On the Road to Adoption- Part 2 (finally)

 Picture taken at the Bayou Wildlife Park)

If you missed my first post on Adoption, click HERE. (otherwise I might not make any sense!)
 Where was I? 
 Aghh....yes.  I was about ready to drop Syd off at Mother's Day Out and then head out to the post office to drop off the 10 page adoption application. But like I said before, I never did make it to the post-office that day.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm
We were a wee bit early in our arrival for Syd's school that day.  Which is clearly unusual....haha! What I meant was for us to arrive anywhere early is not in the realm of normalcy for us.  Shocking isn't it?

Who knows why we were early that day? Maybe I was just so pumped up about getting to the post office that I drove extra fast?  Or maybe the clock  in our house was still on Daylight Savings time (totally possible)?  Or maybe it was all part of a bigger conspiracy......or possibly even a Divine Conspiracy!  Either way, we showed up at school at 8:50am which left ten whole extra minutes to sit around and wait.

And wait we did.  And what is a girl to do when she is sitting, just waiting with nothing to do?  Evesdrop of course!

Turns out I just couldn't help but over-hear a conversation between the two moms sitting near me.  They kept mentioning the word "home study" and my ears immediatly perked up! I know that every family pursuing adoption must pass a "home study."

Now, as a general rule I would say that eves dropping is a fairly unhealthy practice, but in this case I completely scored.  And to make a long story short( and because I'm not feeling so witty tonight)... I will get straight to the point.

After over-hearing said conversation, I promptly interrupted asked several questions and before you knew it I was meeting in one of the church offices with my new friend Kat.  That's short for Katrina, like the hurricane. That's how I remember it anyway!

 camel peeking his head in the truck, looking for food!

Turns out Kat is the mother of 3 adopted children (with one more on the way). Kat and her husband have adopted all 3 (with one on the way) children from CPS.  CPS stands for Child Protective Services (just in case you needed a refresher).  And here is what I learned:

• I really had a lot of pre-conceived false notions about CPS. (Might be from watching too much Law and Order, not sure!)
• You CAN adopt a baby from CPS.  But there are also lots of other children and sibling groups waiting for their forever home.
• You pay nothing to adopt a child from CPS other than some minimal document fees.  
• Any child adopted from CPS custody receives free medical care until the age of 18 AND free education for life!  Yep, in the state of Texas, adopted CPS children can attend any Texas State school....undergrad, graduate...whatever!  And it is paid in full.

Wow, did you know all that?  Was I just in the dark or what?

 Ostrich eggs from the Wild Life Park.  One ostrich egg equals 23 chicken eggs.  You feel smarter now that you know that don't you?

And here is one more big thing I learned:

• Don't assume you know how your spouse will respond to a situation.  I didn't think Chip would ever entertain the idea of adopting from CPS (he watches Law and Order too).   
  

 Turns out Chip was totally interesting and wiling to explore adoption through CPS. So much so that we both attended a two hour information meeting at CPS that very week.  And the end result?

We are officially pursuing adoption through CPS.  No 25K donation necessary. No worrying how we are going to afford to send more than one child to college. As always God as thought of everything.

I plan to document our journey so stay tuned.  Right now I have to fax over a simple application packet and the next step will be to attend an 11 week training program.  Yikes, 11 weeks!  But I figured if I had 9 months to prepare for Sydney, 11 weeks won't be that bad!

1,000 pound alligator at the Bayou Wild Life Park.  We are pretty sure that he could bust through the chain link fence that separated us from certain death!