Friends and Family
We are so glad that you have come to our blog. Your love, support, and friendship truly makes us who we are and who we hope to be. After careful thought and prayer, we have decided to expand our family through adoption.
We wanted to start this blog to update everyone throughout our journey. We obviously are learning as we go along, but we would love to share our experiences. What we have learned is that it truly takes a village to be successful in life and we hope that you would like to take part in this adventure with us.
The adoption process can be long and uncertain. However, we have been moving quickly through the initial steps. We want to take some time here to explain how this process works, what we have completed, and what we have yet to do before we can bring home our own bundle of joy.
First and foremost, when we decided that we were going to pursue adoption we began by exhausting numerous Google searches about adoption, adoption agencies, and other options including surrogacy. Following this search, we determined that two local agencies fit our needs best. We contacted these agencies and attended seminars about adoption. The agency that truly won our hearts was Haven Adoptions. This agency provides individualized support for not only the prospective adoptive parents, but also the expectant birth families. This was important to us to know that not only were we going to be cared for during this emotional time, but also that the birth mothers would be counselled and cared for as well. They were also more than willing to provide an opportunity for us to meet with a family who recently adopted a child through their program in order to learn from their experiences and share our questions, concerns, and thoughts.
Once we knew we found a great partner in Haven to work with, we began the adoption process in with our usual academic vigor and quickly completed our personal profiles, childhood experiences, discipline philosophies, and future plans required to successfully prepare our Home Study documents. These documents, along with an inspection of our home, will be presented to the court as evidence of our ability to be safe and effective parents for a child in our care.
After completing our portion of the Home Study, we were able to move into Haven's FITT program this week. FITT is an acronym for Forever In This Together, their policy towards the adoption process. In looking through the studies on children from adopted families, clear advantages for open adoptions exist. Open adoptions involve continued contact between the birth family and the adoptive family. The level of contact can range from yearly letters, emails, and photo updates to in person meetings depending on the desires of everyone involved. We wholly embrace this belief and hope it will provide a nurturing and loving environment for our child. After several months in the FITT program, we made the difficult choice to withdraw and instead join a national program for more exposure to potential birth parents. We will now be matching through our new partner, Lifetime Adoptions, and still utilizing all our friends at Haven Adoptions to complete the adoption after we are matched.
Check back for updates as they are available or subscribe to have them delivered directly to your inbox. Thank you so much for sharing in this journey with us. We appreciate your support and love. If you have any questions or want to know more, just reach out to us and we will be happy to tell you what we've learned.
All our love,
Shana and Seth
We wanted to start this blog to update everyone throughout our journey. We obviously are learning as we go along, but we would love to share our experiences. What we have learned is that it truly takes a village to be successful in life and we hope that you would like to take part in this adventure with us.
The adoption process can be long and uncertain. However, we have been moving quickly through the initial steps. We want to take some time here to explain how this process works, what we have completed, and what we have yet to do before we can bring home our own bundle of joy.
First and foremost, when we decided that we were going to pursue adoption we began by exhausting numerous Google searches about adoption, adoption agencies, and other options including surrogacy. Following this search, we determined that two local agencies fit our needs best. We contacted these agencies and attended seminars about adoption. The agency that truly won our hearts was Haven Adoptions. This agency provides individualized support for not only the prospective adoptive parents, but also the expectant birth families. This was important to us to know that not only were we going to be cared for during this emotional time, but also that the birth mothers would be counselled and cared for as well. They were also more than willing to provide an opportunity for us to meet with a family who recently adopted a child through their program in order to learn from their experiences and share our questions, concerns, and thoughts.
Once we knew we found a great partner in Haven to work with, we began the adoption process in with our usual academic vigor and quickly completed our personal profiles, childhood experiences, discipline philosophies, and future plans required to successfully prepare our Home Study documents. These documents, along with an inspection of our home, will be presented to the court as evidence of our ability to be safe and effective parents for a child in our care.
After completing our portion of the Home Study, we were able to move into Haven's FITT program this week. FITT is an acronym for Forever In This Together, their policy towards the adoption process. In looking through the studies on children from adopted families, clear advantages for open adoptions exist. Open adoptions involve continued contact between the birth family and the adoptive family. The level of contact can range from yearly letters, emails, and photo updates to in person meetings depending on the desires of everyone involved. We wholly embrace this belief and hope it will provide a nurturing and loving environment for our child. After several months in the FITT program, we made the difficult choice to withdraw and instead join a national program for more exposure to potential birth parents. We will now be matching through our new partner, Lifetime Adoptions, and still utilizing all our friends at Haven Adoptions to complete the adoption after we are matched.
Check back for updates as they are available or subscribe to have them delivered directly to your inbox. Thank you so much for sharing in this journey with us. We appreciate your support and love. If you have any questions or want to know more, just reach out to us and we will be happy to tell you what we've learned.
All our love,
Shana and Seth
