We recently met with the Director of Adoption at our agency in Buffalo. When we got our renewal paperwork, it was suggested that if we hadn't done so in a while, to schedule a face-to-face meeting to talk about how things are going and moving forward. Since our family advocate is out on maternity leave, Kathy was nice enough to meet with us. We knew the meeting wouldn't change anything, but I felt that we should do it because it also couldn't hurt. And I wanted to make sure that since our advocate was out, everyone who was covering was on the same page as to where we have been, where we are, and where we're going.
We hadn't been to the agency in a long time, since we signed paperwork for our first match, but it was good to be back. It's such an inviting place. Kathy was so nice, and the meeting went really well. We talked about how the past year has been, she gave a lot of weight to our failed matches instead of brushing over them for which I was thankful, and she was encouraging. We talked about our infertility, feelings after the failed matches, and a bit of our story. It was so nice to just talk about everything with someone, because I feel like we never had the chance to do that with someone there before. We asked what we could do moving forward and she said that usually they have a lot of suggestions for people, but in our case she didn't really have a lot. Our grids are so open that we aren't restricting ourselves in that way, and the only thing we could do is change our profile book into a bound soft cover and/or put our profile online. While we don't plan to do either at the moment because we just sent them 3 new books and we don't want to incur more costs right now, it was encouraging to know that we aren't holding ourselves back. It was also a little frustrating because it would be easier to have "easy" answers as to why we are at this stage in the process a year later, but she had our file in front of her and was explaining how we've gotten almost all of the profiling opportunity calls that they have had this past year. Our page is almost full whereas many families get to their one year mark and have only had a few calls. This is because we are so open in our grids, so that was good. Now we just have to get someone to pick us and the choice to stick! God knows who that will be and will continue to prepare us for that day.
She answered all of our questions and even said that she was glad we didn't say yes to being profiled for the latest call we had received, a case through an attorney in Florida. We declined mostly because the fees were almost double the usual amounts, even with our agency lowering their placement fee. It was also a case with a few more risk factors. She said that it was smart that we know we can say no, and we talked about how hard that is, but she reminded us that if we were chosen for that case, she isn't due until October. We would miss out on any cases until then, and if the adoption didn't go through, we would be back at square one and having been "out" of the pool for those 5 months.
One piece that we learned that is disheartening is that they are only working with about 4 or 5 birth moms right now. While this can change, they never have control over how many women come to them and when. Prayer that these birthmoms will get the support they need and that others will find Adoption S.T.A.R.
We left our meeting and decided to grab a bite to eat before heading back. While waiting for our food, Kathy emailed us the answers to two questions that she had to ask about. The fact that she responded so quickly was outstanding, especially because it was a financial question. We got home and found the paperwork in our mailbox. Because it's a legal file, all of our paperwork is only good for one year. I have looked at it, put it down, and left it on the counter, but I've had no motivation to work on it. Prayer also that we can take the time to sit down and get it all done soon. That way we'll have done our part, and we can continue to wait for God to do His.
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