My husband and I attended the domestic infant adoption information meeting last night at the adoption agency. It was a very positive experience for both of us.

There were three and a half other couples that attended (one woman's husband couldn't make it). First we picked up some adoption pamphlets and a folder with an application form. We watched a PowerPoint presentation that gave basic information about adoption. Most of the information was not new to me. What was new to me was legal information regarding my state and specific information about the branch of the agency that we will be working with.

We found that our state has an adoption tax credit of $1,200. It's not much, but I figure every little bit helps. We also got some tips about how to keep track of money spent on adoption for tax purposes. For instance, you can count mileage for visits to the adoption agency.

Our local agency has placed an average of 12 babies per year over the last three years. I asked how many waiting families there are right now, and was told that there are 12 families approved and waiting right now.

The normal time it takes to go through the approval process, if you do your parts quickly, is about two months. After you are approved, the average wait (since the social worker started working 2 � years ago) for a baby is 10 months. The shortest waiting time was three months. One couple waited as long as 17 months.

Someone asked if anyone had not gotten a baby. The social worker said that one family didn't get a baby, but there was unusual circumstances, and they decided to get a child through a different program at the agency. Although the infant adoption program covers children up to the age of 2, the social worker said that most babies are very young. The oldest infant she had placed was 5 months.

While we were at the meeting my husband said that he thought one of the men was a brother of someone we know. He had seen this man's name on the sign-up sheet when we came in. When we left, my husband approached this man and introduced himself. We discovered that this guy is a brother of people we know. My husband even has relatives in common with him.

This couple is several years younger than me, and are just starting to look into adoption.. They had already gone to the international adoption meeting. Apparently they haven't had infertility issues, they just thought adoption was something they were interested in doing. They said that the wife has a kidney disease, so they are waiting to see if that would affect their ability to adopt before they pay money to apply. The husband told us that they haven't told anyone that they are thinking about adopting. So he said he won't tell anyone about us being at the meeting, if we won't tell anyone about them being there.

Later on I was talking to my husband about this couple and discovered that they go to a church that friends of ours go to. This church recently set up an adoption assistance fund to encourage people to adopt. Perhaps that is why this couple is so interested in adoption. They know their church will give them support.

After the meeting my husband was very excited to get started with the adoption process. He wants us to get moving on it quickly. I totally agree with him, of course! We'd probably start tonight if we didn't have a fundraising dinner to attend.

We started talking about who to list as references on our application. We wondered how the school would deal with it if I suddenly became a mom and wanted to quit teaching. My husband became concerned about how to set up health insurance for our future child. He also wondered if we can take our child into another country before we have officially adopted our child (We'll have to go to a wedding in Canada, if my brother and his girlfriend get married).

I had a hard time sleeping last night as I had all these thoughts running through my mind. Just imagine, we could be approved by December. If we get a baby in the "average" length of time, we could be parents a little over a year from now! It could be as soon as this spring! Amazing! This is so amazing!