Birth Mother Contact

Over the last couple of weeks we have been talking with a potential birth mother on the phone and online. Andy and I were really excited about it and thought that she was the perfect birth mother for us. We got news yesterday though that she had chosen another family that is local to where she lives to place with.

It was hard to get that news and hear that she didn’t choose us, but we are happy that she found a family that she has decided to match with. We also knew something had seemed off the last few days as we hadn’t heard from her in almost a week about how things were going for her and we were getting much more contact initially.

We are trying to keep positive that one day soon we will find the right birth mother and be chosen ourselves. After talking with her it is hard to imagine connecting like we did with her to another birth mother but we know that there are other potential birth mothers out there that we will talk to and connect with as well.

On another note though we found out that the agency is running low on our dear birth mother letters that they send out to potential people and we need to send them more. It is great knowing so many people have seen our profile and will possibly choose us out of the hundreds of waiting families with our agency!

More Paperwork

So as the year is starting to wind down and our schedules are starting to wind up with things for the holidays with friends and family it is also the time of year when we need to do more paperwork for the adoption. A decent portion of the paperwork needed for our home study needs to be renewed every year to keep our profile active. Now that we know what paperwork is needed it will hopefully not be so daunting of a task.

I remember going through the list last year at first and thinking it was going to take forever to fill everything out for the home study to be complete. Now though I am looking at the list of 10 or so documents that need to be done and I am thinking oh well that will be easy I can get all that done in a week no big deal. Although, it does help that the biography and question forms are not needed again because I think those two things took longer than most of our other paperwork and the rest was just finding the time in our schedule to get them done.

The one part that we can’t speed up no matter how hard we try is the FBI fingerprints that need to be completed. For that one item it can take up to 12 weeks to process them. Last year I think it took closer to 8 weeks only and I am really hoping that it is that fast again this year but you never know really.

Here’s hoping for a quick review/processing of some of the documents!

Baby Shower Poll

As we are waiting for a birth mother to choose us we have been slowly buying all the things we will need to bring home a baby. At this point we already have all of our furniture, a large portion of the other necessities (bottles, wipes, car seat, etc.), and a few outfits in varying sizes.

Andy and I have talked about it before and were thinking that a welcome to the world shower after we bring home the baby makes the most sense to us. Part of this is because we don’t know when we will adopt and whether we will be adopting a boy or a girl so everything has to be gender neutral now. Also, we thought it would be a great way to have all our close friends and family to meet the newest addition to our family. The only downside at this point seems to be that we can’t stop buying things for the baby ourselves and we have gotten a lot of stuff from friends and family that they weren’t using any longer or that they bought for us just because.

I for one would be happy to just have a “shower” celebrating the creation of our family and not about getting the gifts or things we will need for the baby. However, I know there are some friends who are excited about our adoption too and would like to buy things for the baby as well. So I thought I would ask all of our followers out there what they think we should do? I am not saying we will definitely go with the poll results on our decision but it might help Andy and I decide what will work best for us 😉

Being a Favorite Family

Since we are with the IAC (Independent Adoption Center) we get opportunities to have our profile viewed both online through a website called IHeartAdoption and also through physical copies of our profile that our agency will send out. This is great since currently online profiles and information is so widely used first for research or information before talking to people. We like that our profile is out there possibly being seen by many potential birth mothers. The website sends us updates to our email if we have received any action on the online profile. This could be either a new message from a potential birth mother or that our profile was liked by a potential birth mother.

However, becoming a favorite family can be quite nerve racking we have recently learned. Back in August we had gotten an email from the site telling us that we were selected as a favorite family. At first this seemed like such a great email to get to know that someone was looking at our profile and liked what they saw. Then after we didn’t have any other contact after that it started to be frustrating. You start to get your hopes up that someone is interested in finding out more about you as potential adoptive parents and then for some reason they choose someone else or change their mind and you are never really aware of what has happened.

What is so difficult of that though is that you have that initial communication with no information other than someone somewhere out in cyberspace created an account and liked us. I think that in some ways it might have been better to not know at all at that point in time. As it is the adoption process is such a roller coaster to begin with for your emotions and if I never would have known we were selected as a favorite I wouldn’t have had that week of anxiously waiting for more contact and the disappointment when nothing came of it.

Maybe it is just my personality and other people like that they know when it happens. For me though this is one of the cases I would rather have been blissfully unaware that there was a potential out there and nothing that we could do about it.

Our Adoption Journey So Far

One year ago today we leapt into adoption with both feet. We had spent a couple months looking at information online, talking to friends who knew some adoption agencies, and getting emailed information from so many different types of agencies. Then a year ago we went to our first in person introduction meeting with an agency. We met not only some great people in our class who were looking into the prospects of adoption but also met a great counselor that made us feel so relaxed and at peace with our decision to move forward.

