Everything is not always as it seems

In my last post I mentioned that there was a couple in our church who already got matched and had a baby girl. They only got to keep her for 10 days. It is a complicated situation but it comes down to the state deciding that neither the father or mother were competent enough to sign the relinquishment papers. ( I think.) The birth mother and birth father are both mentally challenged which the adoptive parents knew. But they were working with a social worker who was taking them all through the process. It seemed like a done deal. It is so unfortunate. I feel so badly for our friends. In some way I feel little relief that is not us. But I also feel trepidation knowing that it could be us. It seems like such a simple idea. A woman is pregnant with a baby that she doesn't want to parent. A couple can't get pregnant but want to be parents. Let's put the 2 together. It just doesn't seem to work that way. . . .

Overdue Checkin

It has been a long time since I posted but there has been little to update. In the big picture nothing has changed. A & I are still waiting. It is sometimes very frustrating. We have not even had any contact. I know that God has a plan and we will be parents when it is time for us to be but I don't always keep that in mind. It can seem so unfair to see other people become parents so easily. The most recent occurrence. A couple from our Church that is using the same agency finished their paperwork and became available for a match 3 months after us. A few weeks ago they were matched and already have a baby girl. We are very happy for them but deep down it does seem a little unfair. But that is the way that Open Adoption works. We can only put the request out there. And based on the information available the Birth Mother chooses. It is one of the many things that we can not control in the process. It has made us a question if we are even supposed to be parents. But fortunately we have friends and family who are supportive. And as many have pointed out. If pregnancy doesn't come easily then there is no easy path to parenthood.Each path is just challenging in different ways.
Lately we have tried to focus on ourselves. Filling our time with work, church, and celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. Taking advantage of being able to stay out on a weeknight, meet friends for a drink on last minute notice, etc. It is little comfort but it is what we have control over. We can only use the time we have the best way we know how.

Latest update (Not much)

It has been a little over 3 months since out letter went into circulation and we have not had any real contacts. 2 email spams and 1 wrong number. (Some woman called our 800 number by mistake when she meant to call the agency. She actually knew a birthmother and was trying to make an adoption plan with her.) Our letter has gone out a few times. That means that a birthmother asked to see our letter along with others but never contacted us. It is hard right now. We have done all that we can do, really. Last week we mailed out 100 letters to organizations around the country. (Clinics, hospitals, etc.) So, at least we can keep looking for new contacts.We did go to a group meeting at the agency. We were the only couple there that had not adopted, yet. That was challenging but it was inspiring to hear all the different journeys to parenthood. And a reminder that it will happen it is just a matter of when. 

Other than that we are trying to take friends advice. Take advantage of the time that you have. Go out, stay out late, sleep in, travel because you will do less of all of those things as a parent. So we are trying to do that. 

Life speeding by

Well it has been a while since I posted. Things have been moving right along though. We did finally get the letter printed, approved and in circulation. And we got the website designed with the donation of time from a friend. We have sent the website out to most people we know and quite a few people that we don't know. Now we are starting to focus on getting the letters out to people. Trying to get it to people who have a greater probability of meeting a birth mom and working out from there. As our counselor keeps reminding us it only takes one connection.
It seems like it has been about a month since our letter went into circulation. In some ways this is the hardest part, the waiting. We are really trying to be patient but it isn't easy. Most of the time we are busy enough that we don't focus on it too long. If we dwell on it we will go crazy. The reality is we could get a call tomorrow or in a year. It is hard to be ready for that.

Letter still on hold

Well, if you have been following along you know that today we had hoped to have out letters in hand. But, alas, that is not true. Although I did get the file to the printer last Friday and we did get to have a nice relaxing weekend the proof has still not been approved by the agency, yet. We did get a proof on Monday and A drove the proof to the agency but we didn't hear back from them until Friday. Since we didn't have the actual photo print that we will be attaching they didn't want to approve it and they had one more minor change. Needless to say, we were a little upset. I was just plain mad. I thought the proof was really a formality. Now I may have to change the file, upload it, and get another proof.
We were both getting pretty impatient and frustrated until A posted on the agency's discussion forums and heard from other adoptive families who went through very similar processes. We have to remind each other that they are only trying to help us in the way that they have helped thousands of other families. We have been waiting a long time we can wait a little longer.

