Information from IAC

We were able to follow up with the folks at IAC today concerning the call from a birth mother this weekend. it sounds like she is legitimate, which is very important! The counselor at IAC says she is still considering all options, including raising the boys herself. There is a ways to go before she'll make a decision to put the boys up for adoption, they think. And then, of course, she has to decide to match with someone. So we won't be flying off to Atlanta to meet her any time soon. But we are hoping to stay in touch with her via phone calls for now.

Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement. Since we aren't matched with her, we continue to be listed on IAC's website and they will continue to mail out our letters.

Chris and Mike

Potential contact!

We received a phone call this morning from a potential birth mother. She's 20 and lives in Georgia. She's 5 months pregnant with twin boys. and also has a little girl who is almost 2. She told us that raising 3 as a single mother would be very difficult, which is why she is considering adoption. She has already talked to the local IAC office in Atlanta and is excited about an open adoption. IAC mailed her a bunch of birthparent letters, including ours. She noticed us because of our experience with raising babies and thinks we can handle twins. We are definitely up for the challenge!

We still have a long road. She's due Dec 15th, but the doctor told her she might go early. She can still change her mind, obviously, until sometime after the birth. But the first phone call sounded very positive for both her and us. The next step is to see what information IAC has on her and on adoption laws in GA. If she's still interested, we'll have an official match meeting with a counselor where we'll talk about all the things associated with the pregnancy and adoption. After that we'll be considered officially matched, they will hide our profile on the IAC website, and they won't mail out more of our letters.

Thank you for all your prayers! Please continue to pray as we work our way through the process! Thanks!

July was a very quiet month for visits to our website. Something like 50-some visits. Most have been US visitors, although we picked up visitors from Brazil and Morocco this month. None of the visits have generated phone calls or emails yet.

We received our stats from IAC for July the other day. We had 14 letters (up from 7 in June) sent out to potential birth mothers as part of packets of letters that were sent out. Mike figured out that there were 20 packets sent out in July where we met the requirements of the birth mother (out of 35 total packets). So 14 out of 20 times, she saw our letter, which is almost 3/4 of the packets (up from 1/3 in June). We didn't have any online requests for our letter in July.

Please please please keep sharing the link to our website with friends and relatives! You never know who might have a friend or co-worker interested in adoption. The website is www.iheartadoption.org/users/chrisandmike

Oh....we also had 1 call on our baby bat phone, the cell phone that is specifically designated for birth mother phone calls. But the caller didn't leave a message. Oh well!

Thanks for all your support, thoughts and prayers!

July Update

Things have been pretty quiet on the adoption front. We have had a couple hundred visitors to our website and some have returned at least once. Most have been US visitors, although we had 1 visitor from Canada and one from Italy. None of the visits have generated phone calls or emails yet.

We received our stats from IAC for June the other day. We had 7 letters sent out to potential birth mothers as part of packets of letters that were sent out. Mike figured out that there were 24 packets sent out in June where we met the requirements of the birth mother (out of 34 total packets). So 7 out of 24 times, she saw our letter, which is just over 1/3 of the packets. We also had 2 online requests for our letter in June.

Please keep sharing the link to our website with friends and relatives. You never know who might have a friend or co-worker interested in adoption. The website is www.iheartadoption.org/users/chrisandmike

Oh....we also had 2 calls on our baby bat phone, the cell phone that is specifically designated for birth mother phone calls. Both were telemarketers! Oh well!

Thanks for all your support, thoughts and prayers! They are greatly appreciated! :)

We are "in the book"!!!

Our adoption agency has approved everything and our website with them went live today. Please share the link with all your contacts! You never know who might have a friend, coworker, or customer who knows someone looking to have a baby adopted! Thanks!

http://www.iheartadoption.org/user/690

Everything is submitted!

We sent off a packet with our completed homestudy today! The proof of our birthparent letter is done and awaiting final approval. The next step is for IAC to review our complete packet of information and decide if we are approved or not. Once we address any concerns they raise, we'll print our birthparent letter. As soon as they have copies of our letter on file, we'll be listed as an adoptive resource! Getting closer! :)

April update

Just wanted to give everyone an update on where we are in the process. We had our second meeting with the social worker writing our home study last week. She had to visit the house and clarify some of the information we had given her. By the end of last week she had sent us a draft home study, we made some adjustments and returned it to her. The only thing she's waiting on is an FBI report to be able to finish the home study. Then it can be sent off to IAC for our file.

Dee is working on our birthparent letter. We finally got a picture approved for the front cover!! It's the one heading this blog. She has to finish some of the layout and that will be ready to be sent to IAC for approval. Then we can get the whole thing printed (250 copies, please), and mail 100 of them off to IAC. Once that's done and the home study is in, we can be officially "listed" in their books and our website will be active.

We have had a couple folks ask for our letter already. They know people who know women who might be pregnant. Make sense? Once our website is up, we'll be reaching out to as many people as we can in our network, looking for referrals. That's how many of the matches are made. The mother knows someone who knows the couple trying to adopt. She connects with us, then we refer her to IAC to work with a social worker that works specifically with birth mothers. We are definitely excited about the fact that friends want copies of our letter already! We just have a few more hoops to get through before we can hand them out and start down that path.

Thank you everyone for your help, support and prayers! We really appreciate them!