...We Are Paper Pregnant!

I meant to post this blog sooner, but got busy doing other things. There have been family medical emergencies on both our sides a lot over the past several weeks, but we will get to that at a later point in time...The big news in our household is that as of 4:30 pm on December 2, 2011 we are paper pregnant. We are officially prospective adoptive parents and waiting to be matched!

The home visit was on Dec 1, and the only thing we had to change on our profile was that we needed more captions for our photos. I woke up at 5:30 am on Friday and immediately went to the computer to add more captions, and it ended up taking over six hours to finish it. How can I explain that? I don’t really know. All I can say is that we have an obsessive need for perfection on this profile and I used a complicated program on my MAC for photos to make them pretty and “tilt” like it was a scrap book.

Home Visit - Take Two

After all that, we had to reschedule the home visit for two weeks later after Thanksgiving. When it was first canceled, my instinct was to call our counselor and beg her to come out over the weekend or at night. It didn't matter. Eventually I came down off the ledge and put on my adopted mommy armor. I totally co-opted that from another adopted mother's blog I read, and I know I am only a prospective mommy right now, but I think the sooner I put it on the better. Adoption, and TTC really, is a tough and long process with curve balls thrown at you all the time, so get your armor on to help protect you now because all this is going to take strength and courage!

Home Visit - Take One

I know we have meen MIA for a while. There are two main reasons for that. One, in September something major happened at my work (like lawyers involved major) and it has been a nightmare. I can go into more details later when things have progressed, but it has been extremely hard on my work life, I have been bringing work home with me, and it has made me incredibly depressed. Two, my mother had surgery in October and I had to go take care of her. She was in the hospital for a week afterwards, and went back in twice since and is still there now as I write this AFTER Thanksgiving. So, yeah, life got in the way.

Open Adoption Roundtable #30

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don't need to be listed at Open Adoption Bloggers to participate or even be in a traditional open adoption.

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#30: Do you remember the first time you heard about open adoption?

When we first heard about open adoption, it was the first day of our group class for our home study. While we never imagined adopting a child and then never telling them they were adopted or not "allowing" them to meet their birth parents, we had no idea about the concept of open adoption. I will say, that day was very rough. The second day was even harder because the counselor leading that day was very bottom line about it. When many of the prospective parents kept asking questions about it, clearly not understanding the concept, the counselor just kept saying, "Don't worry about it now, you'll get it later." At one point, I even think they said something like, "You're child will always have a piece of them missing that you can never know, and may or may not be filled."

After learning some more, and talking to other adoptive parents, we learned that many couples have this same initiation into open adoption. While they are a force for good, many counselors forget that they are talking to a room full of people who probably can not have a biological child, are just learning to come to terms with that and accept that loss, and have more than likely been on a long journey where at every turn they are told the limitations and complications they will face to starting a family.

A Not So Nervous Day - Individual Interviews

Last week, we both had our individual interviews for our home study. Afterwards we went down to the farm for the weekend to visit with DH's parents so I've just had a chance to write about this big week for us.

First, let me go ahead and say that it is not an interview at all. I know a lot of prospective parents who are very nervous and anxious about the interviews and home visit, so let me assure you that it is nothing like a test or a job interview. In the beginning, we were very apprehensive over the interviews and the home visit too, worried and fearful that we were being judged and tested. I mean, four months ago, I was going over everything I had ever done in my entire life, and fretting about what I would need to disclose and if
I needed to confess that I drank alcohol before turning 21 or would sneak my grandmother's cigarettes.

First Interaction With a Birthmother

I just had my first interaction with a birthmother.

Let me back up. When we started down this journey of adoption and learning about it, we were very ignorant of the reality of adoption. As one of the adoptees that spoke at our group class, we didn't realize that adoption "wasn't like the movie Juno." Our group classes spent a lot of time going over triad training and birthmothers, etc. We felt like we had been pushed into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim.

Back From DC and the Adoption Conference

We are back from DC and what a trip. First, the conference itself didn’t have wi-fi so we couldn’t live tweet. Too expensive. We tried to hack into another conference going on, but password protected. So we have a bunch to talk about and get out. DH has about 10 pages of typed-notes from the panel sessions (probably more like 6 but 10 seems more intense so I went with that, but he hates when I exaggerate a story for impact.) (Aren't we exciting enough?-DH) We heard from some very inspiring speakers, many of them adoptive mothers who cried during their presentations which spoke to me on the extremely-dramatic-public-displays-of-emotion level that I identify with and appreciate. Just ask my Resolve group. So, we need to gather our reactions and will blog about those more thoughtfully, because there is some great inspiring things there. However, let’s share some superficial observations from the conference...

2011 National Adoption Conference

Yo yo! We are totally driving from Nashville to DC in one day so we can go to the 2011 National Adoption Conference this weekend, Friday and Saturday. Our scheduled time of departure is 5:00am Thursday morning. Don't worry, we are some road warriors and live for this kind of thing. We also drove up to the John Stewart Rally last October with much the same enthusiasm.

We are going to live tweet the event and share exciting and inspiring and informational stuff we learn. Hope the conference hotel has free wi-fi. If not, we may just blog about it later, because the ghetto hotel we are staying in four miles from the conference surely doesn't have free internet access.

So, looking forward to an emotionally draining and sensory overloading weekend about adoption!! Let's do this!

Researching Adoption Agencies and Clearing Our First Hurdle

When we first began looking into adoption we knew absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. We had seen the movie Juno. However, when it began our turn to learn about options we had no idea where to start. I even pictured orphanages where we would adopt children who had lost their parents. I guess I had just watched Cider House Rules as well that week. Not even thinking that those children were probably in the hands of loving grandparents or other relatives.

She Said...

Where to begin? I love my husband. We want children but we can not have a biological child. We are going to adopt. We have been fighting for the past year.

Exactly one year ago this month was our first of what would become six unsuccessful donor IUIs. For the past year we have been battling infertility on our own. I use the word battling on purpose. I do try to use positive words, like challenge instead of problem, but I do believe it is a battle. You must be strong. You must be well-prepared. You must be able to accept defeat and try another day. And it does leave scars.