Confusion Brings Excitement

We applied for Adoption-Share last Friday.  The only other requirement that needed to be fulfilled for our membership to be accepted was to have our social worker acknowledge the email sent to them, and copied to us, that our homestudy was current and complete.  With it being a Friday, I figured it would be this week sometime before our social worker would be able to get that done.  I had even sent a text to our social worker telling her to expect an email and then forwarded the email to the social worker who wrote the homestudy to keep everyone in the loop.  I also had hopes that between both of them knowing, our chances would be higher for a speedier response.  Anyway, I waited and waited and nothing seemed to be being verified.  We planned to wait until Wednesday and then would try to contact the social worker to see if she had received the email.  After all, we had received a notice that we had been billed for this month's cycle.  We didn't want to have to pay for something that we weren't being able to use. 

Through a series of events, which I am sure the Lord allowed, I ended up needing to look for a 'lost' email that had been sent to me from someone else.  It must have been the Lord that prompted me to check my 'Spam' folder.  While searching through those emails looking for the lost email, I discovered that there were 2-3 messages from Adoption Share in there.  Why on earth???  I had received emails from them before, in my Inbox.  Anyway---- the emails confirmed that our membership had been approved.  Not only that, but that we had been approved on FRIDAY!! :D  So, I am now trying to set up our profile and figure out how to maneuver myself through this sort of adoption like facebook. :)

Praise the Lord!

Thank you so much for all of you who prayed after our post yesterday!  In my inbox this morning was an email from our social worker saying our HOMESTUDY WAS COMPLETED!!  Praise the Lord!!

As a result, this morning I started the process of applying with Adoption-Share.  We are now in the waiting stage to be approved to join.  Just in case anyone is interested in learning more about this 'group' here is the link for more info: http://adoption-share.com/.

Looking forward to starting this new phase in the process and seeing how God leads!  Thanks again for your continued prayers!

Update on Follow Up

I spoke with our social worker yesterday, and she still didn't have any leads.  So I decided to email Adoption Share and ask them some questions.  I was very pleased with their quick response and their answers so after I shared the info with Skeeter we have decided to go ahead and become members with Adoption-Share to help expand our looking and give birth mothers more options as well.  However, one of my concerns was whether or not we'd need to work through a different social worker and thankfully I can pass along our social worker's info so that she will be contacted.  No one will be in direct contact with us (for instance if a birth mother sees our portfolio and is interested, she will need to contact our social worker or her social worker will need to contact our social worker).  It helps keep things much more private and safe, etc.

As you know, the homestudy getting done, has been a HUGE ordeal.  Since we weren't getting anywhere with our social worker, I decided to contact the social worker who is going to be writing it anyway and her goal is to get it written today.  She will be emailing me some questions that need to be answered to help her get it done more quickly, so I will be working on getting those done ASAP today so she can have them back.  Our homestudy is only good for a year so since our fingerprints and background checks were done last September/October, we will need to re-evaluate what needs to be done around August.

Please pray with us that she will be able to get the homestudy done today and that we will have clear guidance and peace as we join in with Adoption-Share.  I have no idea how long it takes to be approved as members, but we do hope to at least start the whole process as soon as I receive word back that the homestudy has been completed.

Thoughts

Its been awhile since we have updated our blog.  We still do not have any prospects at this time - - of course that could change at a moment's notice.  I spoke with our social worker today about the possibility of networking out.  As of yet our homestudy has not yet been put together, so hopefully that can be done soon! :(  There is a website, called Adoption Share, which is specifically for birth mothers, adoptive parents and adoption agencies that we are considering joining to extend our search abilities.  There is a monthly fee that we would need to pay, but it would be worth it, if it helped in expanding our search.  I talked with our social worker today about what she would think about that and she didn't seem to have a problem with it and said it wouldn't hurt.  I sent her the link and hopefully she will have a chance to check it out.  I am to call her back mid week next week to touch base with her again.  However, if we are to join, we MUST have our homestudy completed so that they can have a file on hand in case a match should be made.

What do we do??  Do we continue to wait, as our social worker just waits for things to come to her, rather than actively searching for us, do we join in with this "adoption club" to expand our looking?  We are praying for clear wisdom and direction.  We don't want just any child, we want the RIGHT one that God has for our family.

Our precious Adia continues to pray almost daily for her baby brother to come home.  Sometimes I wonder if she has more faith than I do that he will ever come home.  Anyway - - enough rambling, but did want to give you an update as to what we are considering at this point.  As always, thank you for praying!!