Adoption Journey Part 4 - SNAP approval

On March 12, 2012 we received a phone call from Doug saying we'd been SNAP (special needs adoption program) approved!  We'd finished our home study 3 months before that and had waited and waited to get the "approval!"  We were one month away from being in the process a full year.  Wow time flies!

We decided to celebrate, so we took the kids to Ruby Tuesday for dinner that night.  When you are SNAP approved, you have access to all the profiles online.  It takes several days to several weeks to get info back on the child/children you request.  This day, I only had access to the general profiles.  No details.  I printed off 30 or so profiles and presented them to the family.

Our children have been involved in the entire process.  We tailor information based on their ages, but over all they have been involved in everything.  So we took the profiles to the kids and voted.  Some of the kids voted on looks or qualities these children possessed.  Would they make a good big or little brother or sister?  Did they like animals because we have 2 dogs and a cat?  What did they want to be when they grew up?  Things like that.

Scott and I read in-between the lines.  A profile that read "two parent home with older children" meant - don't have any little kids, cause they could get hurt.  So we veto'd those.  Others that would say "needs close supervision while providing structure and a safe environment" usually meant, "this kids are going to take up all of you time and energies because he/she needs that.  How much time are you willing to take away from your current children?"  Tough decision.

So we evaluated each of the 30 or so profiles and came up with a top 10 as a family.  Then Scott and I went to work narrowing down the field to our top 3, then the top 2.  We prayed about which child would be ours.  We wanted it to work out so desperately.

We requested information on 15 year old K and 12 year old J.  What we got back shocked us to the core of our souls.  What on earth did we sign up for?  And how on earth were we going to get through it?