Printing is full of pain

Who knew you needed to be a graphic designer and web designer to become a parent. It certainly feels that way right now. We have spent some long hours on creating the design, picking the photos and writing the text. After 3 revisions with our social worker we got approval to get the letter printed. Who knew the painful process that would be. After printing the letter at home and getting it the way we wanted I took it into work to use our laser printer. (My boss offered to let me use our printer to save money) 2 laser printers, 1 ink jet printer and 2 kinds of paper later I gave up trying to print it at work. On to a professional print shop. The print shop was very helpful. After talking to them we decided that paying for the print service was best. I still had to prepare the files, though. Another arduous process. Especially when I discovered most of the photos would have to be imported again at a higher resolution. So, I did that. And with the help of a few friends we got all the photos in the correct resolution. So, right now I am uploading the files to the print service. Multiple times to get everything right. We will have a proof on Monday. If all goes well we will have the letters by April 4 and we will be sending them out after that.

This has been quite the learning experience. I didn't want to pay someone to do the letter for us. I am not sure if that was the right choice. We did save a lot of money and I did learn some valuable skills. But it also has eaten up a lot of our time. Including part of our vacation. Now that the letter is finally done (I hope). I am going to try enjoy the rest of the time off I have.

1st group session

This week we went to our first group "counseling" session. It isn't really counseling but more of a support group. After you adopt it is required until the adoption is finalized. But the groups are open to any couples in the process. We weren't the only couples waiting to adopt who attended but we were in the minority. We heard some fantastic stories. Everything from easy as cake to long drawn out processes. But they all had babies so the stories always had happy endings.The group was very supportive of each other and helpful with challenges. Since everyone is different places in the process there is a lot of experience to share.
Our process is getting close to the next phase. All the paperwork has been turned in. We will have to do some revisions to birth mother letter and then the web site.Once that is done we will start with some self promotion. So, if you are reading this you will probably get some letters to hand out. One of the stories we heard was how the adoptive mother and birth mother's mother had the same OB/GYN. The OB/GYN showed the letter to the birth mother and they ended up matching. So, the match doesn't have to start at the agency. Our baby can come from anywhere.

Seeing all those couples at the meeting with their babies made it real for me. This will happen. It is just a matter of time.

Long overdue

Well there hasn't been a lot of progress lately but I still feel like it has been too long since I posted. We are finally closing in on the last of the paperwork. It is a long and tedious process and over the past few weeks I realized that the actual paperwork is only part of the process. Each of the choices we have to make on the forms will have influence on the birth mother we match with. So, it isn't the actual check this box if you want this or fill in this form for that. It is the discernment process of what is the best choice for us. Can we spend X for more travel, or medical expenses, etc? How much is X? Can we accept and handle the challenges of a child who is A or B?
But with that said, we have made almost all those decisions and filled out all the forms. We are now down to finishing the birth mother letter. And that is progressing nicely. I made a lot of progress this weekend on the photos and formatting. With a little bit of writing we should be able to send it off to our case worker at the agency for review.

Life keeps happpening

We are still working through the process. Life keeps getting in the way of our planning. :)
the good news is that A's cousin took some great photos for our birth mother letter. We are still working on the letter. In case I have not made the challenge clear. Imagine that you have a 2 page full color letter to convince a birth mother that you and your partner as great parents. That is our birth mother letter. We want it to be honest and true but we want it to be appealing to the birth mothers.

Time flies by and we keep working on the process

Life keeps going by. I was in Atlanta for 36 hours last week and I am in Vegas now. It is a challenge for A and I to spend time on the things that still need to be done for adoption paperwork. We have both gotten through our medical exams. (I actually had to give blood.)
Anyway, not much to tell, yet. We will have some time to work on our profile and birth mother letter this weekend. Those are really the only 2 things left. But also the most difficult.

