Some promising news.....

I was finally able to speak with the executive director of our adoption agency about the domestic program today. She is still willing to work with us on an Ethiopian adoption, but cautioned that the adoption process is becoming less and less stable and the program is starting to show signs of closure. Indeed, an additional slowdown has been confirmed by multiple sources and I know a family who has been personally impacted by the devastating delays of the adoption process.
The executive director provided us with some encouraging information during our phone call.
They have started a domestic adoption program, which will focus on minority races. (I would include the link, but they are modifying the site now). Currently, this program matches families with birth mothers when the moms are in their third trimester (to reduce the chances of moms who change their mind). To join the program, we have to make a small change to our home study, sign a new contract, and send our first (large) fee to the agency. We then create an online photo book, with stories, descriptions, and pictures of our family and our life, as well as an explanation about why we want to adopt. The agency compares our profile to their pool of birth mothers and provides us with moms who match our criteria. The files for the moms include medical history, blood test results, and ultrasound pics. We can then reject or accept the file. If we accept the file, they send our profile to the birth mother. There is a conference call with the birth mother and a social worker and if the mom decides that we would be good parents to her child, we are officially matched. We then send our second program installment and receive an itemized statement about what we owe for the birth mother's living expenses. We travel to the birth mom's home state for the birth and may remain in the state for 2-10 days to finalize the adoption. Then we pay another fee, which goes towards supportive care for the mother post-adoption.
Here is the amazing news. They currently have three moms who are in their third trimester and another 13 that have signed up for the program, but are not eligible for match until their third trimester. The agency presently has more moms than adoptive families. If we submitted our contract and profile today, we could potentially be matched with a mom as early as next week! Meaning, we could bring home a baby in early 2012! And a newborn at that!
While this is potentially amazing news, we are left with one worry. How do we obtain all of those fees in such a short time? Despite the generous assistance from family, we will be about $10,000-12,000 short. I am looking into grants and adoption loans, but we cannot rely on them. In the meantime, Craig is looking at selling cars and his motorcycle. I don't have much of value to sell or the know-how to knit or whittle things for sale (though I need to work on my sculpey stuff more). My marketable skills are limited to psychology. I had briefly thought of standing on a median with the sign, "Will Rorschach for baby," but I am frightened about the responses I may receive.