Adoption 101

I'm an aunt!!! I now carry the wonderful and beautiful title of Aunt Erica! Bradley and I became uncle and aunt on November 3rd of this year to a beautiful baby boy. He, his mother and father are doing well and as all you parents know, adjusting to the changes of going from 2 to 2plus1. Bradley and I will get to meet him next week and I have every intention of showering him with affection and admiration for as long as his mom & dad will let me. Hearing the news of my sister-in-law's labor had me so anxious for the 24hrs until he was born. I was so excited and nervous and concerned and eager that I could not sleep well and had to try very hard to focus on work. And to finally have seen a photo of him, I just teared up and melted. There he was. Our tiny little nephew. I cannot wait to hold him and look at his miniature fingernails and toes and ears and nose. I can't wait to hear his little coos and burps and farts. I can't wait to see him looking around and falling asleep. Little guy. It's always been wonderful and sweet to see friends' babies and children but it's a much deeper rooted love and sense of aww when it's your brother/sister (in-law)'s child. What joy he brings to our family!

Adoption stuff:

So we've attended two of the required classes for our home study. In our class there are 5 couples including Bradley and me who are first time adoptive parents. One couple already has a child and the rest of us are going to be first time parents. All but one couple are adopting domestically at this point but that sort of thing can change. Our first class felt a bit like the first day of a college course. We had an icebreaker and followed a power point for a good portion of the time. We were given a bound packet of papers to keep and follow along. It's got articles and outlines and info galore! Though I've learned a lot about the history of adoption and stages of grief and of emotions that all parties share, I have to say one of my favorite parts has been getting to meet a family who has adopted, in each class. So far we met a couple who adopted an infant out of state and had a most wonderful experience and another couple who adopted (twice now) from Korea. The domestic adoption was the first introduced. They were present for the birth of their child, allowed to stay in the hospital with their child on the second night, and able to take the child home with them 2 days later when the child was released from the hospital. They have a strong relationship with the mother and family and have grown close to them, making it a wonderful opportunity for their child to some day know his/her birth parents. Of course, most adoptions do not happen that way and parents are not always able to bring home their child so quickly, but it was a beautiful account of a precious moment in all their lives. We also get to meet the children who join the families which is fun. And I love to see the little babies! The international adoption brought to light what a journey (literally and figuratively) it can be to simply meet and bring home your child. While they had a good experience, there are things they are learning about cross cultural adoptions that were, I think, helpful to hear.

We've also met cool couples in our class and I'm very excited for them as well! Some are already in the waiting pool and some are, like us, just about to turn everything in and join the club. Bradley and I have turned everything in, minus one thing Bradley has left to do, and then we will have our second interview, have our homevisit(s)and get approved for the waiting list. Our last big piece of the puzzle while waiting to meet mothers will be to create a scrapbook on Shutterfly to introduce ourselves to the mothers/fathers looking to find good homes for their child(ren). I think I'll start on the scrapbook tonight. I'm so very excited to put it together and yet, there is a little pressure as we have to represent ourselves briefly in only the few pages of this book. That first impression is what sparks or quenches a mother's interest in us and will help her decide if we are the right parents for her child. One couple showed us their book (it was so well put together!) and said the hardest part was finding photos to represent all they do in their lives. Usually people don't have photos of many of the things they like to do, like running or cooking, knitting, painting, volunteering. I didn't really think about it until they mentioned it so we'll be taking a lot of pictures of us doing regular things so we can "demonstrate" our lives in a nutshell. Exciting! YAY! If you have the perfect candid (or I guess posed) shot of us, feel free to e-mail it to me and it may just make it into the book! It doesn't have to be just of Bradley and/or me. We want pictures that represent our lives, including friends and family. Join us in our preparations for this little one's mother and/or father to consider us a good home!

And now I think I will start on that album. Fun fun fun! Night night and have a wonderful, lovely, love-filled Thanksgiving!

Autobiography

Today I printed off my autobiography draft!!! My life condensed into 15 pages. The required content touched on my upbringing, my parents' marriage, our courtship and marriage, how we came to decide on adoption, disciplinary thoughts, etc. So many milestones are left out but it's intended to give the agency a glimpse into our lives so that our second interview does not have to answer all those questions in person. The autobiography has been the most difficult and time consuming part of the process and once Bradley finishes his, we will submit the full packet of paperwork we've been working on for months. Our first required class begins on November 7th. We'll be meeting with other adopting parents and have guest speakers including families who have already adopted through the agency. There are about 5 of these classes, each 3 hours in length spread out over approximately one month's time.

