Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Pre-Adoption Seminar + 4 months

Earlier today, Dominic and I had the great experience of stopping in for one of our adoption agency's pre-adoption seminars.  For those of you that have been reading our blog since the beginning, you might recall that one of the first things in our adoption process was going to a pre-adoption seminar.

I know what y'all are thinking right now.  No, we're not starting the process again (yet)!  Instead, our agency asked Andy and I if we wanted to stop by a seminar to tell our story as adoptive parents.  Because of work and scheduling, it was just me and Dominic heading over to Seattle to talk in front of a few potential adoptive families.  Overall, it was really fun.  On one level, Dominic got a lot of attention so it was exciting for him.  For me, it was interesting to see adoptive families in the same spot that Andy and I were in just 12 months ago.  A lot has changed since then considering we have a 4-month old at home now!

Speaking of Dominic being 4 months old now, his 4-month birthday was yesterday!  Andy took him in for his latest pediatrician appointment, and the little guy is doing great.  He's about 25" long, 13lbs 15oz, and cleared to start trying real foods!  This weekend might involve an experiment with rice cereal.  The only downer was that he had a fresh round of shots and wasn't overly thrilled for a little while.  However, he handled it like a champ and is all better now.

Post-Placement Meeting #2

It's been a busy time the last few weeks, so we're behind on updates!  Here's a post that I started back in February covering our 2nd post-placement meeting.  Yep... finally finished it.

Last week, we had our second official meeting with one of the OA&FS counselors (Katie).  It went really well and was in a way sort of relaxing.  Compared to all of our pre-placement meetings that were all about anticipation, planning, details, money, paperwork, etc., this was a breeze!  In essence, we're at the stage where we're just waiting for the legal items to get wrapped up before a court date where we will be granted custody of Dominic.  At the moment, he's a ward of the adoption agency during this interim time for the legal stuff to get sorted out.  We don't have a court date set yet, but we hope that will find its way onto our calendar in the next 4-6 weeks!

Some other interesting things that came out of our meeting with Katie involve the future adoption steps we might take.  With the knowledge that the average waiting period for adoptive families is a little under two years, Andy and I have debated about when to restart the adoption process all over again.  The earliest we can get rolling again for the ~6 month paperwork period is in November, or at least 1 full year after Dominic's placement.  It's tough to think that far in advance, but here would be the potential timeline for us if we wanted to move as quickly as possible:
  • Nov 2013 - Begin adoption process (2nd time around)
    • ~6 month paperwork period
  • May 2014 - Entry into the waiting pool
    • Potential wait time: 0 months to 2+ years
    • Average wait time: < 2 years
There's definitely a lot to consider here.  For us, we're not going to think too much on this one as we have several months until November as well as Dominic's legal finalization to wrap up.