Drum roll please!!!
As of 10:30 am October 30, 2009 we are active! We have been working on this for months and all of our hard work has gotten us to here.
http://www.americanadoptions.com/family_profile/index/fp_id/5522
I hope this will catch the eye of a very special birth family. This has been a long time coming and I am certain that we will have a long excrutiating wait. I only hope that I can keep focused and know that everything will work out in the end.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Here's the highlight reel
Okay so posting to the blog is a lot harder than I thought it would be. We have been super busy. We just got back from our European vacation. We had an amazing time but are back to reality. Here is what has happened since the last post:
*We completed our home study with Adopt Inc. It was a lot easier than I thought. It was a lot of paperwork and gathering information. But it finally done!
*All paperwork was submitted to American Adoptions for review.
*We found out that we were missing two reference letters.
*We found out that we had the wrong background check for Ted from Virginia.
**These two combined took an additional three weeks. Fortunately these items were waiting on us when we came home from vacation.
**And finally our home study review is complete!
*We completed our home study with Adopt Inc. It was a lot easier than I thought. It was a lot of paperwork and gathering information. But it finally done!
*All paperwork was submitted to American Adoptions for review.
*We found out that we were missing two reference letters.
*We found out that we had the wrong background check for Ted from Virginia.
**These two combined took an additional three weeks. Fortunately these items were waiting on us when we came home from vacation.
**And finally our home study review is complete!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Reposted from my Facebook status around 1am Sunday night:
I really should be asleep instead of catching up on the last 3 days of his friends' lives. All of the family are gone, and the wife's in bed. The clutter factor is a little high considering we spent the whole weekend cleaning, but we REALLY... couldn't have done it without all of them, even our little vacuum cleaner nephew, Clayton, who insisted on chewing holes in random paper bags. The garage is now gray instead of dog-poop brown. The deck is now brown instead of green. And every baseboard, doorframe, and cabinet has been wiped down with whatever cleaning product worked best. After a couple more evenings of picking up and doing laundry, I guess we'll be ready for the social worker. Yay.
----------
So I thought that might be something worth chronicling here instead of letting it drift in cyberspace on Facebook. Other than that, both of us recently finished reading "The Third Choice" by Leslie Foge and Gail Mosconi as assigned reading. According to Brenda, this is one of the few good books aimed at answering questions for potential birthmothers. I enjoyed the book because it opened my eyes to the fears and thought processes some birthmothers may experience, but it also attempts to point out to birthmothers that for every fear they have, there is a potential adoptive family with many of the same fears.
I'm now getting started on "Raising Adopted Children" by Lois Ruskai Melina. This is more assigned reading, and was originally published back in the 90's. In the first chapter, it brought up a question for Carrie and me to talk about. The book talks about what a miracle it is to form a family of people who are not related by blood, and says that adoptive parents often experience a role handicap. In other words, they don't experience parenthood the way they've always expected to - so they're already a little behind the curve - but they also don't have the same support that society gives to families formed through biological birth. After talking about it last night, I think we're perfectly ready to form a family based on relationships instead of blood, and the "role handicap" will be the least of our worries.
Carrie and I are already both familiar with families being built on relationships instead of blood. Carrie has two fathers - one by blood, one by marriage - that both love her, and who have both been a part of her life. In my case, I'm an only child, but I've got a handful of close friends - mostly fraternity brothers - who I think of as my family. I can truly say they would do anything for me, and me for them, despite the physical distance between us. If the two of us - two people who have grown up in completely different environments - can come together to form the strong family that we already are, there's no doubt in my mind we welcome a third (or maybe even a fourth or a fifth) and love them as our own.
Our home visit is Thursday (two days from now). I'm sure Carrie will be super-nervous until then. We'll know more after it's done.
-Ted
I really should be asleep instead of catching up on the last 3 days of his friends' lives. All of the family are gone, and the wife's in bed. The clutter factor is a little high considering we spent the whole weekend cleaning, but we REALLY... couldn't have done it without all of them, even our little vacuum cleaner nephew, Clayton, who insisted on chewing holes in random paper bags. The garage is now gray instead of dog-poop brown. The deck is now brown instead of green. And every baseboard, doorframe, and cabinet has been wiped down with whatever cleaning product worked best. After a couple more evenings of picking up and doing laundry, I guess we'll be ready for the social worker. Yay.
