If you have read part One and Two in this series, you will probably notice that they more about explaining the details of the independent process and well maybe even a little dry in the read. I tried to be detail oriented on purpose, mainly because when I talk of my own experience there are things we did not do right or could have done better. The first two sections were really just to show how things could ideally work. Of course if we had some of this information before we started the process we might have done better. Perhaps it will help someone else. Even if you plan everything out don’t be too hard on yourself if things do not work according to that plan. Every situation is different as are the needs of the people involved.

The story I wanted to share today is about the independent adoption of our first child.

In 1997 after about seven years of infertility roller-coastering we decided to look into adoption. We were already fairly broke from our treatments so cost was a major issue. We were also not as young as a lot of agencies at the time required couples to be so we had some issues to deal with from the get-go. We applied through our church’s agency for starters. A humiliating interview we affectionately tagged the “cattle-call” resulted in denial letter citing we were over the age limit and our income needed “improvement.” Just so you know we were 32 and 37 at the time, really old.

Enter some friends we met at an adoption related support group. They were also declined by the same agency, for similar reasons so they went on to a local based international agency and were waiting a referral from China. They suggested we at least go to an international agency for our home study, get the process started. We did and went to the agency they had used. We also decided that we were going to look for a local situation while we completed the home study, but if that didn’t come along perhaps we would be able to find the dollars (trust me it was a lot) for the international adoption.

Well two weeks into our process my husband Jim asked his boss for the day off so we could get our fingerprinting done. He also asked him jokingly to let us know if he was aware of a newborn available for adoption. When Jim returned to work on Monday, he learned that over the weekend his boss had been at a family reunion and a distant cousin of his wife’s was there. The cousin was pregnant, due any day, and told them she was looking for an adoptive family. They took her number and passed it along to Jim. We called and found the number was that of the woman’s parents who were helping her find a placement and were in the process of adopting their daughter’s three older children. We scheduled a meeting at our home for the next day, their daughter’s due date.

To be continued in part Four. . .