Monday, September 27, 2010
Nothing
It occurred to me last week that I haven't put anything on this blog in a really long time. Sadly, there is really nothing to talk about. We are waiting. Every week I check in with our social worker and every week she tells me there is no movement. What happened to, "hurry up and get your home study done cause you'll be placed immediately" or all those agencies begging us to go with them because they have such a need for families open to AA babies??? It absolutely sucks. I know we will get the perfect girl for us and it will happen on Gods time, not ours. Seriously though--its been 4 months since we finished the home study. Some people didn't think we'd wait 4 days. I'm trying to be patient, I try not to think about it some days, I try to stay positive. I try to think about our friends who have been matched with the most handsome baby boy who are going to meet him next month just to turn around and leave him in Ethiopia for a few more months. I think about the China program we almost went with way back when. We would still have a 3+ year wait if we stuck with that program. Really, 4 months is nothing. We can do it, and it will be so worth it!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Domestic training
Our adoption agency requires every family working with them to attend a training class put on by the social workers. When I first heard about the training class, I was a bit annoyed. First, we have already gone through a ton of training. Second, its in Columbus on a Friday. That meant Jon had to use a vacation day to sit in a class room.
It turned out to be not so bad. We turned it into a fun weekend, which you can read about here.
It wasn't the emotional, heart wrenching stuff we discussed in our training back in February. It was specific to the domestic adoption process. We covered every step start to finish. We heard from a birth mom that placed her baby up for adoption. She was very open about her story, how she came to each decision (adoption, the agency, picking a family etc). We talked about some new Ohio laws and court cases which are currently changing laws. We talked about meeting birth moms, gifts, potential areas of concern, walking the line between being happy about the baby and not ignoring the birth mom and finished with the finalization process. I thought I had all the information I needed especially being this far into the process, but I still learned quite a bit.
The hard part is to think about how random the process is. We have been turned down by a birth mom because she wanted her daughter to be an only child, at least for now. The birth mom that came to talk to us wanted the same thing. Its hard to hear that and slightly discouraging, but then they reminded us that just as many moms want their kids to grow up with siblings and seek out families with kids. Race has also been an issue for us. It matters quite a bit to some people and not at all to others. The same can be said for our religion, pets, hobbies, jobs, pictures we put on the profile etc. We will be the absolutely last choice for some, but the perfect choice for one mom. That isn't reassuring for a control freak like me! A friend told Jon that this is the best place to be right now. Its out of our hands and in Gods hands. We have no pressure. All our work is done. In a way thats comforting, but in a way it doesn't really make it any easier.
We did get a pleasant surprise. Another family in the training class is from Lakewood. We also met a family from Bay Village and North Royalton. We are on our way to starting a Cleveland adoption support group. We also got to finally meet our social worker. I've been talking to her at least once a week for the past 4 months. It was great to put a face to the voice.
So now we are home and back to the reality of waiting. Back to pushing the anticipation to the back of our heads and praying for more patience.
It turned out to be not so bad. We turned it into a fun weekend, which you can read about here.
It wasn't the emotional, heart wrenching stuff we discussed in our training back in February. It was specific to the domestic adoption process. We covered every step start to finish. We heard from a birth mom that placed her baby up for adoption. She was very open about her story, how she came to each decision (adoption, the agency, picking a family etc). We talked about some new Ohio laws and court cases which are currently changing laws. We talked about meeting birth moms, gifts, potential areas of concern, walking the line between being happy about the baby and not ignoring the birth mom and finished with the finalization process. I thought I had all the information I needed especially being this far into the process, but I still learned quite a bit.
The hard part is to think about how random the process is. We have been turned down by a birth mom because she wanted her daughter to be an only child, at least for now. The birth mom that came to talk to us wanted the same thing. Its hard to hear that and slightly discouraging, but then they reminded us that just as many moms want their kids to grow up with siblings and seek out families with kids. Race has also been an issue for us. It matters quite a bit to some people and not at all to others. The same can be said for our religion, pets, hobbies, jobs, pictures we put on the profile etc. We will be the absolutely last choice for some, but the perfect choice for one mom. That isn't reassuring for a control freak like me! A friend told Jon that this is the best place to be right now. Its out of our hands and in Gods hands. We have no pressure. All our work is done. In a way thats comforting, but in a way it doesn't really make it any easier.
We did get a pleasant surprise. Another family in the training class is from Lakewood. We also met a family from Bay Village and North Royalton. We are on our way to starting a Cleveland adoption support group. We also got to finally meet our social worker. I've been talking to her at least once a week for the past 4 months. It was great to put a face to the voice.