----------
So I thought that might be something worth chronicling here instead of letting it drift in cyberspace on Facebook. Other than that, both of us recently finished reading "The Third Choice" by Leslie Foge and Gail Mosconi as assigned reading. According to Brenda, this is one of the few good books aimed at answering questions for potential birthmothers. I enjoyed the book because it opened my eyes to the fears and thought processes some birthmothers may experience, but it also attempts to point out to birthmothers that for every fear they have, there is a potential adoptive family with many of the same fears.
I'm now getting started on "Raising Adopted Children" by Lois Ruskai Melina. This is more assigned reading, and was originally published back in the 90's. In the first chapter, it brought up a question for Carrie and me to talk about. The book talks about what a miracle it is to form a family of people who are not related by blood, and says that adoptive parents often experience a role handicap. In other words, they don't experience parenthood the way they've always expected to - so they're already a little behind the curve - but they also don't have the same support that society gives to families formed through biological birth. After talking about it last night, I think we're perfectly ready to form a family based on relationships instead of blood, and the "role handicap" will be the least of our worries.
Carrie and I are already both familiar with families being built on relationships instead of blood. Carrie has two fathers - one by blood, one by marriage - that both love her, and who have both been a part of her life. In my case, I'm an only child, but I've got a handful of close friends - mostly fraternity brothers - who I think of as my family. I can truly say they would do anything for me, and me for them, despite the physical distance between us. If the two of us - two people who have grown up in completely different environments - can come together to form the strong family that we already are, there's no doubt in my mind we welcome a third (or maybe even a fourth or a fifth) and love them as our own.
Our home visit is Thursday (two days from now). I'm sure Carrie will be super-nervous until then. We'll know more after it's done.
-Ted
Friday, August 14, 2009
Progression...
We received amazing news this week. We won't know all of the details for several more weeks and I don't want to jinx it. But if it works out it will help with a large portion of the financial burden that comes with this process.
We had our second meeting yesterday with our Adoption consultant. Her name is Brenda and she has been wonderful with answering our questions and explaining everything. She will be writing our home study since it is required to be someone licensed in your state. She was very pleased with our organization and complimented our self-studies. Yesterday Brenda described the waiting period as "excruciating." So while we are still working on tangible milestones I feel like we are making progress but as the waiting looms in the near future I worry about how hard it is going to be.
Our next meeting is scheduled for next Thursday and it will be at our home with a home inspection. She has reassured me that this is not a "white glove" inspection but I tend to be manic when it comes to having company so I have mustered the troops. Dad, Bev, Tiffany, Mike, Bethany, and Clayton will be making the journey to Kentucky to help dust and shine every corner. While Clayton won't be much help, he is being summoned as the source of entertainment! I have promised Ted that his non-manic wife would return on Thursday afternoon after our visit!
We had our second meeting yesterday with our Adoption consultant. Her name is Brenda and she has been wonderful with answering our questions and explaining everything. She will be writing our home study since it is required to be someone licensed in your state. She was very pleased with our organization and complimented our self-studies. Yesterday Brenda described the waiting period as "excruciating." So while we are still working on tangible milestones I feel like we are making progress but as the waiting looms in the near future I worry about how hard it is going to be.
Our next meeting is scheduled for next Thursday and it will be at our home with a home inspection. She has reassured me that this is not a "white glove" inspection but I tend to be manic when it comes to having company so I have mustered the troops. Dad, Bev, Tiffany, Mike, Bethany, and Clayton will be making the journey to Kentucky to help dust and shine every corner. While Clayton won't be much help, he is being summoned as the source of entertainment! I have promised Ted that his non-manic wife would return on Thursday afternoon after our visit!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Little Tangible Milestones
1. Sent off a smorgasbord of paperwork today:
- Background check requests for both of us to the Kentucky State Police, complete with self-addressed, stamped envelopes for return of results to us and Brenda.
- Child Abuse & Neglect checks for both of us to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (or something to that effect).
- Background check request for me to the Virginia State Police.
