Adoption Update

We had our first meeting with our social worker last week. I wasn't sure what to expect, and I was a little nervous. Would she have a good first impression and think we are good candidates to parent a child? Or would she think we were too old, too weird and too poor?

But overall, it was a very nice meeting. I like our social worker. She's been at The Cradle (our home study agency) for over 20 years. We talked for over 2 hours about why we want to adopt, why Ethiopia, what age we should consider, our backgrounds, etc. Nothing too probing yet. At the end of our conversation, she gave us a stack of paperwork to read and fill out. It's a bit daunting, but we're just taking it one step at a time. Right now it looks like Ethiopia is a good fit for us, and we're thinking about adopting a 3-4 year old. However, our social worker seemed to think the younger the better (for attachment reasons and because we're first time parents). So our age preference may get younger. If that happens, we may need to find another International agency, because Wide Horizons doesn't let you choose the gender of the child if you want a child under 3. Or, we would need to be open to a boy. Not that I'm against adopting a boy, but I have 13 nephews and I know how much energy they have when they're 3 -- they're constant motion! I seriously wonder if David and I would have enough energy for that.

So we're starting the paperwork, taking classes (we're required to take a day-long class at The Cradle in April and a handful of on-line classes), and then we'll meet with our social worker a few more times.

We're still working on our web site. We're hoping to get it finished this weekend.

In the meantime, check out the blogs of two of my on-line adoption acquaintances. They're in Ethiopia right now meeting their children for the first time!! Kristin and her husband are picking up little Marin, and Lori and Ted are getting to know little Abenezer. Adorable, eh?