So now we are home and back to the reality of waiting. Back to pushing the anticipation to the back of our heads and praying for more patience.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Strike 2
I was on the phone yesterday with our social worker and she happened to mention a mom that was at Metro hospital who gave birth to a girl Tuesday night. She decided not to keep the baby and the agency had a social worker on her way to Metro to talk to her. It never occurred to me that they would place babies born in Cleveland. I found out they actually go to Metro and Fairview quite a bit. Unfortunately (for us), the mom picked an African American family for her baby. They were the only AA family on the list so I guess with every baby we get closer and closer, but that doesn't really make it any easier. Our social worker tried to stay positive for me. She reminded me that August and September are the busiest months for them--all the New Years babies! Last week I talked to a friend of mine that recently adopted her second baby. She said that when we get our girl, we will be so happy we got passed up by the other moms because our girl will be perfect for us. It was comforting to hear, exciting to know how true that will be, but it doesn't make that "no" phone call any easier.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Rejection
Rejection sucks. When someone who is holding your potential future child in their hands rejects you, it sucks even more. Last week we were presented to a mom who is having a baby girl in August. She is young and already has 3 kids. The dad is gone and she decided to give her girl up for adoption. She doesn't live near the agency so when we got the call 10 days ago asking if we wanted to be presented, we knew it would be a bit of a wait. Mail time for the profiles, the holiday and lots of thinking on her part. We got the call this morning that she has decided on a family that doesn't have any kids. It does hurt, but at the same time its ok. If she rejected us because we already have kids, then its her (and her daughters) loss. We have great kids and our little girl will be lucky to have Ben and Sam as big brothers. I'm just glad it wasn't something silly in our profiles. Something that I'd be kicking myself about and wondering why I put whatever the issue is in there or why I didn't add something she might have been looking for in a family.
She isn't due until the end of August so even if she did pick us, that would have been almost 2 months of excitement, but also worrying that she would change her mind. Maybe God knew that would drive me crazy so he is sparing me all that craziness. Jon told me today that he would prefer an ER baby. A drop your stuff and come get your baby call. After thinking through this situation, I think I might prefer that too. So, we will continue to wait. When its right, it will happen.
She isn't due until the end of August so even if she did pick us, that would have been almost 2 months of excitement, but also worrying that she would change her mind. Maybe God knew that would drive me crazy so he is sparing me all that craziness. Jon told me today that he would prefer an ER baby. A drop your stuff and come get your baby call. After thinking through this situation, I think I might prefer that too. So, we will continue to wait. When its right, it will happen.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A good idea...on paper
This weekend Lakewood hosted a 3 day city wide sale. Basically a bunch of businesses on Detroit and Madison had street sales. Since so many people would be out wandering the streets, it was the perfect time for residents to have yard sales. The city even organized a website with a listing of all the residential sales so shoppers could plan the best routes. Debbie and I decided to have another adoption yard sale. We didn't enlist a lot of help. We figured everything should be well organized and priced after our last sale..... wrong! The clothes did us in. Hanging what was on hangers, hanging more on hangers, organizing kid clothes, laying out adults shirts, took for ever. We forgot that it started raining at the end of our last sale and the clothes got thrown all together in no particular order. We started bringing over what we were storing at 4pm. I didn't get home until 11pm! At least it was really well organized so we didn't have to get up too early Saturday morning.
We had made our first buck in less than 5 minutes so we had high hopes. Unfortunately, that was the only excitement for a while. We had bursts of people, but we found out that their were around 90 sales going on, not including businesses. People were out, but they had a lot to see so we didn't get the traffic we saw for our last sale. We ended up making about a third of what we did at the beginning of the month. That stunk, but we still managed to have some fun. We thought about doing one more sale, but we decided we're done. We split some of the bigger items that didn't sell and we'll try to get rid of them on Craigs List. The rest is going to the City Mission and Good Will. The sales were a good experience, but I wont be doing another one ANY time soon!
We had made our first buck in less than 5 minutes so we had high hopes. Unfortunately, that was the only excitement for a while. We had bursts of people, but we found out that their were around 90 sales going on, not including businesses. People were out, but they had a lot to see so we didn't get the traffic we saw for our last sale. We ended up making about a third of what we did at the beginning of the month. That stunk, but we still managed to have some fun. We thought about doing one more sale, but we decided we're done. We split some of the bigger items that didn't sell and we'll try to get rid of them on Craigs List. The rest is going to the City Mission and Good Will. The sales were a good experience, but I wont be doing another one ANY time soon!
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