Even though I was only a young child, I will never forget the huge red bricks of the building and the tiles on the floor in a black and white checker pattern. This tiny child stood in the middle of this huge room and my heart sank. He did not fit in. The puppy dog eyes were full of doubt and he was scared. He was clothed in a small cap, shorts, jacket, and socks that went to his knees. He was about five then and he was no bigger than a three year old. Eating food provided by the orphanage will cause that to happen.

My mom reached out to hold his hand as he let go of the Sister hand. We moved forward to meet him. We slowly walked to the care and my parents and I had finally found the son and brother we had been searching for. He was not to ever return to this orphanage.

This scene has played repeatedly for me since the decades that have passed. My own husband and I are not able to have our own children so; we have adopted six of them. They are now between the ages of thirty-eight and fifty-five. We received two as infants, one was ten, one four, and the final child was eleven. We were blessed with three of each and even thought we were faced with the issues of any family, the joy they brought us was wonderful! It appeared to us that when one started to school, another would come along to start again.

The sad fact is that babies are not as common as they used to be. The multitudes of older children for adoption are proof of that. You are able to adopt one of these children even if you have your own children. Single parents are becoming more popular also. The ages of the children waiting is a wide range.

The exploration procedures of the agency are a clear cut. You can expect to meet a few times with the social worker to go over the adoption procedures. More meetings with each person wanting to be a parent so they can tell what age group or sex of the child they are looking for precede these. It is then time to complete a home study. Individuals wanting to be parents are very uneasy about this because it makes one feel uncomfortable. This is not true. These agencies are not as harsh as they used to be.

You can expect it to take you about thirty days to complete the complete homestudy. When this is finished, the parents might find that they can see a child. This means a first visit with a child that does not realize he is being watched. Our oldest was eating at a table right next to us in a restaurant, with the worker. Our youngest was seen in a Thursdays Child show. The child can be led into the thinking process of being adopted, the finalization of this does not occur until the parents are ready to accept them. The older the child the more they can give their feelings on this.

The final step is to visit the child in person. You might find that it will go on for a few hours and then progress until they are able to spend the night or the weekend with you. If all are all right with the arrangement, the child is permanently placed with you. This is dependent on the agency you are using. You might get to have the child after the first meeting. Once the child comes to stay, the legalities of the adoption can be finalized within a year or less depending on how full the courts are. The court is nothing to worry. You get a new birth certificate, sign some papers, and you are now the Childs biological parents.

The tiny little boy I mentioned in the beginning is now a retired Senior Master Sergeant with the United States Air Force and has gone on to have children and grandchildren of his own. Without being aware of it, he influenced not only his own children’s life but also the lives of all the children we adopted because of the first meeting with him. Adoption is great for doing that!