We've now been officially approved as potential adoptive parents with LDS Family Services for 3 months. How long can we expect to wait? Well, most couples wait 1-2 years. But I couldn't tell you if that includes the time it takes them to finish their applications or if that's only after they are approved. I do know that many people take a LONG time to finish their applications (like a year). We finished ours in just a couple of months.
People keep asking me how our progress is. Really, I have no idea. I mean, we have our online profile with LDS Family Services. It gets about 2 hits per day, which I think is pretty good, considering that there are about 900 couples listed there. If you haven't seen it yet, it's at
Our caseworker, Lauren, also distributed our file to the other LDS Family Services offices in Utah, so other caseworkers can suggest us as a potential family to their birth moms. We email back and forth with our caseworker, but every three months of "waiting," we have to go see her. That's supposed to help us keep our stuff up to date and make us think of ideas to help us find our birth mom.
The whole "finding" issue is a huge part of what makes LDS Family Services different from other adoption agencies. Most adoption agencies will find you a birth mom. LDS Family Services gives birth moms the opportunity to choose the adoptive family. That means they want their potential adoptive couples to do a lot of work to advertise their desire to adopt to the general public.
So, what do we do to advertise? Well, we were in the Fiesta Days Parade. I think half of Spanish Fork saw us there. We have also been wearing our adoption shirts around. The kids especially love wearing their adoption shirts. It's a good thing that Benjamin does because he's always telling people about his "little sister" that he's going to get, and then people give me weird looks and say, "Oh, I didn't know you were pregnant." We're also working on our online presence with this blog, facebook, etc.
We made up adoption cards that we pass out sometimes. We plan to put up our adoption cards on community announcement boards. Do any of you know some good places to put up the cards? I will even send you some to put up, if you are willing.
I think part of why the caseworkers want us involved in the "finding" of our baby is so we don't go nuts. It helps to feel like some progress is being made, while still remembering that it's all in the Lord's hands and on His timetable. When it's right, it will happen.
By the way, my best idea was that I want a billboard along I-15 to advertise our adoption! Wayne said no, though. Ok, so maybe I have better things to do with the thousands of dollars that would cost. But it would be so cool!
People keep asking me how our progress is. Really, I have no idea. I mean, we have our online profile with LDS Family Services. It gets about 2 hits per day, which I think is pretty good, considering that there are about 900 couples listed there. If you haven't seen it yet, it's at
Our caseworker, Lauren, also distributed our file to the other LDS Family Services offices in Utah, so other caseworkers can suggest us as a potential family to their birth moms. We email back and forth with our caseworker, but every three months of "waiting," we have to go see her. That's supposed to help us keep our stuff up to date and make us think of ideas to help us find our birth mom.
The whole "finding" issue is a huge part of what makes LDS Family Services different from other adoption agencies. Most adoption agencies will find you a birth mom. LDS Family Services gives birth moms the opportunity to choose the adoptive family. That means they want their potential adoptive couples to do a lot of work to advertise their desire to adopt to the general public.
So, what do we do to advertise? Well, we were in the Fiesta Days Parade. I think half of Spanish Fork saw us there. We have also been wearing our adoption shirts around. The kids especially love wearing their adoption shirts. It's a good thing that Benjamin does because he's always telling people about his "little sister" that he's going to get, and then people give me weird looks and say, "Oh, I didn't know you were pregnant." We're also working on our online presence with this blog, facebook, etc.
We made up adoption cards that we pass out sometimes. We plan to put up our adoption cards on community announcement boards. Do any of you know some good places to put up the cards? I will even send you some to put up, if you are willing.
I think part of why the caseworkers want us involved in the "finding" of our baby is so we don't go nuts. It helps to feel like some progress is being made, while still remembering that it's all in the Lord's hands and on His timetable. When it's right, it will happen.
By the way, my best idea was that I want a billboard along I-15 to advertise our adoption! Wayne said no, though. Ok, so maybe I have better things to do with the thousands of dollars that would cost. But it would be so cool!
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You can send some cards to us if you want!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Julia! We actually just ordered 1000 new cards that we will get in about 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have to agree with Wayne on the billboard thing, but way to go on creativity! I didn't know that about LDS family Services. Well, you're doing your part, it seems!
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