We finally took our first official step in the adoption "journey"; orientation. It was about a 2 hour meeting between the organization and hopeful adoptive parents to get information on the history of adoption, their primary ministry, the process and more. I could literally write an essay on this (and made a 30 minute video to prove it) so I will break this down into a few bullet points of key things I learned.

• The organization isn't focused on adoption: Their main goal is to get the mother to choose life and not have an abortion. Should she chose the adoption route they would then let her know about the couples they have waiting to adopt but, their primary focus isn't getting us a baby. So we may need to have a second agency or an attorney to help increase our exposure to expectant mothers.
• It can take a long time to get matched: The organization only placed 10 babies last year and even if you get matched the mother has up until 72 hours after birth to change her mind. If she does you're back to square one. (There are a lot of women who lie and say they want to place their child only to get compensated for expenses and have no intentions on placing the child.)
• They used to match babies with families: If a baby started to develop and hit their milestones early they assume the baby to be smart and would place the baby with a successful family with a doctor or lawyer. Average developing babies would be placed with average couples.
• Black people really don't adopt: There were probably 40+ people in the room and other than the staff there was only one other black couple. I was hoping I would be wrong and that there would be more black people but nope. Our case worker told me there are more white couples who want white babies than there are white babies who need parents. There are more black babies that need parents then there are parents willing to adopt them. 
• Special needs doesn't necessarily mean handicap: Back in the day African American and Hispanic babies were seen as "unadoptable" because Hispanics and African Americans weren't adopting or couldn't afford to adopt. Since then there are still more black babies who need parents than any other ethnicity. For that reason, along with Florida state laws, they consider African American (and sibling groups) to be a "special needs case".