The Next Steps

I suppose the good thing about having a 4th failed cycle is that at this point you start to become a bit realistic about fertility treatments. We knew our chance of success was slim so our BFN didn't come as much of a surprise and thus we were able to bounce back rather quickly.

So now what. Well, we have one last vial of embryos, a 5-cell grade 2 and a 4-cell grade 2. Our last and final FET is scheduled for late August.

Until then, we're moving forward with the adoption process. I knew this would be a lot of work so we've been chipping away at it bit by bit. The first step was picking an agency. Done. Then we paid the $200 fee to receive the application info. Done. Then we had to fill out something called an Adoption Planning Questionnaire (APQ). This was general info about us, our adoption preferences (race, drug use by the birthmother, etc), our budget, etc. Brandon and I took a few months to work on this. We started back in March, then Brandon got all freaked out and we took a step back, and we came back to the APQ in June. Tonight we finally finished the APQ and submitted it to the adoption agency.

The next step with the adoption agency is to get assigned to an adoption specialist. They will go over our APQ with us and guide us through the rest of the process. Then we start the fun part of filling out our profile, picking cute pictures of us to include, yadda yadda. That's the next step with the adoption agency.

Then there's the homestudy part. Brandon and I just got the information on that this week. We will have to go through a separate agency in CT for our homestudy review. This is the part where it gets overwhelming. First there's the simple, one-page pre-application. After that we're assigned a social worker who will set up our first home visit. At that home visit we're required to turn in the actual application. Then there's a questionnaire for each of us, a questionnaire about our home and community, required reading and "coursework", letters from our rental agency, and a host of other things like:

-Birth certificate
-Marriage certificate/ Divorce verification
-Criminal background/ fingerprints (for all adults in the household age 16 and over)
-DCF protective service check (for all adults)
-Local police check (all adults)
-Records of previous foster parenting and adoption experiences
(including police and child abuse records from other states)
-Financial statement and most recent federal tax return
-References
-Identification verification (all adults)
-Employment verification
-Insurance verification (if applicable)
-Confidentiality agreement (all adults)
-Disciplinary agreement (all adults)
-Physical plant (i.e. home) inspection
-Weapon inspection
-Well water testing (**if applicable)
-Alternative heat source inspection by local building inspector or fire marshal (includes
wood stoves, fire places, etc.)
-Physical exams for all adults
-Pediatrician letter, if there are already children in the home (letter must state that child is
up-to-date with immunizations, free from communicable diseases, and basic
health status of the child)
-Pet records

Holy crap that's a lot of stuff. Just looking over the application the other day made me feel very overwhelmed. I think we'll have to work on the homestudy a little bit at a time. We hope to have our first homestudy visit in early August so we have about a month to fill out the application and questionnaries. The rest of the documentation will be produced as we get them done.

Some of you may be asking how we can do fertility treatments and adoption at the same time. We're not....technically. We intend to start the homestudy process now, which will require a $900 deposit to cover our first visit. As for the adoption agency, it won't cost us anything to start working on the family profile. Only when we submit it to the agency for them to put together will we have to pay the fee for that. So, if we get pregnant from our final FET (which only has about a 25% chance of success), we'll be out about $1,100 from non-refundable adoption fees. If we don't get pregnant, we'll be halfway through our homestudy and just a few months away from becoming an active waiting family with our agency. Either way, we're on the road to parenthood.