[crick]

Hi everyone! Welcome to the newest addition to the Adoption.com Forums, Local Adoption Connections.

Please take a minute to tell us a little about yourself. Are you married? Do you have Children, if so, what are their ages? Share with us some of your favorite things about living in this area. What’s your favorite restaurant? Do you belong to any Adoption Support Groups in your area? Help us all get to know you better and start making local friends with like interests!

[mk317]

Hi, I'm new to this whole thing! The forum and adoption! My Dh and I live out side of Salem. We are looking to adopt and are just trying to figure out where to start. Can anyone give us info. on adopting through the state? We are concidering this rout. We would like a little boy preferably under the age of one. We have been married for 9 yrs now and we have two biological daughters ages 8 and 4 already. We would love to welcome a son into the family! God has really laid it on our hearts to adopt and we have so many questions. Who exactly do we contact to start a home study and is that the first step? What are the cost involved and chances of getting a little guy? Any help would be great! Thanks!

[1971.mom]

Erin-Hi-

We live in Woodburn. I work in Salem. My husband and I have talked about adopting since before we were married-this is a 2nd marriage-we have two girls 12 and
9 from my first marriage.

We started looking to adopt seriously about a year ago. We did alot of searching of our own hearts and thinking
about how things could affect our already existing family
and decided that an agency newborn program would be
best for us.

Cost is higher-but the education and support given to us
by them has been worth it so far. We are using an
agency in Portland-well Tualitin really. We started doing
paperwork in October, turned it in in January, had our
two part homestudy in February and March, and just now
are ready to sign up for the program that we are interested in.

The Social worker we used is retiring in May. Our homestudy was one of the last he is doing.

If you are hoping for State programs-check out the Northwest Adoption Exchange webpage. It is actually part of the State of Oregons website.

I have done some considerable research-and learned alot. I have not lived through it yet though. Most of my
knowledge is about the variety in ways that agencies seem to be set up-as far as fees and things. If you
have any questions or just want to "chat" PM me or write
back on the boards.

The ladies on the "general adoptive forums" have alot
of experience and are fun to follow-but they are mostly in the midwest or south or northeast. I think there are
several from Texas-but very few from out here.

I'm glad to see the new closer to home boards-yeah adoption.com.

[silentstormatsea]

Hi ! We live in Keizer and we are most of the way through our homestudy. YAY!!! We've been married for 8 years, have raised my 3kids(18,16,13)from a previous marriage, and so far have lived!!! We're looking to adopt another one(meaning pre teens and up) The sick thing is we've developed an interest in a 3 sibiling group(12,14,15) Yeah I know it's a sick sort of disease but we love it. At any rate, we are having the dilema of fitting all of us in our already too small house. Selling and buying something bigger isn't feasible in the current market. We would add on but at this moment the financing isn't likely to happen. The other option would be just don't do adopt 3 more. If I don't find a solution that is what will happen, but we don't want to. These kids deserve a forever family and they've already had 2 failed adoptions. We know we can be that family. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions. We have a good possibility of being selected for these kids. Any ideas? Thanks