For attorney Kelly Flint and her husband Bill Cerveny, November is a time for double celebrations - giving thanks at Thanksgiving for family and friends, and observing National Adoption Month. The Chelsea residents have four children, three of them adopted.
"Adopting children is something my husband and I began discussing early in our marriage," says Flint, staff attorney for University of Michigan Student Legal Services in Ann Arbor.
"After our daughter Ann was born in 1989, we completed our graduate education and began the adoption process."
At the time the couple lived in Illinois, where the licensing process - classes and a home study - took about six months.
"We wanted to adopt a child who was in the foster care system, and thought we would have a child in our home within a year of starting the process," she says.
Their daughter was 4 years old when they began the process, initially hoping Ann and an adopted child wo...