Thursday February 13th 2014 marks a year since we began the adoption process... I wanted to make a timeline of events to showcase how far we have come in a year and all the progress we have made.
Adoption Timeline
Feb 13th On our proposal anniversary Adam surprised me with the money to begin the process..
Mar 27 After much research, thought and making a spreadsheet of the pros and cons of each agency. One night Adam decided to search for adoption agency's who had an android app. He came upon the Independent Adoption Center and thought that they had to be pretty well established to have built an app. Se we did more research and loved how well they treated the birthparents and also the adoptive parents. There fees are reasonable so we both agreed that even though there were in California they were a lot better than any agency in UT. They have agency's across the United States from east coast to west coast. Our agency is in Concord, California.
Apr 8th Begin Home study. We used a company up in Centerville, UT The process took about 3 months to complete. They delve into every detail in your life, marriage, childhood, fears, hopes, past history..EVERYTHING! We had to have 5 reference letters only one could be a family member. Thanks to Vicki Collet, Brian and Jill Rustad, Mylie Hamilton, Becky and Matt Mabey and Brandon and Jennifer Ho for their help with that!
Apr 9th We both had to get fingerprinted.
Apr 11th We both had to get FBI Background Checks.
Apr 16th Booked trip to Los Angeles, California to meet our adoption coordinator & attend a mandatory workshop.
Apr 29th Got copies of our Birth Certificates.
Apr 29th Got copy of marriage license.
May 16-17 Attended Adoption Workshop
They explained the entire adoption process from start to finish. We got to hear from a girl who had placed her baby up for open adoption and meet a family who had adopted two children from the agency.
"Meeting with our adoption agency today!! — at Independent Adoption Center."
"Day 1 of our adoption seminar is complete..so much info to take in! So lucky to be able to begin the process of adoption! We have done so much already and there is still a ton to do...we will get there eventually and everything will be so so so worth it!!"
May 17th Paid our join fee to the agency. That was very nerve racking.
May-June Worked on Home study paperwork.
July 13 Adoption Photoshoot
Thanks to Becky Mabey for your amazing talent!
July 15th Home Visit.
"Adoption homestudy today...so much to do to get ready!!"
July 30 Homestudy Complete..Cleared to be parents!
Aug 14th Submitted first draft of our Dear Birthparent Letter.
"We submitted our first draft of text and photos to our marketing and design coordinator at our adoption agency, who will help us create a great adoption profile! One tiny step closer to our dreams..."
Aug 20th Submitted our top 40 photos to the agency for review.
"We submitted our top 40 photos to our adoption agency..it's not easy narrowing down which ones to send!! Trying to pick photos that encompass our life and passions and those we love is no easy task and then having to write captions for all of them! Our adoption agency will narrow down our top 40 to what they believe is the best of the best top 12 and those will the photos that go out to our potential birth parents and on our online profile.. so nerve-racking/exciting!"
Aug 28th DBML has been approved..narrowed down photos as well.
"Our Dear Birthparent letter has been approved and our photos have been for the most part narrowed down! The process has gone faster then what they say as we have only had to do 2 drafts of our letter and only 1 review of our photos. We have mostly narrowed down our top 12 with a few additional ones depending on the layout of our brochure that will be mailed out to birthparents. Now to put everything together and make the brochure...moving along smoothly"
Sept 9th Submitted our DBML for final review.
"Adoption Update..We have finished designing our Dear Birthparent letter and have submitted it for final approval. We have finished designing our online profile on iheartadoption.org and have obtained a toll free number as to not have to use our own cell numbers. Once that all gets approved we will go LIVE!! I will update when that happens."
Sept 9th Submitted our Iheartadoption online acct for approval.
Sept 9th Got a toll free number for adoption calls.
Sept 16 DBML was approved..ordered 1 hard copy for a final look.
"Adoption update..Our Dear Birth Parent letter was APPROVED!! We have to now order 1 hard copy to be shipped to our adoption coordinator Hilary for a final look. At that point we can order 150 of them that we will hand sign and send back to our agency in CA. Our online acct should be active soon as well."
Sept 20th Hard copy was approved..ordered 200 of them.
"Adoption Update.. Our Dear Birthparent letter hard copy was approved by our adoption coordinator Hilary! We have now ordered 200 hundred of them that should get here hopefully next week. We will hand sign all of them and ship 50 to the Concord California office and 3 to the LA office and keep the rest to give to family and friends that and also for when they need more stock at the agency. We have submitted our online acct for approval. We have to do a conference call with the agency once everything is mailed out. We will get further instructions then!! We will probably not go live until the first week in Oct...stay tuned!"
Sept 26th Hard copies are on there way..online acct was approved.
"Adoption Update..Our hard copies of our Dear Birthparent letter have been printed and are in the process of shipping. Our online acct has been approved and will be activated once our agency gets our signed letters. We will have our conference call with our adoption coordinator soon. Once they have letters in hand for distribution everything will go live!!! We will begin our wait for the call and network as much as possible to spread the word that we are waiting for baby c! Thanks for all the love and support I will update again soon — 
feeling excited."
Oct 4th Received hard copies in the mail today.
