Baby stuff

So when is the right time to start getting baby stuff? It's not a pregnancy where you know how long before the baby is born. You also don't know the gender. So since there is probably no "right" time I have been browsing craigs list. Our first purchase was a snugli baby carrier. My only hesitation is that it's going to take a long time and the stash of things will be a reminder of how long it is taking.

October came and went

October was a bitter sweet month. We were approved to adopt which is exciting happy news. We know our book has been shown at least once to a mother that won't likely choose to create an adoption plan. We know we are on our way to waiting an undetermined amount of time. We have taken the time to read. I have read Scott Simons Baby we were meant for eachother and a frank book by a woman that adopted a biracial baby.

The sad aspects of this past month was that the fertility doctor gave us the month of October as the month that if we were not pregnant by we wouldn't be able to conceive on our own. October was also the month we moved into our home. As well as the month another friend announced their pregnancy. October is also the month of two useless menstrual cycles.

I try to mitigate this disappointment by reading, keeping busy, and realizing that I will get more time off if our baby does not arrive until march or later as I recently changed jobs. I also took time last Sat night to write our Rep Peter Welch as his office provided us w incorrect info on tax credits. I also shared w him that there should be legislation that would allow me to be paid for my FMLA as my coworkers that birth their children. Since my employer pays their employees using short term disability for FMLA I don't qualify. While their insurance pays for all expended for the pregnancy and recovery I on the other hand will shell out 1/3 of our income prior to taxes in order to pay for the adoption and take my FMLA.

I don't expect to actually make a change however it keeps me busy.

Announcement

Mixed reception to the email sent to family/friends. I was surprised by my mothers side responded quickly and w the exception of one aunt. My fathers side was relatively silent though this will be great-grandchild #2. Only one cousin responded and her response was sweet and excited. Our friends were excited as was DHs extended family. It's hard to figure out what to expect since I don't know anyone that has gone through this... I can only compare it to friends and family that have announced their pregnancys and it's hard not to compare. I guess I'll have to get better at letting things roll off and come up w better/more one liners. This experience though has really shown me that your expectations are often not met by those you have expectations of and those you had little expectation of often surprise you.

News

Family & Friends,

DH & I are excited to announce that we have been approved to be adoptive parents through the home study process.  As some of you already know we started the process in April and our final interview was tonight!  Our Dear Birth parent book is now available to be shown to birth parents.  We will be working with our agency as well as the birth parents to hopefully allow for an open adoption which will allow for an exchange of pictures, letters and possibly even visits after our baby arrives.

We want to thank all of our family and friends that have written letters of recommendation as well as wrote pages in our Dear Birth parents book.  Thank you for taking the time to listen when we complained about being finger printed and helping us write what our "parenting style" will be.

At this point in the process we wait until we are matched with a birth parent.  Unlike a pregnancy, our wait to be matched could be months or years but once matched we will only have a few months or possibly weeks to prep for the arrival of our first baby!  We hope we have big news soon!

Me & DH

This is it!

We were specifically directed NOT to clean.  It was challenging, I'll admit I cleaned two weeks ago, one of those deep cleans where I cleaned the stove, cars, under couches, dusted, got on hands and knees to wipe floors cleaned.  Last weekend I purposefully did not clean.  As the social worker was touring our house tonight though I started noticing ALL of the things that were SO dirty!!  Oh well.

The interview went well.   Our dear birth parent books were between the doors when I got home from work and I immediately opened the package and started to look at it sitting on the porch.  I was going to make dinner before she arrived but realized that though for once I remembered to defrost the meat before I left for work we didn't have any pasta.  Oh well.

She arrived a few minutes late, loved our cat, liked our dog and we sat down to answer questions.  Most of the questions were already answered in our written application (as in past interviews) but she wanted us to elaborate.  Its frustrating for me as I know she has the answers, and seriously what parent knows their exact parenting style before having kids.  We at least both agree on no spanking.  DH is better at answering questions I just felt like telling her to read our application (she did warn us that we may have this reaction). Oh well.

She walked through our house not saying much but writing.  Kinda odd.  Who knows what she was writing but the fact that she had few questions and little to say hopefully was a good thing.  She did mention the no fire extinguisher next to the fire place which during the first interview (the one where she told us everything we needed to do) that fire places didn't need extinguishers only wood burning stoves- while a fire place is not a wood burning stove.  oh well.

She left without our books because I wanted to hand write some things as well as sign our names at the end.  I made a mistake over one picture and wrote that it was our 2nd not 3rd anniversary trip that the picture was taken on.  They will never know so- oh well :)

All the hard work is behind us and now we wait....

Worth it!!

Our book is done!! Well a few minor edits and my parents need to paste in their text. It is really nice to see what our families have to say about us as well as their thoughtful introductions. I think we could have dine a few things to have made the process go a little smoother- the first calling vs email. Dh primarily communicated via email and well we all know that we don't really read carefully. Many members of our family only put captions to the pictures rather then telling about who they were. I also would have been more controlling from the start giving them bullet points to cover- relationship to us, likes/dislikes, and their feelings about being an aunt/uncle/grandparent. In the end it turned out and I'm hoping that the pages from our family will help us get picked faster :)

One week until our final interview I think we have everything done except putting up the railing on the stairs to the basement.

Good idea/bad idea

So we thought it would be a fun idea to have our families write their own pages in our dear birth parent book.  In part to help them understand the hard work we have to do in order to get the the point of adopting.  Making the decision to move forward with adoption is a huge decision not because you are choosing to have a child (that decision was often made years before) but because of the financial stress, time stress, and loads of paper work required.  We also wanted them included and to be a part of the process.  The deadline is a week away and only one family member has completed their page (though a second e-mailed me tonight to let me know that theirs just needs to be reviewed).  I hope this added stress is worth it!