Where We're At

We are still fundraising! Amazingly, we have 12% of our puzzle completed in only 3-days. If you haven't heard, for every $15 donated, we're writing your name on the back of a puzzle piece. Once completed, we will put together the puzzle and hang it up in baby's room. It will be a symbol of those who helped us piece together our family. It truly takes a village.

We've identified 2 agencies that we will be partnering with for our adoption journey to begin with. Determining an adoption agency can be challenging overall. There are a lot of them out there. We wanted to ensure that the agencies we chose were:

1. Expectant-mother-centered

   1. Ensuring that they truly wanted to proceed with adoption and didn't need other support (food, shelter, community, ...) that would allow for them to keep their child in a healthy environment

   2. Providing proper counseling pre- and post- birth

   3. Allowing the expectant mom to choose the adoptive family

2. Ethical

   1. Considering the expectant mother, child, and adoptive parents in their decisions, fees, and overall process

3. Located in Utah

   1. Some agencies will fly expectant mothers into the adoptive family's home state, which can be isolating and can lead to coercion for giving up their child if they are not fully committed to adoption

   2. Some agencies will also allow for the adoptive parents to fly to the expectant mom's state, which is fine, but not something we're considering at this point because we do want a close relationship with the expectant mother if she wants that

4. Open adoption

   1. As mentioned, we want the expectant mom to know their child, and us, if she wishes

This was decided in thoughtful prayer and in consideration for the expectant mom and baby. These were the core deciding factors for us, but we understand that adoption can be nuanced and different for each person/couple who are adding to their family. This is not to say that this is the only path forward, or the only "right way" to do it, but it is how the Lord is guiding our steps in this process thankfully.

So, what's next?

We're filling out the applications, paying the fees, taking classes (CPR/first aid/educational courses), getting background checks, performing a home study, and then we will go live! We anticipate this process taking 2-months after our applications are received. If all goes well, we should be live starting in October.

And then the real wait begins.