We are so excited to share another Purl Adoptive momma’s story on the blog today. “D” shares her daughter’s adoption story; revealing how quick and unexpected the adoption process can be.
My husband and I did not come to adoption in the “traditional” way—I was simply looking to fulfill my life plan. When I was in high school, I had a good friend who was adopted. I was intrigued by her family dynamic, and since she spent so much time with my family, she quickly became my mom’s third daughter! It was during this time that I had a realization: love makes a family, not biology. It was then that I decided that I wanted to adopt a child when the time came to start a family…
Fast-forward about 20 years, and I’m married to my soul mate, a man who happily agreed to complete our family using my “life plan”: conceive one child, then adopt one of the opposite gender. In 2014, we were blessed with our son, and we spent the next 4 years enjoying our family of three. But we knew we were not complete—our boy needed his sister! I began some preliminary research on adoption in late 2018, and we decided to go full-steam ahead in January of 2019.
Between January & May, the process seemed to go quickly. We decided on private adoption as opposed to foster to adopt, so our first step was to find an agency to perform our home study. During this time, one of my class participants (I teach group fitness) gave me Katie’s name, stating she was an adoptive parent who now helped others with the process. I researched the Purl Adoption Advisory website and loved the concept of someone guiding us through the process. I contacted Katie and immediately knew we wanted her as our advisor. She provided a plethora of resources and overall knowledge of the process that we would have never gotten without her! We took updated family pictures for our look book, and we completed our home study in late May. The longest part of the process was waiting on the courts to approve us to adopt—we were told it could take up to 60 days, and it basically did!
Between May and July, while we awaited our certification by the court, we received a couple of inquiries from expectant mothers. The most legitimate case was from a mother in Georgia who liked our family, but really wanted to place with a couple who did not already have children. We also received two “scams” during this time, but Katie had educated us on what to look for, so we were prepared…
With less than a week left for the courts to certify us, we received a call from Katie about a case —a young mother looking for an interracial couple with at least 1 kid! The agency did not have any couples who fit the bill, so they contacted Katie, who immediately referred us! We were presented the case by the agency & were told the expectant mother was due in about a month. My husband and I considered it and decided to send our look book to the agency. Fortunately for us, the expectant mother chose us around the same time that we received our certification from the courts!
Needless to say, the next month was a blur, as we worked to get the house & our affairs in order. The agency kept us updated, as the birth mother had requested a semi-open adoption. Katie was also a tremendous help during this time, educating us on what to expect when traveling, the hospital experience, etc. We decided to drive to the state she lived instead of flying, since we were unsure of how long we would have to stay in the baby’s birth state before returning home.
Now this part of the story seems more like a work of fiction than real-life, but here’s the summary: our daughter was born late Monday night, we arrived in-town on Tuesday night, with consents set to be signed on Thursday morning. But the entire town was flooded by a Tropical Storm on Wednesday night. Our hotel was completely flooded and everything was delayed. On Friday morning, our daughter’s birth mother signed consents and we were placed with our daughter that day. That same day, we learned our family car was totaled due to the flood, and after 3 hotel changes and 1 rental car, we were forced to fly back home instead of driving back. All in told, we stayed there for over 2 weeks as we waited for the states to clear the ICPC process! As stressful as you can imagine this trip was for us, it was overshadowed by the joy we felt when meeting our daughter! We also had the pleasure of meeting our daughter’s birth mother briefly on the day of the placement, which was truly a blessing. For us, the next 6 months of the finalization process was fairly easy, as we used the same agency that performed our home study to complete our post-placement visits. The main hiccup was due to COVID-19, as our “Adoption Day” was postponed by 2 months—we eventually finalized via a Zoom call.
All in all, I consider us to be one of the lucky ones—we started the process in January of 2019, and our daughter was placed with us in late September the same year. We waited a total of 9 months from when we started, and really less than two months from when we were “active’“ to hold our baby in our arms. And during that time, we had Katie in our corner. Her guidance and genuine concern for our case was invaluable. And I hope you didn’t miss the most important part: if Katie had not had connections with this agency, we would not have been presented to our daughter’s birth mother. Purl Adoption Advisory not only takes the ethical high road when it comes to domestic adoptions—it aligns itself with similar agencies and attorneys throughout the country, which truly increases the chances of children finding their “forever homes”. My family will always be indebted to Katie—life plan fulfilled!
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful adoption story with us, D! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you are interested more in learning about growing your family through adoption, visit these blog posts on Purl’s Learn page.
