Adoption Home Study Help

Keeton and I moved to Oklahoma with the decision to adopt already made, thinking that it would be at least 6 months before we would start the process. We had a plan!

But a few weeks ago, someone we know presented an opportunity: they are pregnant and not in a position to keep the baby, but want him to go to a family that she knows and trusts.

Wyatt is due in December, which means that we have a very tight turnaround to get background checks done with the FBI, Texas, and Oklahoma, medical evaluations, the dogs to be checked, a home study done, and a lawyer in Oklahoma. Originally it was “between 20 and 50 thousand!” (My heart stopped) but because the birth mother isn’t asking for birth mother expenses, neither state is going to require us to use an agency, and you can file without a lawyer in Texas, we’re looking more in the $5-ish thousand range for everything. The immediate need is for the home study and background checks as they can take 30-45 days.

If you’ve followed the wild ride that the last few months have been for us, you’ll know that between the cost of my (itty, bitty, brain) surgery and moving states, we’ve overextended our savings - that aforementioned plan included having everything paid back off by December. But babies wait for no one’s schedule.

We’re capable of affording a new family member, and given just a bit more time would have managed this. I didn’t want to burden anyone, but my pride and the need to handle it all myself comes second to having the security of being ready to bring Wyatt home (and be able to put him on my insurance) in 3 months.

I know I don’t talk about it much because it’s painful and often times very awkward, but in the 12 years we’ve been together, we’ve had a…precarious fertility journey. And after we lost number 7, the idea of having a baby was pretty well put to bed. I’ve always wanted to adopt and I thought maybe Mother Nature just knew that was going to be the right path. And maybe this is what all the pain and the loss was for - so that we could be here when Wyatt was ready to be born.

I don’t want to put a strain on anyone else - if you have the capacity to help, thank you! If not, just being there for midnight panic calls and keeping our growing family in your thoughts is very very much appreciated