A has her own blog now

Well, I knew it wouldn't take long and it didn't. A wants to have her own space to write and now she does. She has her own blog that you can link to on the right.
In my last post I commented on some of the decisions we had to make around work and time commitments and the coming year. I don't want there to be any confusion. The teaching, theatre and dance projects are things that I love to do. The extra money is nice too. But I work at my other job 40-50 hours per week on average. When we are busy that jumps to 60-80 hours. I want to remain committed to the few volunteer activities at church because I feel good about doing them and they only require monthly meetings. Now that we are focusing on the adoption process and (hopefully) soon the baby I feel that time is too precious to spend on additional work.
On to the present. Still working through the process while dealing with life. I got the basic design of the birth mother letter done over the weekend. We still have to write the content and pick the photos. It is hard to boil down everything about yourselves to 1 page front and back. It makes sense to keep it simple for the birth mother. But it is hard to know what to include and what to leave out.
The other big item is our profile. The agency that we are working with requires you to fill out a profile of all the potential babies you would be open to. This includes exposure to drugs & alcohol and ethnic background. Both are difficult decisions. No one wants to have their child exposed to drugs or alcohol but the reality is that many of these birth mothers didn't know or denied knowing they were pregnant. Sometimes that ignorance or denial gives them the freedom to continue to use drugs or alcohol. What strikes me as odd about this is that many of the symptoms of drug and alcohol abuse don't show up until after the 1st year. In a closed adoption the adoptive parents wouldn't know the birth parents or the history so they could end up with a child that has been exposed to drugs or alcohol and you might not know for months or years. At least with open adoption you know up front and can make an educated choice. We are not there yet. There is a lot of information on the subject and only so much time to read it all. We are taking in as much as we can and processing it as best we can.
Ethnic background is difficult for different reasons. As much as we would like to say that we can adopt any race and it won't make any difference that is not true. We have to consider our family , neighborhood, and community for the child. And our ability to give the child experience in their natural cultural heritage. I think cultural heritage is probably easier to deal with than acceptance in family and community. We are consulting our friends and family and want to be mindful of how we and the child will be treated. We want the support of our families and friends. But the bottom line is that we have to do what is right for us and what we think is right for our baby. Just because we don't adopt a child of a different ethnic background doesn't mean that child is going to have an easier life. It just means that we might.
As you can see we are struggling with these choices still. I am confident that with prayerful discernment we will make the right choices. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the profile is just opening the possibility. Because we check the box that we are open to a child of a different race or has drug/alcohol exposure doesn't mean that is the situation we will be matched with. It just means that birth mothers of those children will get to see our letters. If they like our letter then we take it from there and see if we match.

More paperwork means we are getting closer

The more we do the more real it becomes. Got our fingerprints done. What a lame process. They have to run your prints for each type of check and of course there is a fee for each one. Anyway, glad that we did it over the holidays. With the multiple forms, and multiple scans it took almost 2 hours.
On Dec. 30 we had our home visit from our social worker. That went very smoothly. We need to get rid of or lock up some weed killer in the garage. (It isn't even ours. It is the land lord's) Other than that we passed fine. She did ask some questions that got us thinking though. Most notably our child care plans. Aaaaah! We haven't really thought about that. Last night we discussed it for the 1st time. There is no easy solution but this is something all parents deal with and they figure it out. We will too.
Yesterday, we looked at our calendar and also realized that we have to cut back on some things. Basically, I won't take on any extra work. No teaching and no outside shows. That was a tough decision but we are committed to focusing on the adoption process. Working 1 full time job is enough right now. I will miss the teaching and working with some great collaborators but time is too valuable right now.
Our letters of recommendation are starting to go in. We have done a lot of the paperwork. Still have to do physicals. The next big things on the agenda are filling out our profile for the baby and working on the dear birth mother letter.