My sister highly recommends that Bradley and I attend a parenting class taught by Ken West who she has taken classes from in her master's program. I think we will look into that and if anyone else has some suggestions for helpful classes for first time parents, please feel free to comment on here and throw us some suggestions.

Everyone have a safe and happy Halloween tomorrow!
-Erica

Just for the chance to be considered...

Of course going into this, we knew there would be a lot of paperwork. Gathering and signing documents. Writing our autobiographies. Submitting background checks and re-writing the same information about yourself on what feels like one hundred different forms. There is a lot of work to be done still. Even just today I spent about 4-5 solid hours just filling out forms, locating proofs of various insurance, sifting through bank statements and averaging our net income vs our net expenses vs our net worth! When I thought I must have gotten every last bit of information I could possibly be asked for, something else came up that I had to find amid all our purged or not yet filed piles of papers. Occasionally I'd take a form to Bradley to review and sign and sneak in a hug to boost me for the next hour. I have to say, as much time as it's taken to just do a portion of one of the first steps in the process, this is some of what I've gotten out of it:
1) I was very productive today. I managed to make breakfast and serve it to B in bed for a nice anniversary treat, got laundry done, did dishes and had a little singing time, cleaned up the kitchen, took care of the cats and jumped on-line here and there. All this was done before I ever started the paperwork because I wanted to have no distractions tugging on my mind. So way to get moving and on it, Me!
2) It occurred to me about 3 hours into the paperwork that as much as I sighed and huffed each time I marched down the stairs only to realize I needed to march right back up for something else, I was collecting this for the chance to be considered by a mother out there to raise her child. Each of these redundant forms is going to help the agency and a mother feel confident that Bradley and I meet the most basic qualifications to be parents. The paperwork alone won't give a clue about if we will be "good" parents but it will help the agency to know that we have no major holdbacks and that like anybody wanting to adopt, we too deserve a chance to be considered, so bring on the paperwork if this is what it takes!
3) If you've read my first or second blog you may remember that I have always been very fascinated with pregnancy and all the things that a woman goes through as she cradles a baby in her womb. Knowing I am not likely to have that, I can re-direct my energy to working towards this child by way of doing... all the paperwork it entails. It may not be as fun in some peoples' eyes, but I'm going to try to convince you otherwise! Each stroke of my pen and each clickity clackity on the keyboard is my time spent preparing for this child outside of my body rather than my preparing a child in me. And once the forms are all signed and dated, the autobiographies completed and the scrapbook of our lives closed, I will spend my time praying for the mother who will host our child and that she will be healthy. I will pray for her as she comes to terms with her decision to give her child up for adoption and as she seeks out the right home for her child. And I will pray for the child who could even already be born at this time. IN fact, (brace yourself) the child to join us some day could be delivered as I type this very sentence and the mother could be thinking about the future parents of her child! Wow! How's that for deep?! While the connection to our future child is unknown still, this paperwork, crazy and a bit of a stretch as it seems, is our proverbial pregnancy...

So I send this out into the great wide world; good night sweet mother and child or future child. May your time together be blessed with safety and health and know that we will love you/your child with all that we have in us.

Nursing an adopted baby...

Did you know that a woman can breast feed a child she did not give birth to. Ever heard of a wet nurse? For most of my life I thought it was peculiar that there was such a thing as a wet nurse. I assumed that the way it worked was that a royal woman (too busy or uncomfortable with the idea) or one who could not produce milk would seek out a woman who was with child or currently nursing and ask her to nurse in the mother's place. I presumed this would go on for as long as requested and then the nursing mother would finally be able to return to her own child whom she had been neglecting all the while. I never questioned my assumptions and it wasn't until a few years ago that I spoke with a friend who has adopted an infant and shared her story with me. When she mentioned she had nursed the child I was confused. It turns out that milk production is not directly related to pregnancy, although pregnancy of course stimulates milk production. There are different ways to stimulate milk production and you can research that on your own or talk to me privately.
But isn't that neat?!
Being a huge advocate for breast feeding babies, I was thrilled to learn this and it took no time before I was reading up on it and had decided that I would want to try that if ever I adopted an infant. Though some find it controversial, I have trouble understanding why. Nursing a child is perfectly natural and there is so much history and research to back the benefits of it (oral motor strengthening, bonding between mother and child, immune system boosts, nourishment at it's purest level, saving money and time, and more). A woman's body is beautifully designed to carry and nurture a child both during and after pregnancy and when a woman and child can nurse effectively, I encourage it.
Thank you, dear friend (I hope you know who you are)for sharing your story with me so that I may some day try to nourish my child in this precious way.