- Application to American Adoptions
2. Dropped off Self-Studies for both of us, due by our next meeting with Brenda on August 11th.
3. As of today, we now have a locked box for our medications and a fire extinguisher on the wall in the laundry closet, both of which are part of the state regulations. I'm not sure why the medications can't be in an elevated cabinet, or a child-proof cabinet, but the paper says locked box, so they're in a locked box. We'll drop off my shotgun with Carrie's brother at some point in the next few weeks, since it's not worth buying a locked cabinet to keep it. I haven't used it in close to 10 years, so there's no real point in keeping it around and Mike's got plenty of room. If I need it, I can always get it from him later.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A Second Voice...
Carrie and I talked last week about both of us using this medium as a way to archive our journey through the adoption process. I don't want to put words in Carrie's mouth, or take this experience away from her, so hopefully it will be easy to figure out which of us is writing at any given time...
We had our first homestudy meeting yesterday with Brenda from AdoptInc! I can't speak for Carrie, but I was very pleased with the way the meeting went. Brenda really feels like she's going to be a coach for us, and we definitely need someone to help walk us through the process. She praised us for all of the work we'd done in chasing down papers. She answered every question I had, and she really put off a good vibe. I'm really glad to have her on our side. She also gave us a stack of articles to read, a reading list, and a self-study assignment for our next meeting in three weeks. As of yesterday afternoon, the books are on their way, so we'll be able to get started on them soon.
Speaking of books, I found a really good one at the local library and then convinced Carrie to read it when I was done. "The Brotherhood of Joseph" by Brooks Hansen is the tale of his family's journey from marriage, to finding out they were infertile, to what seemed like an extraordinarily long time trying fertility treatments, to their eventual adoption of a Russian child. Although it was heartbreaking at times, the book is a rare look at the man's perspective in this situation. It opened my eyes to the differences between men and women during the fertility or adoption process, and I can already tell that I'm going to fall into the same sort of mold. For instance, men usually find it easier to throw themselves into their work or to go on with their lives during the long waiting periods. Women tend to worry more and need more outside support; more assurances that everything is moving forward. Men can give up control and wait; women feel helpless when there isn't an immediate goal, or something they can do. I often give engaged men the advice (from my own experience) that no matter how bad it gets prior to the wedding, the woman they proposed to will return to them after the wedding is over. I think I'm in for the same sort of experience here.
One other thing has become clear so far. There are a lot of decisions to be made, a lot of soul-searching to be done, and a lot of talking Carrie and I need to do to make sure we're on the same page. Monday night, we discussed the difference between the words "atheist" and "non-believer", talking for the first time in a while about what we each believed. Last night, we started talking about our requirements for a birth mother, only to find out that I may have had different criteria in mind than she does. Carrie seems to think instinct will take over, whereas I'm questioning what decision criteria we can use. Do we take the first situation that comes up? If not, what reasoning do you use to come to that decision? We had both previously decided we were open to children of other races - we've explored international adoptions from both China and Ethiopia - but that was when we were limiting ourselves to one country. Now that we're looking at domestic adoption, are we still as open to that idea? I guess we'll have to figure those things out before too long.
We had our first homestudy meeting yesterday with Brenda from AdoptInc! I can't speak for Carrie, but I was very pleased with the way the meeting went. Brenda really feels like she's going to be a coach for us, and we definitely need someone to help walk us through the process. She praised us for all of the work we'd done in chasing down papers. She answered every question I had, and she really put off a good vibe. I'm really glad to have her on our side. She also gave us a stack of articles to read, a reading list, and a self-study assignment for our next meeting in three weeks. As of yesterday afternoon, the books are on their way, so we'll be able to get started on them soon.
Speaking of books, I found a really good one at the local library and then convinced Carrie to read it when I was done. "The Brotherhood of Joseph" by Brooks Hansen is the tale of his family's journey from marriage, to finding out they were infertile, to what seemed like an extraordinarily long time trying fertility treatments, to their eventual adoption of a Russian child. Although it was heartbreaking at times, the book is a rare look at the man's perspective in this situation. It opened my eyes to the differences between men and women during the fertility or adoption process, and I can already tell that I'm going to fall into the same sort of mold. For instance, men usually find it easier to throw themselves into their work or to go on with their lives during the long waiting periods. Women tend to worry more and need more outside support; more assurances that everything is moving forward. Men can give up control and wait; women feel helpless when there isn't an immediate goal, or something they can do. I often give engaged men the advice (from my own experience) that no matter how bad it gets prior to the wedding, the woman they proposed to will return to them after the wedding is over. I think I'm in for the same sort of experience here.
