About Our Roadblock, Plus Updates

As you know, Babe and I have encountered a roadblock to our embryo adoption process.  If you have been praying for us, thank you.  I really appreciate it.

At our home visit with our social worker on January 24th, we told Ms. J that we have decided we want to pursue embryo adoption.  We would need to have a completed home study to be able to adopt with NEDC.  We had struggled with when to tell our adoption agency that we wanted pursue embryo adoption.  And honestly, we ourselves struggled with the decision whether to adopt embryos for a very long time.  We could have just waited for our home study to be completed, and then tell them, or we could be upfront and tell them right away.  So at the home visit, we told Ms. J.  Since this agency has never done embryo adoption before, she wasn't sure how to proceed.  She would speak with her manager and get back to me.

After waiting for 3 weeks, we found out that a home study completed by agency our cannot be used for embryo adoption.  Their reasoning...... they do not have expertise in embryo adoption.  They cannot approve us for embryo adoption and cannot use a domestic adoption home study for embryo adoption purpose.

This was such a shocker, and so frustrating!!  We were so close to getting our home study completed and approved.  We feel like we were being punished for being honest!  We could have kept them in the dark, completed the home study, and then told them, by the way, we want to adopt embryos with someone else!  Now we will have to find another agency and start our home study again from scratch.  Just thinking about the time, cost and effort we would have to put into it again totally upsets me!!

We still don't understand entirely why they won't let us do it.  It sounds like this issue has been discussed quite thoroughly with the managers and board of directors, and it sounded like the decision come from the directors.  It doesn't sound like much is going to change in this area.  We have a meeting with the domestic infant adoption manager tomorrow just to talk things through, try and understand where they are coming from, and where that leaves us.

I looked around for other agencies that will do just a home study, and we found a few.  We found one that was $2,100.  Most other places, the home study (including application fee) comes up to $3,400 or $3,500.  We found an agency that we are comfortable with, where a few other couples from our support group have gone through.  It's tempting to just go with the agency with the cheapest home study fee, but we are looking at things in the long run.  If embryo adoption does not work out for us, we will continue our adoption process with this agency.

So this morning, I dropped off our application, including our $400 application fee at the new adoption agency (will talk about them in another post).  I had a chance to meet one of the ladies that I spoke to on the phone.  They seem really nice there, and I hope we will have a good experience there.  My friends who adopted their babies from there really like the agency, so that's a good thing.

Then this morning, I also received an email from NEDC with a few dates for our initial appointment in Knoxville.  We have picked the first date they have available for us.  May 22nd!  Now we wait for a confirmation from NEDC and we will have to start looking at flights, car rental and a hotel!