Steven Curtis Chapman - When Love Takes You In

I have a couple of very dear friends who attended the Women of Faith conference this past weekend in Hartford. They shared this video from the conference with me and I want to share it with you. Adoption was initially a way for us to grow our family when we were not able to have another biological child. Now, however, this adoption process has turned into a wonderful privilege. Through this, we are able to share Christ's love in an unbelievable way. This video captures this perfectly.

Choosing Our Placing Agency

There are 2 parts to an adoption, a home study and then the placement. Some agencies do both the home study and the placement where other agencies do one or the other. We had our home study done with an agency here in Connecticut, and this agency only does the home study portion of the adoption process. The next step was choosing a placing agency. Birth mothers go to the placing agency when they have decided to give their baby up for adoption. We felt somewhat overwhelmed in the beginning knowing that there are thousands of placing agencies to choose from. Each state has different laws and regulations when it comes to adoption. We knew we wanted to use an agency where birth mothers were in states where the consent to terminate their rights was very soon after birth and in states where this is irrevocable once signed. So, we started our hunt. We had a list of agencies that were recommended to us by friends that adopted, friends and family of friends that had adopted, and by our home study agency. We looked at each agency's website and then made a list of questions for the agencies, such as fees, are the monthly living expenses of the birth mother included in the fees, are the birth mother medical costs included in the fees, is legal included in the fees, how do they share our profile with the birth mother (scrapbook or interview), are they willing to show our profile to all birth mothers (some agencies make you specify a race and will only share your profile with birth mothers of that race), success rate, wait time, do they require drug testing on their birth moms, is the birth mom's prenatal care followed, and average wait time. I called each agency with these questions. Once we obtained their answers we discussed each one in detail. We narrowed it down to four agencies.

In the end, we knew The Adoption Centre of Kansas was the agency for us. During a phone conversation with them, one of their staff members answered a question I had with the response, "you know, that's a God thing." Because she said this I asked her if they are a Christian agency. They are not classified as a Christian agency, but she said that all the staff members there are Christians and that they know without God none of what they do would be possible. It was so comforting to hear this from the people who will have a major part in building our family. It's refreshig knowing they have the same values as we do.

As of now, our home study is being written by our home study agency, our fingerprints are being processed by the FBI, we've picked our placing agency (and have checked their licensure and standings), and are working on our application for the placing agency. The application has some tough questions. It asks you to check "yes" or "no" in columns regarding specific medical conditions of the baby, medical conditions of the birth mother, medical conditions of the birth father, and specific races of the babies. We found it very difficult to say "no" in any of the categories because it felt like we were saying "no, that baby's not good enough for us." We're working through each of these scenarios and are not yet done with the full application. After that's completed, we will begin working on our scrapbook. The scrapbook will be how we communicate who we are to the birth mothers. These books are what the birth mothers look through while trying to decide who they feel will be the most suitable parents for their baby.

Fingerprints

As part of the adoption process, you have to be fingerprinted. The Friday before last we went to the state police headquarters in Middletown, CT and had our fingerprints done. The prints have now been mailed to the FBI in West Virginia. We've been told the processing of the prints take anywhere from 7 to 13 weeks. While we wait, we will be researching and choosing a placing agency. This will be the agency that hooks us up with a birthmother.