Meeting Dr. Heller

      On Monday, September 13^th, 2010 we had our first meeting with Dr. Hope Heller. The purpose of the appointment was to get information on the adoption process and how she could help us through that process. I (Katie) had been reading a lot about private adoptions versus a large, national agency and we were really leaning towards the private adoption route.  But we wanted to be informed and responsible about this decision so we had also made an appointment with Lutheran Children and Family Services, scheduled for a few days later.

      We arrived armed with pen and paper to take lots of notes on whatever it was that Dr. Heller had to tell us. This was weirdly exciting! Looking back on that day, it felt like the first step in the journey to finding RedFisch. We had so many questions and uncertainties when we walked into Dr. Heller’s office and right from the get go she put us at ease. She told us about international versus domestic (we knew we wanted domestic already), financial necessities needed to adopt (really?!?!), stories of happily adopted children (so much hope!), the home-study process we would follow if we chose to work with her, and four agencies that she would like us to call and talk with. We left her office with pages of information but our step was just a little lighter and for the first time in many, many months I felt just a little bit of hope.

       We left her office, went to a Houlihan’s and talked. Talked. And talked. And talked. There was so much to talk about! There was one thing that we were sure of…we really liked Dr. Heller. We trusted her to do our home study and felt that she would be able to give us good guidance while on this journey when we found ourselves with questions or in need of advice. We agreed that we didn’t even feel like we wanted to meet with any other agency. We would go through Dr. Heller. The journey had begun the minute we walked into her office and we didn’t even know it!