We are so excited to share another Purl Adoptive momma’s story on the blog today. “D” shares her daughter’s adoption story; revealing how quick and unexpected the adoption process can be.
My husband and I did not come to adoption in the “traditional” way—I was simply looking to fulfill my life plan. When I was in high school, I had a good friend who was adopted. I was intrigued by her family dynamic, and since she spent so much time with my family, she quickly became my mom’s third daughter! It was during this time that I had a realization: love makes a family, not biology. It was then that I decided that I wanted to adopt a child when the time came to start a family…
Fast-forward about 20 years, and I’m married to my soul mate, a man who happily agreed to complete our family using my “life plan”: conceive one child, then adopt one of the opposite gender. In 2014, we were blessed with our son, and we spent the next 4 years enjoying our family of three. But we knew we were not complete—our boy needed his sister! I began some preliminary research on adoption in late 2018, and we decided to go full-steam ahead in January of 2019.
Between January & May, the process seemed to go quickly. We decided on private adoption as opposed to foster to adopt, so our first step was to find an agency to perform our home study. During this time, one of my class participants (I teach group fitness) gave me Katie’s name, stating she was an adoptive parent who now helped others with the process. I researched the Purl Adoption Advisory website and loved the concept of someone guiding us through the process. I contacted Katie and immediately knew we wanted her as our advisor. She provided a plethora of resources and overall knowledge of the process that we would have never gotten without her! We took updated family pictures for our look book, and we completed our home study in late May. The longest part of the process was waiting on the courts to approve us to adopt—we were told it could take up to 60 days, and it basically did!
Between May and July, while we awaited our certification by the court, we received a couple of inquiries from expectant mothers. The most legitimate case was from a mother in Georgia who liked our family, but really wanted to place with a couple who did not already have children. We also received two “scams” during this time, but Katie had educated us on what to look for, so we were prepared…
With less than a week left for the courts to certify us, we received a call from Katie about a case —a young mother looking for an interracial couple with at least 1 kid! The agency did not have any couples who fit the bill, so they contacted Katie, who immediately referred us! We were presented the case by the agency & were told the expectant mother was due in about a month. My husband and I considered it and decided to send our look book to the agency. Fortunately for us, the expectant mother chose us around the same time that we received our certification from the courts!
Needless to say, the next month was a blur, as we worked to get the house & our affairs in order. The agency kept us updated, as the birth mother had requested a semi-open adoption. Katie was also a tremendous help during this time, educating us on what to expect when traveling, the hospital experience, etc. We decided to drive to the state she lived instead of flying, since we were unsure of how long we would have to stay in the baby’s birth state before returning home.
Now this part of the story seems more like a work of fiction than real-life, but here’s the summary: our daughter was born late Monday night, we arrived in-town on Tuesday night, with consents set to be signed on Thursday morning. But the entire town was flooded by a Tropical Storm on Wednesday night. Our hotel was completely flooded and everything was delayed. On Friday morning, our daughter’s birth mother signed consents and we were placed with our daughter that day. That same day, we learned our family car was totaled due to the flood, and after 3 hotel changes and 1 rental car, we were forced to fly back home instead of driving back. All in told, we stayed there for over 2 weeks as we waited for the states to clear the ICPC process! As stressful as you can imagine this trip was for us, it was overshadowed by the joy we felt when meeting our daughter! We also had the pleasure of meeting our daughter’s birth mother briefly on the day of the placement, which was truly a blessing. For us, the next 6 months of the finalization process was fairly easy, as we used the same agency that performed our home study to complete our post-placement visits. The main hiccup was due to COVID-19, as our “Adoption Day” was postponed by 2 months—we eventually finalized via a Zoom call.
All in all, I consider us to be one of the lucky ones—we started the process in January of 2019, and our daughter was placed with us in late September the same year. We waited a total of 9 months from when we started, and really less than two months from when we were “active’“ to hold our baby in our arms. And during that time, we had Katie in our corner. Her guidance and genuine concern for our case was invaluable. And I hope you didn’t miss the most important part: if Katie had not had connections with this agency, we would not have been presented to our daughter’s birth mother. Purl Adoption Advisory not only takes the ethical high road when it comes to domestic adoptions—it aligns itself with similar agencies and attorneys throughout the country, which truly increases the chances of children finding their “forever homes”. My family will always be indebted to Katie—life plan fulfilled!
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful adoption story with us, D! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you are interested more in learning about growing your family through adoption, visit these blog posts on Purl’s Learn page.