Donations welcome

I've now set up a PayPal account to accept donations. All money will go directly to application, agency, home study and legal fees only. (This does not include hospital fees for the birth mother and typical costs for having a child, as we had planned for such expenses if we were to have children "biologically"). Thank you for your support!

I've been trying to set up a paypal account for donations for the past two hours and have only managed to somehow post it to a blog instead of to the home page. I'm not even certain it can be accessed by people or how to get it to accept credit card or "other amount" donations. However, I'm exhausted and not up to putting more time into it right now. If anyone else knows how to customize the paypal widget, please feel free to contact me for your help!
Tootles and have a nice evening everyone!

Put on your nose plug... this blog is getting deep!

So, have you ever wondered what goes into adopting a child through an agency?  It's quite a self-exploration as you delve into your parents' history, your childhood memories and upbringing, your personal goals and beliefs regarding work and philosophies, views on discipline and child rearing, preferences for age, ethnicity, gender not to mention your reason for adopting.  While initially all these "questions" seemed like no brainers to answer, it has surprised me how difficult it was to write my responses.  Not only is it something that we don't often ponder for long periods of time... weeks and months even... but these are questions that evoke untapped and unexplored feelings.  So how do I feel about having an older child versus an infant?  Which country would I like to adopt from?  What specifically am I against regarding punitive discipline and why?  These are no longer private conversations only between my husband and me, but now we must explain and justify each of our beliefs to an agency who will determine, in part, who may be placed in our care; which child will be considered to become our child? And what if what I say is misunderstood? Will the slip of my finger on the keyboard interrupt the delicate plan of our family future?

This strange and rhetorical questions comes to mind repeatedly; "Isn't it strange to have a say so in choosing our child?"  I mean when a woman finds she is pregnant she must take care of her body and plan for the arrival of her child when it leaves her womb.  When a woman wants to adopt a child she must answer questions to help identify who her child will be...specifically.  I may be rambling and perhaps not making much sense but I suppose that is the point of blogging.  I just feel strange in a way to have a choice in the matter, to choose or not choose a particular group of children based on the check box options on our application.  Whether the outcome is intentional, checking a particular age group or domestic vs. international child could automatically eliminate children from crossing our paths at all.  I have to admit, it's a bit uncomfortable to be required to make such choices. I almost felt guilty at times, as though I were being asked to describe our "ideal" child...when shouldn't we just be happy with any child?   I have had plenty of day dreams and sleeping dreams about a baby being left on our doorstep for us to care for.  A Benjamin Button story of sorts.  How simple that would be, right? (ha!) No need for checking for typos or unclear explanations that could be the reason for a rejection letter or being passed over by a birth parent. Just, "here! now this child is yours and you are to raise it lovingly."  And we live happily ever after! Right?  Yet, that isn't to say that being such an active part of the finding and welcoming of our child is undesirable, because it has been an exciting and welcomed experience thus far.  I feel blessed to be considered as a potential mother for her child and it would not be so if we didn't make choices to seek out adoption in the first place.  I do understand that there are many many children in need and want of a great home who we could love and raise with whole-hearted support but due to a more obvious obstacle (aka "dinero") we are only permitted the opportunity to welcome one for now, and what a wonderful "one" he or she will be. 

I suppose it's hard to understand what I mean by all this.  It's neither a complaint nor a praise, but just something that has crossed my mind. Whether you've considered adoption or not, asking yourself some of those questions may open a window within you that you may not have ever opened otherwise.  You may learn something new about yourself, as I am doing daily. 

Tonight I wish you introspect as you click out of this blog. May getting to know your inner philosophies be an enlightening experience.   

Heartbreaks and Fist Pumps!

Before we ever married, we had both talked about the idea of possibly adopting a child some day. So here we are, nearly four years later, with the choices before us to help us become parents; medical surgery (not guaranteed and possibly expensive), IVF (not guaranteed and very expensive), donor (not so much) and adoption. 

As far back as I can remember, I've been excited to be pregnant some day.  As a little girl I would put a ball under my shirt or stick out my belly and pretend I was going to be a mommy.  As a teenager I loved holding little babies and thinking that some day I might hold my own child like that.  In college, the girls on my hall could likely set their watches by my routine of watching TLC's "A Baby Story".  Fascinated by the idea that some day I would have a teeny tiny little person growing inside me, I watched intently thinking, "When I'm pregnant, I will be so distracted with trying to feel every flutter of my baby and every symptom of pregnancy that I will certainly be of no use to anyone but the child I would be hosting." 

