I don't post about my personal life a lot but today we finally had our court date to finalize the adoption. I've found that academics, who make up a lot of my followers, are above-average curious about adoption. So here's a little about the process, and how it went.

This is specifically about adopting an unborn child and becoming the parents upon birth. I don't know anything about adoption from foster care, international adoption (which I understand is way way harder to do these days anyway), or adopting older kids

First, process: We adopted through an agency. They're basically a matchmaking service with a bunch of lawyers. The process is that we sign up and produce a bio and like a little mini-People magazine about ourselves. Expecting mothers contact them and get sent a bunch of bios,

and they pick who they like. You, and they, can put any restrictions on it you like. Gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. etc.. We put restrictions on mother's drug use but that was about it.

Once you're picked, you talk with the birth mom (and dad, if present), fly out to meet once, make sure it's a good match. Then you cover their expenses a while so they can take maternal leave. They can change their mind at any time, no questions asked.

The agency also provides social services and legal representation for the mom, too, to make sure she knows all her rights etc. and isn't being coerced or anything. That's where part of the money goes.

Once the baby is born you have to wait a few days before they're allowed to sign the papers, but then that's your baby! Take 'em home.

That's the outline of the process. How did it actually go?

First thing to know is that the time scale here is very long. We began preparing seriously to adopt I think in 2015. Then we signed with the agency I think in 2017.

The first wait was because it's expensive. Wanted $30k saved before starting, then made the rest while waiting.

It's a little hard to keep track of all the expenses, but I think we spent maybe $60k on the process all told? Then subtract a $14k tax credit. So, like, the price of a nice new car, but there's no loan. This helped: http://www.newnownext.com/married-gay-couple-wins-10000-gsn-game-show-idiotest/04/2017/

Thankfully it's very rare for an adoptive parent to be on the hook for birth costs. Medicaid covers the uninsured here, and the agency helps get that lined up if possible.

After we signed up came the wait. There are two real big downsides of all of this: (1) a lot of your life completely leaves your control, and (2) hope you like the government in your life because they're there baby

You have no control over when you're going to be matched with a mom. You're waiting to be picked, basically. They said the average is six months, but as soon as that passed waiting got a lot harder. We matched after about a year.

In the meantime, we were getting checked out every which way. Medical checks, home studies, psych profiles (which seem to be very concerned about your "grief from infertility" - I mean, dang, we did try as hard as we could but it wasn't exactly a surprise)

Home studies are interesting because they're very expensive, take a long time, and honestly the bar you're trying to clear is very low - do you have running water, fire extinguisher, no big open pits to fall into, loaded guns, etc., but somehow proving all that is very hard

Plus home studies expire - the longer matching takes, the more likely it is you'll need to pony up a few thousand more bucks to do it again. Oh and the background checks with the FBI, fingerprinting, plenty of that. Plus if you've moved states you need state-specific ones too

I think we had four FBI background checks each through the whole process? I lost count. The lady at the notary office around the corner from our house was very nice though and brought her toddler to work.

Waiting, waiting, no idea when it's going to happen. Could be a day, could be a year. And when you get matched it could be a woman giving birth in six months or TOMORROW. So you have to be ready. So you've got a fully-stocked and totally empty nursery staring at you for years.

Then we got matched! Very exciting. Birth mom was very nice, lived across the country. We flew her out to CA and hung out a few days, we liked her a lot. You sort of expect going into this that the moms are all going to be teens but she was our age.

Of course, she can change her mind at any time. So you're about to have a baby but it's a near-total secret since you really *really* don't want to have to start every conversation for months explaining where that baby you said you were going to have is.

It's pretty rare for a mom to change her mind, according to the agency. But still you never know! We had "pre-baby" showers but without telling people we'd matched, just for the hypothetical future baby.

Then the time comes! We got an AirBNB for a few weeks, since out-of-state adoptions require you to get a court date and an approval before you can come back home. You can't just turn around and book it home immediately.

We got off the plane, texted the mom to offer to take her to lunch, and never heard from her again.

"Adoptive mom changing her mind" is probably the least-bad way to be surprised by the news that you're not about to have a baby, but that doesn't mean it's good.

Nothing you can do, and nothing that you'd want to do. It's still her baby at that point, her choice to make. And what, you want the story for your kid to be "oh yeah your mom wanted to keep you but we had better lawyers"

So... back to waiting then! After an adoption falls through they advertise your profile more heavily, put you on the website, put you on a list for "emergency adoptions" i.e. "someone just gave birth do you want to get on a plane right now?"

(and oh yeah, since I do get asked this, no we don't get the money back we spent on expenses. Not that I think we should - it's not like we're *buying a baby* from her. But I do get asked every time, so here's the answer)

We waited another seven months before being matched again, the day before the Kentucky Derby 2019.

Another very good match. A couple, our age again, this time *in-state*, very nice. We hit it off!

We went to their place this time and hung out for a day. Very cool people! We talked a long time, watched a movie. Stayed in constant contact after that with texts

We were pretty certain they would follow through, but of course with four months to go and one changed mind under your belt already you gotta worry don't you?

We booked another AirBNB for a few weeks and headed up. Met the birth-grandparents. Completely antsy. Baby was a *week late*! We could barely think straight. Also someone stole our license plates while we were there haha

Then we had a baby :)

The birth parents let us take her right away. A little airBNB isn't a perfect place to spend your first few weeks but it worked out just fine.

It's a few days before mom can legally sign her over. After that she has a month to change her mind, but she waived that.

which did really help to cut down on the anxiety.

About a week later, after more visits with grandparents and birth parents, we took her on the long drive home, on which she slept.

Being home with a baby after all of that was truly amazing. Of course it wasn't all over. Still plenty of things to straighten out with the state. Need to keep up with the home study, meet with the social worker and get her to write a report recommending we get to keep her

They said it would be six months before the adoption could be finalized. But it was six months before the *finalization submission process began* Then of course COVID hit and all the courts shut down

Lots more papers, surveillance (remotely), and then we were back to waiting for a court date... which was finally, finally today!

Signed, sealed, delivered. Of course there's more waiting still to come. Six months for a revised birth certificate (get your last name on the baby's birth cert by the way... she's going to be almost two before she shares our name) and a social security number.

And then, THEN it will be done. Of course we're still in contact with the birth parents and all four birth-grandparents, send them plenty of photos and do zoom calls. The extent to which that happens of course varies from adoption to adoption, but ours is very open

Eight grandparents! Lucky girl.

We're very lucky it all ended up working out. Do I recommend it? I'd say if you can make kids biologically and choose to adopt, you're giving up a whole lot of autonomy and control over your life

But in the end, you *do* get a kid, so...