The Orentation 1/13/04

Tonight we travelled to downtown Louisville to our orientation with Adoptions of Kentucky. We were the only couple there that is adopting internationally. It was interesting but absolutely none of it pertained to us and what we will be going through. It was all about being matched with a birthmom and what happens after the baby is born with terminating parental rights, the possibility of bmom changing her mind.

This is the whole reason why we decided to adopt internationally. It has been enough of an emotional roller coaster trying to have a baby on our own without adding the stress of a baby being taken away after he/she has been in your home. With International adoption you are matched with a baby in an orphanage. Not a newborn of course, but you choose the age, and with Russia the babies have to be at least 6 months old before they can be referred. We have requested a boy/girl under 12 months. You have to give the agency your "specifications" on a child you are willing to accept. We are not going to be picky. We wouldn't have any control over hair color or eye color if we were pregnant so we are going to leave it in God's hands.

I've veered off track. More on all that later. We met a lot of nice people tonight. We are going to be seeing a lot of them in the near future due to the fact that we now have to attend support groups for the next 3 months. Our social work is going to be Jan Overstreet and I will have to contact her tomorrow to set up a homestudy appointment. We have to attend at least 1 support group per month for the next 3 months. They are going to be in Lexington. Great, more travelling and missing work. Oh, well. We knew it was part of it and with us living in such a rural community it was a given that traveling between downtown Louisville, Frankfort and Lexington was going to be happening a lot.

We got a lot of interesting information tonight. Pamphlets on child development, immunizations, child care, etc.... They also recommended that we take an infant CPR class before our children come home. That will be something that we will definetly look into.

Well, tomorrow I'll call Jan and set up the homestudy appointment. Gosh, I've got a lot of cleaning to do.