For the first year and a half of our marriage I waited, prayed and tried to will the first symptom of pregnancy into reality.  Month after month I received only devastating reminders that, once again, I was not pregnant.  At times I would tell myself it was no big deal.  Other times, it was as though I had lost all hope.  Shaking I would wait for test results just knowing I haaaadddd to be pregnant "this time".  That would be followed with tears and an empty pit in my stomach for a day or two or more.  Eventually, we began talking about the what ifs.  What if we're doing something wrong?  Maybe our diet or stress from work were to blame.  Maybe we were too focused on trying.  It felt like everyone I met asked/asks when we are going to have children and when we would say we were trying, they'd all say... "Oh just don't think about it.  Stop expecting to get pregnant and you'll get pregnant."  Easy for everyone with child to say.  I knew that people were just trying to be supportive and optimistic, but it turns out I felt that I was to blame because I couldn't "just stop thinking about it".  "Stop Stressing, Erica!!" I'd tell myself.  "Just don't worry about it!"  Sometimes I believed I had stopped worrying about it.  That is, until the next month rolled around and I realized I was heartbroken, yet again.  We finally began to see doctors.  Painfully, we rejected the first professional opinion and sought another doctor. We took time off work and drove to Charlottesville to speak with a surgeon (who we thought was also a fertility specialist) and after navigating the small country that the hospital is, we landed ourselves in the patient room covered with Bob the Builder decals and a miniature chair that was clearly for either an elf or a 4 year old.  Of course I sat in the mini lawn chair as we waited for Dr. Dread spend all of 5 minutes with us and then to tell us we really should just skip other options (that we thought we were there for) and go straight for IVF for the limited time offer of $10,000 and No Guarantee!!!  SWEEET!!!!  (I am exaggerating a bit...ehem).  However, the news was not hopeful and we left the office for a long hour and 20 minute drive home to start back at square one.  Talk of what to do next ceased for a long time after that. 

Slowly (we're talking another year or so) I began accepting the fact that we would not be having children without outside intervention or help.  It was not until then that we began planning, once again, for a family.  I began researching different organizations, asking questions and listening intently to the stories of others who I knew had adopted a child.  It was June 27th of this year that we attended an informational meeting at an agency I had researched and heard great reviews about.  We left that night with an application in our hands and having had two hours of adoption 101 flashed before us via power point.  But we knew.  After about 10 minutes of quiet pondering, Bradley turned to me in the car as we drove home and said, "I think we should get started on the application".  I turned and smiled and said something like, "Yah? Good. I think so too."  My internal dialogue, however, was shouting, "Hallelujah! Yes yes yes!" and I was pumping my fist and elbow discretely next to the passenger side arm rest, unbeknownst to Bradley.  Of course, the following night I began filling that application out and organizing our paperwork.  The application itself costs money to submit and requests a lot of detailed information that had to be gathered.  After a dermatology appointment (what we now refer to as the worst practical joke we've experienced together... but that's another blog) we headed to simply hand in our application before heading to lunch.  The lady who received our application happened to be just the right person and she asked us if we could wait a few moments while she reviewed it.  She returned shortly after and invited us to stay a bit longer for a first interview.  There was only one slot available and the night before was an orientation so she expected more applications right away.  However, she was interested in talking with us.  We agreed and after a first interview, we were given another set of papers.  These were the biggies and they came with big instructions.  

So here we are at the next stage of the adoption process.  Filling out forms, writing our autobiographies, gathering documentations of finances, previous addresses, photos for a scrapbook, references, etc. and all the while imagining that once we turn in our paperwork... when we hand it all over and complete the rest of our home study... we will be that much closer to being parents.  It could be 6 months from then or 3 years.  God alone knows the specifics.  But we are on our way to becoming parents and one fine day, the phone will ring and we'll get the call saying, "There is a lady who wants to meet you," and we will introduce ourselves to the birthmother of our child.  I smile just to type the words, "our child". Sigh...

Okay... okay... that's enough sap for one night. I have so much more to share but I must sleep.
Thanks for "stopping by".

Baby Steps

Welcome to our journey to parenthood!  Bradley and I want to thank you for stopping by our blog. 
As you may know or are about to find out, we are on our way to becoming parents.  Though it's been an emotional time over the last three years as we've struggled with infertility, we have found peace in the decision to adopt a child.  Our hope for this blog is to invite our community of friends and family to participate in and/or follow the process as we navigate the road of growing our family.  Adoption requires a lot of time, money, paperwork, legal appointments, preparation and patience before we even know when we will become parents... possibly before our child is even conceived.   We welcome your support along the way, in any way, shape or form and hope you find this journey as exciting as we do.