why it's all worth it. The reminders came at a perfect time. Amos is home! Also, we had the awesome privilege of welcoming home this beautiful baby girl below. Some friends of ours brought her home from Ethiopia this past weekend. She had quite the community gathering and paparazzi waiting for her at the airport. I think we were all crying tears of joy. Welcome home sweet Sosi!