Well, I can FINALLY spill the beans. I’ve been dying to blog about it. If you’re close family and haven’t heard the big news yet for Ian and I, stop reading and call us. Otherwise, continue!

We’ve decided to start the adoption process. Ian and I have always known we would, the question was just when. Ian smartly decided (as he so often does) that we should wait til the twilight hours of our 20s to start our family. We’ve had our fun (not that we won’t have anymore, it’s just going to change slightly in nature for the next couple of decades), and thankfully we’ve saved!

Saturday we met with a woman who has retired from CPS and together with her partner formed an adoption agency that now helps couples through the bewildering adoption process. She is fantastic! Sweet, blunt, experienced and knowledgeable. I teasingly told her she had the whole thing staged: we were in a Starbucks in our area (30 minutes from where she lives) and another gay couple came in who were working with her who live near her! So, we’ve already got a second hand recommendation for her services. Plus, we’ve met another gay couple who’s adopting to go to with questions and for mutual support. I tell you, they’re starting to come out of the wood work. We’ve got one couple in the neighborhood, this couple, and someone I occasionally work with I just found out is starting the process with his partner!

We drilled her for an hour and a half and got a wealth of information. We’ll definitely be using her services for the homestudy portion of the process. Next, we have to choose what agency we’ll work with. If we go domestic, it will likely be Family to Family in Houston. If it’s international, it will possibly be Casa Quivira in Guatemala, assuming we can get our IH-600A from the U.S. State Department authorized before the Hague Convention kicks in (see the explosion of terms, processes, laws, etc. that we’re having to become experts on?).

The whole experience is exciting, scary, thrilling, confusing, and more. We don’t just have the normal transition birth parents go through to prepare for an infant and a family, we have to learn the adoption process as well!  I’m sure you’ll be hearing more here from me as we go through this expansion to the Lewis and Riley household.