As I stated yesterday there was SO much information that was given at the orientation that I thought it was only fair that I gave it to you in two days as well. I forgot to mention yesterday that we are the first orientation to get all forms on a flash drive. Thats right, after 50 years of paper Christian Homes has gone paperless. Good for them and I am glad to be a part of the process. It really has been a pleasant experience so far. Its all in a PDF file. Just fill it in and email it back to them. (By the way we are over half way done with ALL the paperwork :) )
We were asked to be back at Christian Homes by 8:15 Saturday morning. That was an early time for us as we did not make it to bed until around 11:30. We were filling out all of the paperwork and doing as much as we could before we passed out from the day. Luckily for us Christian Homes is only about 10 minutes from the Marriott hotel we were staying at in Abilene. I feel I must add that it was 46 degrees in Abilene on Saturday morning. Very strange but also very nice. I like to think the Lord was giving us a "cool" start to Saturday and maybe the rest of our lives.
We arrived at Christian Homes as 8:15. Christian Homes attorney Paul, wish I could remember his last name, came to speak with us about legal matters and what to expect. In Texas the birth mother has a mandatory 48 hour time frame to sign over her rights after the baby is born. Again this is mandatory. She can choose to have us in the hospital room giving birth OR she can choose to have those 48 hours to just her and the baby. That seems a little non-negotiable. We can have input, but that is up to her. Now, the father issue can be a whole new bag of worms according to Paul. There can be three types of fathers. The first one is when the birth mother does not know who the father is, second one is the father is known but does not want to be a father, and the third is when she knows who the father is but he will not respond to written request to come forward for the baby. The first and the last types of fathers get 30 days in Texas to contest the adoption. That is if the first father finds out that she is pregnant with his baby. Do not hold me to all the above information regarding fathers. It was thrown at us so quickly. That is what I understood at least.
After Paul was finished we got to meet a panel of 3 women who were all adoptees. I will omit their names for their privacy. They were all great and told us their stories. They did not hold much back. Open adoption was a main key that we kept running into this weekend. If we decided on open adoption we would work out a gentlemans deal with the birth mother that we can all live with. Examples would be a yearly photo and letter, or a monthly photo. They usually deal with photos. It is not legal and binding that we send pictures or letters but its your word which means something to us. Most of these women had open adoptions and they seemed happier that way. There was one woman who did not have an open adoption and that seemed to still plague her to this day. Why did the mother or father not want to be in her life? Of course she may never know the answer to that, but I pray she finds closure one day. It was an eye opening panel and I am appreciative we had that time with the three ladies.
The agency also brings in birth mothers to speak with us. Unfortunatly, only one showed up. We will refer to her as Miss J to keep her privacy. She continues to go to the orientations to tell her story. Miss J is a beautiful women who looked all of about 21. When she told us she was really 38 my jaw dropped. By the way, Miss J is a different age than 38, but I did not want to give her true age out as that may be another identifying way for some. What I am trying to convey is that she was really about 20 years older than she looked. She told us her story which had me in tears and in love with her within 5 minutes of hearing her speak. I know Jonathan was too. Miss J had a very terrifying life experience that I hope noone will ever have to endure. We will continue to pray for Miss J as she continues on her journey.
The over all experience was awesome and one that we would do again. It was an unbelievable weekend. I am so glad that we were able to share this information with you all.
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