We had our initial consultation meeting this evening with our counselor, Sue. Sue is probably in her sixties somewhere, definitely a grandma sort of lady, tall and slim with chin-length white hair. We made our introductions and settled in for the questions. It is definitely a little uncomfortable having to tell a perfect stranger such intimate details of our lives - medical and family histories, and things like that, but Sue was easy to talk to and tried to put us at ease. Of course I was nervous and babbled like a doofus, but I settled down after a while and let Jeremy answer a couple of questions.

Those of you who have adopted will understand what I am talking about when I tell you that there is a mountain of paperwork standing between us and our baby...you can skip this paragraph. For those of you who haven't experienced adoption, here's a short rundown:
**We will need to get our "Adopt Only" foster care license (which entails being fingerprinted, background checks for both of us, physicals for both of us, 10 different forms and a diagram of our house marked with fire exits).
**We have to provide a full income/asset balance sheet with our net worth and monthly expenses
**We have to provide our federal tax forms for the last 3 years
**We have to provide photocopies of our birth certificates and our marriage license
**We have to provide a statement of insurance and legal guardianship
**We have to fill out a questionnaire about what characteristics we want in our future children and what medical issues we would be willing to accept
**We have to fill out a questionnaire about transracial adoption
**We have to create a profile with autobiographies and family trees.
**Finally, we have to create our profile with the two-page "Dear Birthmother" letter and pictures of us, family and friends.

We also have to attend at least 5 classes totaling 18 hours. This was a lot to process - so much information all at once, but we got a 3 ring binder with some written info in it that we can go over at our leisure. I'm really glad that first meeting is over!

I had a half-day today (hooray for summer hours!) and I meandered home around two. I was home for about an hour when I got a phone call from our adoption counselor, Sue, to set up our initial consultation appointment. I asked if she was booked solid today, and unfortunately she was...I apologized for being so over-eager, and she said she hears it all the time!

We had a lovely chat, and set up our appointment for Wednesday the 30th at 6 pm, so I'll post about the results as soon as we get home from that! I am really looking forward to meeting her in person, she sounds like a really nice lady!

We've been busy, busy, busy - after we decided we were definitely pursuing adoption, we bought Adoption for Dummies and have been passing it back and forth trying to learn EVERYTHING about this process that stymies us both. We also took the advice of a friend who has adopted three times and attended some agency information meetings. So far, it was the best advice we've gotten!

Our first info meeting was with an agency called Sunny Ridge in Wheaton (www.sunnyridge.org), which we attended on 8/1. We learned quite a few new things in the meeting; we heard from a birthmother, learned about their domestic and international programs and the fee schedules. We went in thinking that we would go with a domestic adoption and walked out thinking international. We liked Sunny Ridge for the most part, they were informative and nice, plus they are pretty close to us.

A week later (8/9) we went to an info meeting for The Cradle (www.cradle.org) By the time we were driving home, we were sold. We felt so comfortable with them, and we felt like the information was so in depth - the fees are all up front, the process is written out in black and white, and they brought in an adoptive family to talk to us and answer our questions. It was a wonderful experience, through and through...and, we changed our minds back to domestic adoption going through their Sayers Program. (http://www.cradle.org/adopt_aa.html)

We sent our application and fee in this week, and I've gotten started working on our profile and the "Dear Birthmother" letter - I am sure I'll have to do a few re-writes, but I'm so excited I can't wait! Today when I got home from work and checked my email, we had an email message from the Cradle with the name of our adoption counselor!!! Her name is Sue and she will be calling us soon to schedule our initial consultation!

We're going to start remodeling the nursery over Labor Day - we have a lot of work to do so we want to get started ASAP! By this time next year, we could be bringing home a brand new baby!