Adoption

....and could not be more excited! This was an easy decision, because we knew that if the last IVF would not work, we would not be doing donor eggs, but would be adopting. We chose a small agency in Pittsburgh to work with. They place infants only. After months of meetings and paperwork, our requirements and home study are completed!  Our letter will go "live" in January. We are are open to any level of openness. I'm actually hoping it will be open, because I feel that it will be easier on the child and want the birth mother to see the child grow up!  

Our agency said that we could be waiting up to 4 years. I am hoping and praying that we will get picked quicker than that. It was difficult to write the "Dear birth mother" letter. We feel that anyone who interacts with us would see that we would be a perfect fit for a child, but putting it into words was a little more tricky. Picking the right pictures was also a task! I'm usually the one behind the camera, so most of the candid pictures, I am not in. I didn't want to stage them either, but I think we picked a great selection. 

We will either be matched with a family before birth, where we would get the baby after birth from the hospital. The other possibility will be getting placed with an infant after birth. In this case, the baby would be placed in "transitional care" (a family approved with the agency to take care the baby until placement). Once the birth mother/father/family match with a family, then the baby would be placed with the adopting family. The baby may be a few weeks to months old. It will still be an infant, just a little older. The agency said that half place at the hospital and half place after birth. Either way, we are beyond excited to expand our family through adoption! 

We told our parents, most of our siblings, and a few more people. We aren't completely "out" yet. I was waiting until our letter is posted. Everyone assumes this is our next step, and have already expressed how happy they are about adoption, especially the grandmothers :) They already want to go buy EVERYTHING right now. It's too early to start buying, but I do have a Target and BabiesRus List made picking out what we would want. 


I'm excited to go through this process, but the waiting is not fun. We've had a lot of practice waiting throughout our infertility and IVF process, so we are pros now. Like infertility, adoption is also an up and down journey, but we are in it for the ride!