One other thing has become clear so far. There are a lot of decisions to be made, a lot of soul-searching to be done, and a lot of talking Carrie and I need to do to make sure we're on the same page. Monday night, we discussed the difference between the words "atheist" and "non-believer", talking for the first time in a while about what we each believed. Last night, we started talking about our requirements for a birth mother, only to find out that I may have had different criteria in mind than she does. Carrie seems to think instinct will take over, whereas I'm questioning what decision criteria we can use. Do we take the first situation that comes up? If not, what reasoning do you use to come to that decision? We had both previously decided we were open to children of other races - we've explored international adoptions from both China and Ethiopia - but that was when we were limiting ourselves to one country. Now that we're looking at domestic adoption, are we still as open to that idea? I guess we'll have to figure those things out before too long.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Nerves start to build.
So it is the day before our first meeting with the agency who will be handling our home study. The more I think about it the more the nerves are building. I worry that I will appear to anxious or even not myself.
Tomorrow after the meeting I have planned to take the day off to complete my fingerprinting, FBI background check, physical with Dr. Johnson, and anything else that I can check off our "paperchase" list. It will also be the first lump of money that we will have to give so it will be more real than ever. I still haven't completed my self-study and I have proved to be a really successful procrastinator.
On another note, MTV has a show called 16 and Pregnant. Their season finale was last week with a story line that followed a young couple who decided to give their baby girl up for adoption. I was very pleased to see that MTV portrayed the adoption in a good light and hope that it opens the doors for many other waiting couples. I cried through the whole thing thinking how hard it must be for a mother to give up her child. While it is the ultimate sacrifice, they should also be assured that they are providing a better life to their child and giving a couple a chance to become a family. I can only imagine the emotions that I will feel when we are in these shoes.
Tomorrow after the meeting I have planned to take the day off to complete my fingerprinting, FBI background check, physical with Dr. Johnson, and anything else that I can check off our "paperchase" list. It will also be the first lump of money that we will have to give so it will be more real than ever. I still haven't completed my self-study and I have proved to be a really successful procrastinator.
On another note, MTV has a show called 16 and Pregnant. Their season finale was last week with a story line that followed a young couple who decided to give their baby girl up for adoption. I was very pleased to see that MTV portrayed the adoption in a good light and hope that it opens the doors for many other waiting couples. I cried through the whole thing thinking how hard it must be for a mother to give up her child. While it is the ultimate sacrifice, they should also be assured that they are providing a better life to their child and giving a couple a chance to become a family. I can only imagine the emotions that I will feel when we are in these shoes.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Mounds of Paperwork
It amazes me how much paperwork is required to get everything started. The agencies require a load of documents including fingerprinting, a physical, credit references, FBI clearance, insurance cards, birth certificates, and the list goes on. The one thing that has stalled me in my quest is the self study. The document is 9 pages and covers everything about my childhood, our relationships, and our home. The hardest part for me is putting it all into words. So I am off to capture in black and white all of these things that are so hard to vocalize. Wish me luck!
In the beginning...
For all who know Ted and I have wanted for many years to become a family. I have never wanted anything more than to become a Mom and was obviously devastated when we found out that it wasn't very likely to happen naturally. Instead of following expensive and often failing infertility treatments, we automatically turned down the adoption trail.
This has been many years in the making but we are finally moving full steam ahead. Our first home study appointment is scheduled in two weeks and we have been scurrying about collecting all of the needed documents. I have decided to start this blog in hopes that one day I can share it with our child. All the ups and downs of the journey but especially the love invested in becoming a family!
This has been many years in the making but we are finally moving full steam ahead. Our first home study appointment is scheduled in two weeks and we have been scurrying about collecting all of the needed documents. I have decided to start this blog in hopes that one day I can share it with our child. All the ups and downs of the journey but especially the love invested in becoming a family!
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