Austin & Audrey

One thing we have been told all along is that young caucasian children are a rare find. I look at the PA site and I never see any child under age 7 that is not severely handicaped physically or emotionally. There are national sites that have photolistings of children waiting to be adopted but how often are these files updated is anyone's guess. There are two sites that I visit quite regularly of neighboring states that seem to keep their listings updated.

So imagine the excitement when you find a little one, or two for that matter. It's an obvious longshot as even though you catch the listing on the day it is posted so do many other families who are looking for the same thing.

Austin and Audrey are siblings...1 and 2 years old and that is all I can know at the moment. The social worker who is handling their case will contact my agency and verify our homestudy then we may get a biography on the children. We will know a little about their parents and what medical issues may arise in the future based on the extended family.

Just by coincidence, Shelly's employer announced an adoption reimbursement plan yesturday.

Savannah and Charlie

We got an adoption history yesterday on the brother and sister we showed interest in. They were taken from their mother due to neglect. It's one of those scenarios where the grandmother had children at a young age, the mother started having children at a young age (pre 20's) and neither had family support in place to help raise the children....talk about breaking the cycle now. Parents never finished school beyond the 8th grade and have only worked in menial jobs.

Sad part is that there is another one due by the mother in a couple of months.

I got a call from the social worker yesterday handling the children reminding me to fax the homestudy in by Thursday....my agency did that last Friday. She also told me they were only accepting homestudies from parents who did not need a subsidy and who did not need a medical card. We're fine in both areas.

I asked how much response she had gotten concerning the children and she replied quite alot...about 110. I said , at least they will go to a good family even if its not us. She laughed and thanked me for my positive attitude about it.

How could you not.

It's an opportunity to make a difference in a child's life when you consider adopting. It's an opportunity to change their life completely for the better. Soooo even if we aren't the ones selected for whatever reason you have to believe that they will go to a great set of parents and they will have a much better life than what they have had so far in their brief time.

We also submitted interest in another set of siblings, another brother and sister aged 5 and 4 so we should get their adoption history next week.

Feeding Frenzy

We were told from the beginning that when adopting, if you are holding out for a blonde hair blue eyes, etc etc or if you are looking for an infant it will be a long wait. I told our social worker that I was looking at the photolistings online and she said not to get my hopes up too much. Those littles ones or the ones that everyone seems to be looking for go quickly.

They do.

Last Wednesday evening I saw two very adorble children online. They were siblings and ages 4 and 5. We submitted an interest form online. We try to limit our searches to our state and neighboring states simply to cut down on the amount of traveling. No more than an afternoon's drive time in distance is fine for us.

So I submitted an interest form which includes our homestudy info...social worker name, address and number and date the study was completed. I assumed they would verify the info with our agency and give a packet of more info on the children. I checked the site again Thursday and they had gotten so much response that they were limiting the time they were accepting homestudies. A call to the ocntact number gave me a message to fax a copy of the homestudy.

I called my agency and left a message. A call Friday morning confirmed that our homestudy was faxed first thing Friday morning. So Wednesday was the first day those children were posted on the interet as available and today is the final day they are accepting homestudies.

So at this point we stand a greater chance than if we not shown any interest. You don't get anywhere unless you try.