It might have seemed like we should do more research and try out a few other agencies first before picking the agency that would have a lot to do with the start of our family but we just knew that this was the right decision. I am not one to make even small decisions on a whim normally and want to have all my facts but after talking to the counselor I couldn’t see myself being any happier with another agency than I was that day.

We ended up setting up our appointment to attend the weekend intensive workshop at our agency and to start filling out paperwork for the home study that same day as the introduction and we haven’t really looked back since. Our counselor that led the weekend intensive and subsequently became our counselor throughout the adoption process ended up being the same woman who gave us the intro! Definitely lucky to have been with her from the very beginning because although the other counselors at the agency are great and would have helped us just like her we already had such a great connection and felt that everything kind of came together the way it should.

Adoption overall seems to be something that was supposed to happen for us because ever since we started the process I have felt so much more calm and relaxed about starting a family. When we were going through the period of fertility treatments and testing I was always stressed and anxious each month on if I had done everything I could to get pregnant. Now though, I have done everything I can and short of doing more and more networking to find a birth mother (and birth father) there isn’t anything we can do to bring a child home and into our arms any faster. I know that sooner or later the right child will be born for us and we will get to bring them home and watch them grow up.

Andy has not been as calm as I have during the waiting period I don’t believe as he is anxious and he is not a fan of not knowing how much longer it will be. I think if we were both stressed about the wait we would drive each other crazy but right now I get to be the one who reassures him that IT WILL happen for us and we will be great parents one day soon.

I am not sure if I would be so calm and relaxed if it wasn’t for having such a great agency that has not only given us the initial classes but also books, videos, group meetings, and personal counseling when we have questions about something going on in the adoption process. We would like to say thanks so much to the Independent Adoption Center (IAC) for all the work and help that they give to adoptive and birth families out there and for their continued work in helping with the policies around adoption!

Adoptive Mom Quote

Adoptive Mom? I am a Mom. I need no other label or prefix.
Joanne Greco

Faces of Adoption

It’s amazing that as we have started the process of adoption we have noticed other friends and acquaintances that are also going through the adoption process as well. It seemed like not that long ago I couldn’t have told you a single person I knew that was adopted, had adopted a child, or was hoping to adopt a child and now we know so many.

Part of that is due to the fact that we have met and become friends with some great people through our agency but most of them are people we already knew in some way. The people we have met through our agency have been great sounding boards for us about the adoption since although parts of the adoption process are always the same there are other pieces that depend on what type of adoption and which agency you choose. They know exactly what forms and requirements we have to deal with and what the process is to being picked and finally to bringing home a baby!

We appreciate everyone out there that in one way or another has helped us during this time and been there when we needed someone to talk to especially our families who have been there for us to talk to during the fertility treatments and also now the adoption process.

Phone calls

So after months of what seems like hundreds of phone calls on our 800 number where there is no one there and it is just dead silence (some spam tele-marketing thing) we get a phone call tonight that neither of us hear as we were in a restaurant. The depressing part is that it actually sounded like there was a person on the other end in the voice mail but no one was talking in the message. While there have also been calls from people looking for another business it is exciting to think that there might be someone trying to get a hold of us again.

Ironically, Andy and I were talking over dinner about how with all the fake or wrong numbers we have gotten neither of us are sure if we would know what to do or say again if we were to be contacted by a birth mother. I guess it is time to pull out our binder and do some reading again to familiarize ourselves with the information we are suppose to mention and potential things we should talk about. The first time we were contacted by a birth mother it had been just 1 week after we had gone live with our page and phone number and we were both a little flustered as to what to say on the phone so we had talked about the kinds of questions we should ask and things to say but apparently my brain has not kept up with that information.

With that first phone call Andy had let me do all the talking as he sat next to me and all I can remember at this point was my heart racing a mile a minute and feeling like I didn’t know what to say because I was so excited and never thought that we would have our first contact so soon. You figure some people do get matched fast with open adoption but after only being on the list for a week I thought that we still had time to prepare what to do when we got a phone call. Now half a year later I still think that if we were to get a call from another potential match my heart would still be racing a mile a minute even if I knew the right things to say and do.

Here’s to hoping we get another phone call from whoever tried to get a hold of us tonight!

Infant CPR Class

This past weekend while we were out shopping for a friend’s baby shower we had stopped into Babies ‘R Us and decided to sign up for Infant CPR Class. It is something that we have talked about for a while now and with the holidays fast approaching we figure there won’t be much time to attend such a class if we happen to match during the next 3 or 4 months.

We got to find out about not only the CPR class but also some other classes that they offer to new parents that sound like would be really helpful once we have adopted and brought home a child.  On their monthly schedule it even includes a class on Adoptive Families Chat & Play, however it is not listed in our area. It would be great to see if we could start something like that in the Atlanta area to socialize with other adoptive families out there.

Even though we won’t be able to have a group specifically geared around adoption there are several other groups for new parents in the different stages of the babies development which could be fun to go and meet new people and get any questions answered we might have.