Stories & Updates

We started our journey with Googling about the adoption process. When we were ready to get started with an agency, our first stop was the WI Dept of Children and Families site to look up agencies that are registered with the state - it is very important to us that everything be ethical as possible.

The only registered agency in our area is Catholic Charities. We attended an informational meeting in March 2023 and found them incredibly kind and helpful. Within a week, we had mailed in our initial application. In late March 2023, we were placed on an initial wait-list. We waited somewhat patiently.

In mid-June we got the call that we were able to start the next step...which was a more detailed application - everything you could imagine including medical conditions, ten years of job history, basic details about our immediate families and more. We also had to provide five references who were not related to us. They eventually also had to fill out questionnaires, which we deeply appreciated! 

Upon starting our initial pile of paperwork, we decided to just try to plow through it in one day. I do not necessarily recommend this approach. The packet involved a number of disclosures that we just had to read and sign, but it also included several packets where we had to discuss our personalities, our families, each other's personality and our individual histories as well as our history as a couple. We were excited and wanted to get it all in as soon as possible but that was a pretty intense mission. It ended up taking us about 12 hours across two days. 

Part of the application process included getting ourselves fingerprinted and having our doctors fill out forms certifying that we are healthy enough to raise a child and not likely to die before they reach the age of 18. There were also background checks and credit checks. All of this happened between roughly June 25 and July 11, two and a half weeks or so. Like I mentioned, we were excited and highly motivated. Once the bulk of our application was in (I think the only outstanding documents might've been the medical forms), we were assigned a social worker and our references were contacted. 

In late July 2023, our social worker contacted us to start our home study process. The home study involves a series of meetings where you discuss everything about both people in the relationship and the relationship itself, as well as your plans for parenting. The first session took place in early August and it was an orientation to talk through the process and where we got more paperwork. This paperwork included more waivers and attestations as well as a few pieces of the education portion of getting approved. Jessica was recovering from surgery at the time and largely confined to the couch, so the paperwork gave her something to occupy herself.

While we were going through our home study process, we also went through the required education component. Wisconsin requires a minimum 25 hours of education, six of which must be in person. Some of the pieces we were able to start right away included listening to several podcasts. One was on red flags for adoption scams. Another was our choice of three podcasts hosted by birth parents and the episode of our choice. We actually listened to several. Our favorite was the Twisted Sisterhood podcast which is hosted by two birth moms and focuses on the birth mom experience. It was very enlightening.

Another part of our education was a two day parenting class put on by our agency. The first day was in person in Eau Claire, which is a fair drive from our home. We got up early, with plenty of coffee, to make it there by nine a.m. Class was very interesting. We went over a lot of topics relating to parenting adopted children and trauma related parenting techniques. Frankly, a lot of those techniques sound like good ideas in general for any kid. We also were required to read the book The Connected Child. It's a relatively short book on parenting children with trauma, focused largely on adoption and fostering. It is written in extremely approachable language - to the point that it almost annoyed us. Once I got past that, it was a really interesting read! 

We had our final home study visit at the end of October. After that, it was just wrapping up paperwork so our social worker could write our home study report. Once that was done, we were able to review and sign off on it and her supervisor reviewed and approved it. We were notified of our approval on January 4th. Forever grateful that the home study finalization overlapped the Thanksgiving - Christmas season, as that was a pretty good distraction. 

So, what's next? Now we wait. A birth mom who is interested in making an adoption plan will review the profiles of those of us who would like to adopt a child. When she chooses one, we are considered matched. This could happen well before baby's birth, after or basically at any point.

I've seen the term "paper pregnant" used for this part of the adoption journey. I'm not a huge fan of that phrase but it does have a certain similarity. It's a strange sort of time. We could get a call tomorrow or two years from now. In the meantime, we'll start our continuing education for when we need to renew our home study and do other things to prepare and stay occupied.