"Adoption Update...We received 200 Dear Birthparent letters in the mail Monday signed 53 of them and they were mailed to their destinations on Wednesday thanks to my amazing grandparents for their help with that. They arrived today in California. We scheduled our conference call with our coordinator for Monday. After that the agency will start sending out our letters to those birth parents whose criteria match with ours and vice versa. Our online account will be live next Friday...We will then work on networking and wait patiently and not so patiently for the call to come.. We are anticipating at least 6 months to a year but.. who really knows for sure! Thanks for your love and support through the crazy journey"
Oct 7th Our IAC acct goes LIVE the waiting begins.
"OUR ONLINE ACCOUNT IS LIVE!!! 4 DAYS EARLIER THAN WE ANTICIPATED..
If you feel inclined to share this we would be so grateful! Thanks again everyone!"
Oct 9th Hard copies arrived at their destinations.
Oct 17th Our online acct LIVE one week.
"Adoption Update: We have been live over a week now yay! We got our monthly update from our adoption agency and in the month of September they had 282 Birthparent intakes...mailed out 38 letter packets...matched 23 waiting families and there were 13 births/placements! We know our time will come and we continue to be positive!"
Oct 23rd Broke 100 views on our Iheartadoption acct.
"Yesterday we broke 100 views on our iheartadoption page! Thanks to all those who have shared link!!!"
Nov 5th One month LIVE Letter sent out 7 times in Oct.
"(Adoption Update)..We have been live a whole month with 140 visits to our Iheartadoption link. We have not had an inquiries but it has only been a month. If you feel so inclined to share our link our your page we would be so grateful!! Thanks so much"
"Adoption update!! As of Dec 4th we will be LIVE 2 months...In October we had 190 visits to our Iheartadoption website..Also in October the adoption agency sent out 7 of our brochures to birth parents which was almost 2 a week! We started on page 33 of our agency's website and have since moved up to page 30! The agency itself had 265 birth parents intakes, 35 letter packets were sent out (7 of that were ours), they had 18 matches and 17 births! We are continuing to be hopeful and excited about the future!! Once again we would love if anyone would share our link..to those of you who have already thank you so much!!"
Dec 5th Two months LIVE letter sent out 2 times in Nov.
"ADOPTION UPDATE: In the month of November our letter was sent out only 2 times. Which is hard to swallow since last month was so high with 7. I try hard not to focus on numbers but when that's all you have to hold on to it becomes such a powerful thing. In Nov the agency had 308 birth parent intakes, that's up 43 from last month. They sent out 21 letters, which is down 4 from last month. They had 24 matches, which is up 6 from last month. They had 15 births which is down 2 from last month. Overall there wait time is 16 months which is up 2 months from when we joined. They have had 183 placements so far this year, they had 182 total last year so that has increased a little. Overall the agency is doing fabulous and we hold onto hope that this will be our last year childless. Can't wait to see what happens! Thanks for all the support and if you feel like sharing our link please do not hesitate to do so! Thanks!"
Jan 5th Three months LIVE letter sent out 7 times in Dec.
Today marks the 3rd month of our adoption profile going live! Over the course of those three months there have been 361 visits to our website www.waitingforbabyc.com! Thanks for all your continued support and encouraging words! Share this link if you know someone considering making an adoption plan or even if you don't know anyone share anyway! Thanks again — feeling hopeful.
ADOPTION UPDATE: For December our DBPL letter was sent out 7 times! Yay for a higher number than last month. We got an email stating that they were running low on there stock of our letters and needed us to send more pronto! That is a positive thing to read when you are going through this journey. Last month the adoption agency had 345 birthparent intakes which is up 37 from Nov. They mailed out 45 letter packets which is up 24 from Nov. They had 25 matches made which is up 1 from Nov. They had 15 births which was the same in Nov. I was so happy all the numbers increased so much that is good news for us. Sometimes a birthmom/parents will get a packet of letters in one month but then will not match for several months later. Our website www.waitingforbabyc.com had 107 views in Dec which was a tad lower than 112 in Nov. Overall we have had 426 views since we began tracking it back in Oct. The agency ended 2013 with a total 188 placements! We are hoping that when they total the number of placements for 2014 we are one of those many couples who's dream came true! Please please share our link if you feel comfortable doing so! Thanks for the support and love.
— feelinghopeful.
Jan 23rd We got an postcard stating that they were running low on there stock of our letters and needed us to send more.
Feb 7th Four months LIVE letter sent out 5 times in Jan.
Today marks our 4th month of our adoption going live! Over the course of the month of there have been 86 visits to our www.waitingforbabyc.com website, for a combined 4 month total of 484 visits. Thanks for all your continued support and encouraging words! Share this link if you know someone considering making an adoption plan or even if you don't know anyone share anyway! Thanks again!
ADOPTION UPDATE: For January our DBML letter was sent out 5 times! 2 lower than Dec. In Jan the adoption agency had 335 birthparent intakes which is down 10 from Dec. They mailed out 42 letter packets which down 2 from Dec. They had 38 matches made which is up 13 from Dec (YAY). They had 18 births which was up 3 from Dec. Our website www.waitingforbabyc.com had 122 views in Jan which was up 15 from Dec. Overall we have had 499 (almost 500!) page views since we began tracking it back in Oct. We started on IAC's website on page 33, we are now on page 26! We want to thank everyone who has shared our link and have done so multiple times! Thank you! We can't spread the word with out all your help. We are kinda sort patiently waiting for baby C to join the Collet Clan! Once again feel free to share our link!
Love A & A
