What does it mean?

When we found out that we were approved for our homestudy I was in Seattle on a business trip. As a matter of fact I was at a luncheon and out of habit checked my email and saw the message from Bethany. It’s a bit of a blur now but I know I jumped up from my seat and ran into the hallway. I wanted to jump and shout but I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. I called Ted and of course that’s when the tears started flowing. At this point I no longer cared how I looked. I called our worker to see what we needed to do next. She was just as happy for us as we were. At that time, there were three moms looking for families. So for us to be considered by those moms we had to pay our fee to enter the “domestic program”.

Before I left for Seattle I meant to have a check ready just in case this happened. But I didn’t. I have to admit I was getting a little discouraged. So our worker informed me we could do it online, (which they told us before that credit card/debit card payments took 3 weeks to clear). I was ecstatic and I nearly ran back to my hotel. They probably never saw a black woman move so fast in the streets of Seattle. I made it to my hotel and was able to transfer the whopping $5,550 needed to complete our homestudy ($1,050) and pay the domestic program fee ($4,500). Within 30 minutes, our worker sent us the profiles of the 3 birth moms. Wow! It was that fast.

I tried to collect myself as best as I could so I could conduct business. Let’s just say the rest of the conference was a bust. I needed to call somebody. I really needed my mom. But I didn’t have time to get sad I just needed to talk it out. I called my friend Kiota who was getting ready for a wedding that Ted was also attending. I called her and she could hear it in my voice. She said, “You got a baby”. So I said, “Um no, but thanks for stealing my thunder”. When I told her we were only approved for our homestudy. She was still just as ecstatic. I proceeded toward the convention center talking to my friend of friends. We laughed and joked and thought about what all of this means. I’m so thankful to have friends to call on in good and bad times. Plus she was acting as my police officer that evening to make sure Ted didn’t dance with any hot women at the wedding. But WE decided WE would let him have a good time because his life was about to change. LOL!

That’s the story of how we found out about the homestudy. But what does this approval mean exactly? Before now, we were filling out extensive paperwork and doing our interviews, but we were not allowed to see any profiles of birth moms and vice versa. It’s like we had to go through the steps to qualify to see these precious secret profiles. The approval of the homestudy and the payment of course lifted this veil of secrecy. Our worker would give us hints about moms that were due, but that’s all she could tell us and she probably wasn’t supposed to tell us that much. Now our worker sends us profiles of birth moms based on what we’re looking for. We also see basic information on birth moms who are in their system or moms they are working to bring into their system.

Over the past month or so, I found it very comforting that when I told friends and colleagues that we were still waiting on approval, their response was, “What’s the problem? What do they need to know? You all will be wonderful parents”. They were really offended that it took this long :) It was so sweet. What they didn't know was that in some cases approval could take longer. Ted and I are so grateful for the prayers and support that have been given to us. We continue to need them. I will continue to post on our journey.