Orientation!

We are starting this blog so everyone can stay informed of our adoption journey.

Yes, we have decided to adopt.
No, this is not a new decision.
Yes, we have been thinking about this for a long time. Like, years.
No, we cannot have children "the easy way", or "just like everyone else".
Yes, we cannot wait to open our home to a waiting child.

Russ and I have decided to adopt an older child through the state of Georgia DFCS (For those of you outside of Georgia, that stands for Department of Family and Children Services). We had contacted the statewide inquiry line a few weeks ago and have been in contact with the regional resource coordinator. Tonight, we attended IMPACT Orientation to learn more about the process of adoption and to decide if we wanted to go through with it. We have decided to go through with it and we cannot be more excited! We filled out the official adoption application and signed papers to begin the adoption process. We learned some interesting facts about Georgia's children tonight:

• Over 15,000 children in Georgia are in foster care.
• Approximately 4,000 children are in need of a permanent family.
• About 250 of these 4,000 children are without a permanent family or home.

And that is where families like us come in! There were two other couples attending the orientation tonight. One has three children and they were planning to make the decision as a family, and the other couple has a 6 year old child, but they want a child who is the same age for her to have a "playmate" and they did not want to have another baby.

We have alot of work to do, including getting physicals, getting paperwork together such as Sunny's vaccination records and birth certificates, and drug screens. We are now waiting for a call from our resource coordinator to schedule the first home visit. After that, we will be taking parenting classes that the state of Georgia requires.

Now comes the fun part. All of the paperwork, waiting, home visits, classes, and more now! We have been very secretive about this, and we are at the point where we are ready to tell our family and friends about our journey. So, as you read this, enjoy this blog!

-Taryn