Our Adoption Re-Cap

From a lot of e-mails I have been getting, many of you did not know about our adoption. Let me re-cap for yall. So here we go....Scott and I had been talking about adoption for awhile, but we always thought it would be later on. You know you just keep pushing it back and back after Katrina. Anyway, we have met about 5 families who have adopted from all over the world. We talked with two different couples, one adopted overseas and one adopted within the state of Texas. The more we prayed, and talked with these couples, we both felt it was time to start the process.
1. Before 2009 Christmas  vacation we filled out our paperwork and started the process with Gladney Adoption Agency.
2. We filled out a ton o paper work...let me tell you people are not lying when they say it is a mountain of paperwork. And, it isn't the easy questions either, you really have to think about your whole family and what you "think" you will be prepared for.
3. We went to a three day course, goes over all the worse case scenarios, first aid, cpr, growth stages, car seats, you get the jest.
4. Home study~ two parts. a) They come and inspect your house, like how many kids can your house hold, is it clean, is it safe that kind of stuff. b) You sit and talk with a Gladney worker and talk about your childhood, mom, dad, the good, the bad and the ugly. {I was more nervous about this part, than them coming to look at the house}.
5. Wait for your home approval from the State while you wait you put together a picture book and a one page profile of your current family. (We are approved but we are still waiting on the Letter itself to be signed).
6. This is where it could take awhile. You have to wait for your agency to pair you with kids, then you wait on the cps worker to approve you (could take 6 weeks or more), then the cps worker sends the kids profile to your agency and they check the kids background profile. If they think its a match then we'll get the kids backgrounds and say yes or no.
7. When we say yes we'll go meet the kids at their foster parent house. Then we'll go back to their city and they'll spend the night at a hotel with us. Then we'll drive/fly them back to our house (This could happen all in one weekend, depending on the situation).
8. Once we have them here a Gladney worker will come visit us once a month for six months. Which I think is a good thing, we are free to call ask questions/advice.
9. After the six months we go back to the kids original city court house and we'll be their legal parents, new birth cert, social, they'll have our last name and if they want to change their name (within reason) they can do that too.

We have found quite a few on the TEAR web site, but have not heard anything back yet.  We are looking to adopt two - three, boys or girls, ages 2 - 12, we are kinda scared to get four right off the bat. Right now Scott and I keep telling ourselves that God's timing is perfect, He knows where our kids are and when we'll get them. For now we keep praying for them, and hope that they'll be here before we know it.
Adopted for Life is a good book I have recently read.
I love this verse  "Rejoice in Hope, be Patient in Tribulation, be Constant in Prayer" ~ Romans 12:12