2011 Ends and 2012 Begins

Last day of the year and I can’t help thinking and hoping that this coming year will bring much joy and change to my life. Hopefully by next Thanksgiving and Christmas I will be a mom and that will make the holiday’s even more enjoyable seeing it through their eyes. My mom and dad are both excited and can’t wait to be grandparents. My dad even bought a milk and cookie set for his grandchild to put out for Santa next year.

I haven’t received the home approval yet because of the holidays but I expected this. Hopefully it will come soon in the next week or two.

I have started redoing the second bedroom. The furniture has arrived and is setup the closet and room is cleared out and the mattresses arrived this week. It will be a generic room until he/she starts to stay with me over nights or weekends. Then I figure we can decorate it to their liking so they can make it their own.

I’ll check back in when I have more news.

Happy New Year and hope 2012 brings everyone happiness!

My Child Preferences

I’m trying for a child between 3 and 6 and that’s the main preference I have. I’m not worried about race or gender but I am leaning more towards a boy. However, that does not mean that some preferences were not chosen for me (or out of my control). For example I learned in the MAPP classes that I could not adopt a child with Aids because I have a cat and since I’m not getting rid of Barley that was pretty much decided for me. Also I have stairs going up to the main part of my house so I cannot adopt a child with any physical disabilities. I was advised that looking for the ages I am that it could take me longer than someone willing to adopt a child 7 or older. I’m ok with that and I’ve decided to target the whole state of FL at first and then open it up to the Southeast and then the entire US over time.

Home Visit #2

My second visit was last week and again I was nervous and not sure what to expect. It was a quick visit where they filled in some of the blanks from the first session they missed. I kept thinking this can’t be it this is to easy but it was. The specialist also walked me through the next step where I gain the final approval. It will take a couple weeks for them to finalize the report of my life (from all the questions they asked) then they will have me review it before they send it up to the supervisor for final approval. Once I’m approved I will be able to inquire about kids I find or they send me info on. I’m hoping to have the final approval by early to mid January.

Home Visit #1

I had my first visit in November and I was really nervous I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was mainly a question and answer session where the specialist asked about my family, friends, childhood, work, and my preferences regarding a child. They also took a tour of my house and let me know I needed to get a fire extinguisher but that everything looked great. I didn’t have the room setup yet but I showed them a picture of the furniture I had ordered and they loved it. They also really liked my idea of letting the child help decorate the room so they feel like it’s really theirs and that they are essentially home.

The Begining

I've always wanted to adopt. I'm not sure why but growing up it was have two of my own and adopt one. A couple of years ago while I was living in Arkansas I started to really think about adoption but when I looked into it I found that Arkansas did not allow single people to adopt. When I moved back to Florida in 2009 I began to look into it again and...fast forward to August of 2011 - I started a 10 week course called MAPP designed to explain the process to potential adoptive families and also talk through some of the problems children in the system have encountered. After the course I received my certification and the next step is two home visits from our assigned adoption specialist.