Great are You, Lord

Filled with Thankfulness

We are overwhelmed by the love and support we’ve received since announcing our exciting news.  We have been so encouraged and uplifted by all of your responses!  We feel extremely loved and can’t wait to bring Baby Bullock home to such a loving community.  Thank you all for your excitement and prayers as we continue on in our adoption journey.

 “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”

-Psalm 126:3

Questions Answered

Many of you probably have a lot of questions, so we wanted to take some time to answer some of the questions you may have.  Feel free to contact us if you have specific questions!  We would love to talk to you about adoption or our journey so far!

How does the adoption process work?

Depending on the type of adoption you are pursuing, the agency you’re working with, and the state in which you live, some of these steps might differ.

These are the steps that we are taking in our adoption process:

1. Research, Choose an Agency, Attend an Informational Meeting
   • As soon as we felt the Lord whispering adoption to our hearts, we began researching.  We researched all kinds of agencies, but kept coming back to Bethany Christian Services.
     

     “Bethany Christian Services is a global nonprofit organization that brings families together and keeps families together. Strengthening families for the well-being of children is our top priority. Our services include adoption, foster care, and pregnancy counseling. We also provide counseling to families, assist refugees and immigrants resettling in the U.S., and partner with several international countries to help keep families together. The work we do equips families to be the answer for children in need—as Christ intended.”

     We felt comfortable from the first moment we called one of Bethany’s offices and talked with someone over the phone.

   • So, we decided to attend an informational meeting to receive more information about adoption and about Bethany Christian Services.  At our first meeting, they began in prayer and we truly felt the Holy Spirit alive and in that room.  We left feeling like the Lord was telling us “Yes” to adoption and “Yes” to Bethany as our agency.
2. Preliminary Application
   • Our next step was to fill out a preliminary application.  At this point we also had to decide which type of adoption path to pursue (domestic, international, foster, etc). We chose to pursue domestic infant adoption.  This means that we will be adopting from the United States, and most likely from Tennessee.
3. Formal Application
   • After our preliminary application was approved, we began filling out our formal application.  For us, this application was online and involved some of these basics: full names & ages, jobs & salaries, references, why we wanted to adopt, what preferences we have, and descriptions of our home, work, families, and community.
4. Home Study Packet (more on this later)
   • Once the formal application was approved, we began our Home Study Packet.  This part of our journey was very overwhelming and time consuming.  Our packet was around 75 pages long.  Depending on how much time and energy you devote to getting things checked off, this process could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months.  I will write a blog post later with more details about our Home Study Packet… but some of the components involved: getting finger printed for background checks, birth and marriage certificates, employer verification, references, tax returns, physician reports, CPR/First Aid certification, and a variety of surveys and essays.
5. Home Study Interviews (more on this later)
   • After our Home Study Packet and all the extra components were turned in, we were able to schedule our interviews with our case worker.  We had two separate interview dates.
   • The first interview was a couples interview, where we mainly discussed us as a couple and our journey to adoption.
   • The second interview was a day of individual interviews.  We met separately with our case worker and talked mostly about our childhoods and individual families.
6. Home Inspection
   • This is the part of the process we are currently in now!  This week we will have our final step of the Home Study Process… our Home Inspection!  So, as you can imagine, we are in the process of cleaning, organizing, baby proofing, making sure everything is safe and secure, and did I mention cleaning???  Haha!  But after this week we will be FINISHED!!  And one step closer to meeting Baby Bullock! Please pray that everything continues to go smoothly and we will continue to be APPROVED!!
7. Waiting for Home Study Approval & Creating a Family Profile
   • After our Home Inspection is complete this week, our case worker will begin typing up our Home Study.  This process typically takes anywhere from 4-6 weeks.  During this time we will be fundraising and finalizing our family profile book.  
   • A family profile book is essentially a book containing all sorts of pictures and information about us and our life. Once we are a waiting family, this book will be shown to birth families.
8. Training & Education
   • In addition to our applications and Home Study, we also have to read several books and complete 30 hours of training, meetings, and other educational experiences.  These additional trainings need to be complete before the placement of our child.
9. A Waiting Family
   • Once our Home Study is approved (and we are trusting God that we will be approved), will be what they call a “Waiting Family.”
   • All we can do is sit back and wait. The typical waiting process can take anywhere from just a few months to a couple years. That could sound like a long time! But, we trust God’s timing and have faith that He knows our Baby and has in mind the perfect addition to our family! We may receive a call that there is an expectant mom who is five months pregnant and wants to meet us or that there is a baby in the hospital waiting to be picked up.  This part of the timeline is truly unknown to us.  I know we will needs lots of prayers and encouragement during this time of waiting.
10. Placement
    • When we have been chosen as the adoptive parents, and our baby is born, our child can be placed with us soon after birth. This is a period of risk time and there is a lot of legal information we can share later.
11. Post Placement & Adoption Finalization
    • After our child is placed with us, we will have three post placement visits by our case worker.  This is mainly to ensure we are all transitioning well and the child is being cared for properly.  After successfully completing the post placement visits, we can began the process of our adoption being legally finalized and our baby becoming a Bullock!

Please pray for the unknown future!  We know the future is unknown to us, but very much KNOWN by our Savior!  Please pray for the birth family.  Please pray for our Baby, the Baby God knows and has chosen to be in our arms forever!  Please pray for us as we continue along in this amazing journey.

 

And all the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord!