Many of you may recognize the hashtag my wife created for adoption posts.  She uses it on Instagram and Facebook.  I’ve barely used it, as I haven’t post a lot about our adoption.  But that may change.

If you are reading this and haven’t heard, we are adopting.  Shocker, I know.  It was a long decision process for us, but eventually was the one that makes sense.  We’ve been married for almost 5 years, and we both are ready to expand the family.  

A lot of people have asked how it works, so I’ll detail as best as I can for you.

We spoke with an agency in Jeffersonville, the same one some friends of ours used to adopt one of their children.  After getting a good feeling with them, we filled out all the paperwork (and believe me, there’s a lot of it).  Once that was send in and reviewed for anything we missed (typos and all), we completed the profile book.

The profile book is just a short picture book (with some text, but not a lot) that gives birthmothers a chance to “meet” perspective adoptive parents.  That process was probably even more intense than the first batch of paperwork.  You have to figure out what pictures to show, what things to say about yourselves, the layout of the book, what colors you want to use…there’s a lot.

And yes, the agency might review your profile book and make suggestions on what you might want to revise to increase your chances of being selected. Fortunately for us, they took our first draft.

So now, it’s the waiting game.  We’ve been officially waiting with this agency for a month and half now.  That’s short amount of time, but truthfully, it seems like a forever wait.

And this is the hardest part of it all.  The waiting.  Waiting for a birthmother to decide she wants to place her child for adoption.  The waiting for a birthmother to select us (the agency keeps five prospective adoptive families on file at any given time).  The waiting for the actual birth of our child.  The waiting for all the paperwork and court dates and everything else before we can say “The adoption is final.”

I admit it, I’m not the most patient of persons.  It a bit of a struggle being patient when there’s so much in the house ready for our little baby to show up.  I’m eager to put the stroller and car seat in the cars.  I honestly want the chance to hold my son or daughter in my arms, have him or her fall asleep on my chest as I rock them in the glider.  Yes, I’m looking forward to the middle of the night screaming to wake us up and want to be fed, or just held. 

Okay, all of you who have been there and done that are probably laughing at me right now.  I’m sure that you’re thinking I’ll be re-thinking my desires soon enough.    and I probably will.  But for now, it’s helping fuel my impatience. 

I’m leaning on God to get through this, to have the patience to trust his timing.  I’d say it hard to lean on God, but truthfully, it isn’t.  That’s the easiest part of this whole process.  Mom and dad taught me well.