We committed to the girls after that first visit, and although we were supposed to have four to six more weeks of visit to make a gradual transition, the birth mother decided she was "done" right after our first visit, and told us to come and get them or she would put them into foster care. So three days after our first visit, Josh drove to pick them up for good.

It was very overwhelming. We had very little time to prepare. There was no waiting of any kind! We went from, "Would you consider these girls?", to meeting them, to having them with us for good in under three weeks.

The early days were wonderful and difficult all at the same time. The girls were grieving and homesick.... more

I have beens sharing my emotions and experiences with meeting our adopted children for the first time and what our early days and weeks with them were like for me. In my last post I wrote about our domestic infant adoption, and in this post I am going to share what it was like adopting two older children domestically.

Our adoption of Mercy and Des was not exactly planned. Marcus was only two months old when we got a phone call from a domestic agency that we had sent our profile to when we were waiting for an infant placement. We were asked if we would consider adopting two older children (with... more

After writing about the emotions that adoptive parents often feel when they are going through the adoption process, I wrote about the emotions that are common for adoptive parents to experience when their children are first placed with them, and then I started sharing some of our personal experiences with meeting our children for the first time and what our early days with them were like.

Our first two experiences were with international... more

In my last post, I started offering tips on things that you should do for your homestdy. Here are a few more things on my homestudy "to do" list.

- Do put some thought into some of the questions you may be asked and how you will answer. Role playing a few questions with your spouse is not a bad idea either. While a lot of the questions are not "hard", it can be challenging to put your thoughts into words. Some examples are, "Why do you want to adopt?" "What do you admire most about your spouse?" "What are some of the strengths of your marriage?" "What are some of the weaknesses of your marriage?" "What do you... more

In my last post I shared some insight on preparing for your homestudy, and offered a few things that I consider "homestudy don'ts". In this post I am going to share some things that I consider "homestudy do's", and things that are good ideas when you are preparing for a homestudy, whether it is your first, or an update.

- Do you have your paperwork in order. Many social workers will send you an information packet with a list of paperwork that they need before they come for the visit. Having everything ready for your social worker helps move the process along. Don't forget to follow up with people you have asked... more

After going through two days of homestudy visits, I thought I would share some tips on preparing for your homestudy process (and then I promise I will get back to sharing about our first meetings and early experiences with our adopted children).

The idea of a homestudy is nerve-wracking. Basically, a stranger is coming into your home to evaluate whether or not you are worthy of being given a child. This stranger is going to ask you personal questions and dig deep into your desire to adopt as well as your childhood,... more

I am not done writing about our first meetings and early experiences with our adopted children, however I had to interrupt and share about the last two days.

I meant to write this up for yesterday and have it be a "Love Thursday" post, but Thursday came and went before I had a chance to do any writing.

But, I need to tell you all that I am in love. I am in love with our new social worker! Yesterday our new social worker came to do our visits for our homestudy update. She came first in the early afternoon to meet with Josh and I, then she came back at night to meet with all of the kids, and then she came back this morning to wrap things up.

I was very nervous about... more

I started writing about meeting Amanda, who was two years old when she came home to us from South Korea, in my last post.

The things I had really worried about, such as her being inconsolable or her pitching a huge fit about the car seat or her and Maggie fighting over me, etc. never happened. In fact we went from the airport to a restaurant (we were three hours from home and needed to feed everyone) and as she sat in the high chair and played and ate, it was as if she had always been with us. The waitress asked how long we had had the girls for, and it sounded nuts to say that we had had Maggie for 15 months and... more

With our second adoption, we had Amanda escorted from Korea. Since all we had to do was drive to the airport to pick her up (which was very surreal), we did not have any of the travel stresses that we had with our first adoption. However, I was very nervous about the fact that we were adopting a toddler. I had read all of the toddler adoption books and got myself good and nervous the night before she arrived. I wanted to be prepared for "worst case", but reading about "worst case" scared the heck out of me!

I knew that Amanda had been very spoiled in Korea and had a very loving foster family.... more

While Maggie was a wonderful baby and she was well worth the challenges of her adoption, the process was still a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. As a first time adoptive parent, I was not prepared for the range of emotions we experienced in bringing our baby girl home.

The trip was hard on me. There were a lot of stressful things going on with immigration and adoption in Vietnam at that time and I was very worried about being stuck in Vietnam for an extended period of time. Emotionally and physically I was very tired since I did not have any help or anyone to talk to and it was the... more