A Happy New Year? What will 2012 bring for your adoption journey?

Here we are at the end of 2011, a time for reflection and to look forward to 2012.  What will the new year bring?  

Those of us that are just starting to look into adoption or have already started the process and are waiting – we know what we want 2012 to bring.  We want that special connection with a birthmother and that wonderful day when we bring home the baby of our dreams.

I’ve had a day like that before, back in 2007.  A day when I almost drove off the road while I took a call from our adoption coordinator at Lifetime Adoption.  She told me that there was a birthmother interested in my wife and I.  She said that the baby was due in a week – and was 1400 miles away!

After waiting for so many years dealing with infertility and then waiting about a year after starting the domestic adoption process – we were going to bring home a baby!  We met our baby girl when she was only a few hours old and we brought her home when she was only 2 weeks old.

Now, we are into the process again.  We’ve been waiting again – like so many other couples out there.  I share this part of my story to let you know that you will make it through.  The infant adoption journey can be tough, but once you bring home your baby it will make all of the waiting worth it.

The two biggest adoption decisions.

I believe that the two biggest decisions we all face when starting out on our adoption journey are:

1. Figuring out how and what you want your adoption to be like.  Do you want to adopt a newborn or an older child?  Do you want to adopt internationally or domestically?  Do you want to adopt a boy or a girl – or does it matter?

2. Finding and choosing the right adoption professionals to help you adopt.  You will need a home study agency and an adoption attorney, but you could also use a placement agency or facilitator as well as a company to help you put together your adoption family profile or help write a dear birthmother letter.

We all need help in our adoption journey.  I want this website be a gathering place for an infant adoption community that will help each other with these decisions as well as provide support we all need along our adoption journey and beyond.

I wish that my wife and I had a strong infant adoption community that would’ve helped us with our first adoption journey.  We started out totally overwhelmed with information – we didn’t have a clue as to what direction to take.

We had spent many hours, days, and weeks trying to figure it out.  Thankfully we found the right people to help us and had a very successful first adoption journey. 

What can you expect from the Infant Adoption Guide site in 2012?

–How to start your domestic infant adoption journey.  There’s a lot of information to cover on how to get started, how to make the best decisions, how to find the help you need, etc.

–Interviews with adoption professionals.  I’m excited to get to talk to the best and brightest adoption professionals which includes attorneys, top agency directors, social workers, home study providers, placement professionals, birthmother counselors, etc.  

These interviews will help you (and me) understand the domestic adoption process better, help find out who to trust when you are ready to work with an adoption professional, get some great adoption resources, etc.

–Adoption news: up-to-date information about what is going on the in the domestic adoption world.  This includes any changes to U.S. adoption law (and it seems there are always changes being made) as well as any new information that will help you in your adoption process.

–Tips, stories, and notes from my own adoption journeys that will help you.

–Adoption stories.  Interviews with adoptive families who have adopted already.  What they did, how long it took them, how did they start, which adoption professionals did they use and more.

–Domestic adoption questions and answers.  This is where you can ask questions that you need answers to.

It is my sincere desire to put together the best domestic infant adoption site for you.  I want to give you understandable, entertaining, and inspirational content.  Together we can learn more about infant adoption and build a strong community.

Here’s to 2012.  Let’s pray that it is your best year yet and you bring home the baby you’ve been waiting for. 

What do you think?  What do you hope 2012 will bring for you?  What do you want to hear about?  I’d love to hear your comments – enter them below or email me at tim@infantadoptionguide.com.

A Happy New Year? What will 2012 bring for your adoption journey? » Infant Adoption Guide bit.ly/sN9r8S

— Tim Elder (@tim4adoption) January 7, 2012