On the Right Path

In the beginning of 2021, Will and I decided to move forward with our second adoption process. Today is December 25th, 2022 and a lot has passed in the last couple of years. I didn’t get around to blogging until now, so I will just briefly detail the significant parts of our beginning journey until now. Then I will continue to write in detail until our adoption process is (hopefully) finalized in 2023. 

• FEBRUARY 2021

After a long search, we decided to join Children’s Home Society (CHS) as our adoption agency. CHS seemed to be the best fit because they provide foster and adoption services for children all throughout every county in NC. We are also able to find children through NC Kids and Adopt US Kids. On Valentines Day we decided to announce our to friends and family.

• MARCH 2021 - JULY 2022

In the months following announcing our decision to adopt again, there were a lot of things happened. Since I was not actively blogging at the time, and now trying to catch up, I will give a summary of our beginning process. 

• We registered with CHS, completing the initial application. Shortly after we were contacted by an adoption representative to set up a virtual phone interview. After the phone interview, we were matched with a Licensing Specialist, Shelley Hester. 
• Shelley spent several months with us to help us become licensed foster parents. The licensing process was a lot of work, but small in comparison to what we had to do for our Haiti adoption. It was similar in that there was a lot of paperwork to gather, but there were more pieces of training to attend. This included a month-long online foster parent training class, called TIPS-MAPP. 
• Will and I found the foster parent training to be very informative and we also met several other families going through the adoption process. 
• In addition to the TIPS-MAPP training, we had to take medication administration training and a CPR class. 
• Other documents we needed to complete our licensing packet included: 12 skills worksheet, fire inspection, medical history form, medical exams, pay stubs, criminal background check, fingerprints, copy of educational degrees, car registration, and homeowners insurance.

We finally got the call/email that we became officially licensed foster parents in January 2022 and our Pre-Placement Assessment was approved in March 2022.  

Immediately after becoming licensed we started receiving calls for child placements. These placements were for temporary homes until the parents could be reunited and we were hoping for a child that was ready and approved for adoption. The good news is that we knew there were kids out there who needed homes, it was just a matter of finding the right match and waiting for that to happen. 

I decided that I wanted to register with AdoptUSkids and NC Kids. These are two national and Statewide agencies that list children who are ready for adoption. Since we had an approved home study, we were qualified to look for and inquire about children from these sites. 

In April 2022, I received an email from Adopt US Kids that our home study was approved and we were now able to search and inquire about children listed on their website. There were so many children across the US that were listed for adoption, especially boys, and children with special needs. There were not many young school-age children, so that was disappointing. Immediately I started my search and every day I just went to Adopt US Kids and NC Kids to see if any kids popped up in my search that met our criteria. 

 On May 19th, 2022 I came across a little boy’s picture who immediately grabbed my attention. He had the cutest face and innocence about him. His name was De’Andre. I put in an inquiry on his page and added him to my list of “favorites” with several other kids I had made inquiries about. 

On May 23, I received notification that DeAndres’ case worker requested our home study. This was exciting news, as I knew that we were actually being considered and a possibility this may actually turn into a adoption. Several weeks passed by and I didn’t hear anything. I emailed 

It wasn’t until July 29th, 2023 that our placement specialist Jazmine emailed me that DeAndre’s case worker wanted to set up a Zoom interview with us as a potential adoptive family!