Last Wednesday we had our first meeting with Bethany. There were about five other couples there along with the director of the Sioux Falls chapter of Bethany, and the domestic adoption worker. They went over the basics of adoption. The main purpose of this first meeting was to decide if you want to adopt domestically or internationally because each path takes you down a very different road. We had already decided we want to adopt domestically and this meeting confirmed that in our minds.
On Thursday in Sioux Falls we had our fingerprints taken at the downtown police station. It is all done electronically now, pretty cool! We had to mail one set to the FBI, and then take one set back to Bethany. On Thursday afternoon we took the one set back to the Bethany office just to drop it off, and when we got there our social worker wanted to sit down and talk with us for a little while. She said we are moving along pretty fast in this first part of the process. We scheduled our next meeting, orientation, for a week from today. They paired us with one other couple who is also going through the adoption process. At this orientation we will go through our "openness" plan (what kind of a relationship we will have with the birth mom etc.) and we will talk about making our profile. Our profile is an 8x8 shutterfly book we create that explains who we are. When birth moms come to Bethany they look through these books to determine who they want to pick as parents for their child.
We are asking for lots of prayer right now: for all our background checks and fingerprints to come back quickly from state and federal governments (this can take up to 3 months and you are kind of stuck in the process until these come back clear), and our big one is that God would be preparing a mom and child for us that would be a perfect match. It is kind of crazy to think about but there could be a pregnant mom out there right now that will be our match!
Thanks for your prayers and support!
