4th updates the Charm, right?

Where have I been after the disaster that befell us?

Well we took many months to look at ourselves and our goals introspectively. Adoption isn’t a certain; going to happen thing.  Yes, we do all we can to provide a glimpse into who we are and to put it “out there” but the fact remains you have to hope something resonates with someone to inquire because a  couple page brochure isn’t the whole of who you are. Then your agency goes under out of the blue so Stunned is an understatement. We had no clue what was about to happen.  After talking with multiple news outlets we got the story out there and so did so many other families affected.

Now, it’s June and we are into our 4^th update in our 4^th year. Updates are a redo of all your paperwork, medicals, fingerprints, and additional background checks. They are a pain to get done but we do it because we must if we want to adopt.  We have a new social worker, our other one has retired and while she’s reached out during our difficulties it does fall on our new Social workers shoulders.  We met last week for our current update and she is super sweet and wants to help anyway she can.  I was Super stoked she took some of our old printed IAC letters to alter and send to lawyers and hospitals to hold onto in case of an expectant mother wanting a placement.  I’m still worried it’ll never happen.  This is our last year and then I have to resign myself to be childless.  I keep hoping someone will see us and like us and contact us (who aren’t trying to scam us) but I’m honestly becoming deflated. The majority of my contacts are folks in Cameroon wanting VISAS and other such countries with the same expectations.

So I’m in the realm of independent adoption which means we are on the web, and we apply for situations through lawyers in our inbox.  I’m obviously still on Adoptimist and other websites for us such as our own website but it’s a scary place to be.

Besides that we have recently taken a trip to Miami and Key West with our friends and had a blast.  Now that may make you think of activity after activity but we just relaxed for once.  We walked, went to the beach, ate great food, and drove to the keys where we rented jet skies and shopped in town. It was the calmest vacation we’ve had in a while. We normally are a go see all the things but not this time.

The Golden Mammoth on the Boardwalk in Miami

Anniversary plans....The Best laid Plans gone awry

Our 20^th Anniversary is coming up in April and we originally planned on going to New York for 7 days but as they say the best laid plans….

We have some friends who were going with us (we chose dates outside our actual anniversaries) to celebrate their 30^th together and thought it would be a great trip with so many friends and family to meet up with and of course the amazing shows and just being in the city.  I LOVE visiting New York and we always try to plan our trips around baseball games. We have friends there or close by and I was looking forward to seeing them and meeting his new wife and son.  I was looking forward to Carmine’s, a Yankees game and Broadway shows as well as spring in Central Park.

Well then the attack in Brussels happened and our friend’s wife said to cancel their part of the trip (We’d extended our days to spend time with them in the city).  Then a couple days ago I lost my grandma so we canceled the 7 days in the city to save some of Don’s vacation time and will be going to Florida for a couple days instead.

I’m pretty excited actually because I’d originally offered up Florida as one of our trip options.  Don has been to Florida so many times he kind of dismissed it by offering up other trips and since he was stationed there for basic training I went with it with my own counter offers (especially since we just went to Disneyland in January).  I have wanted to go to Universal for the Harry Potter stuff (and last time I went to universal studios in LA or anywhere I was 12) and we’ve never been to Epcot.  I can’t believe it but we made an action packed theme park vacation for 3 ½ days.   I’ve bought us tickets for Epcot, Universal park hopper and for Busch gardens in Tampa.  Day 4 we fly home in the evening so we plan on going to the beach that day because let’s face it you can’t go to Florida without going to the beach and I’m a beach girl.  I Love the beach; I pretty much spent my childhood at the beach and it’s a great exfoliation opportunity for your feet.

Needless to say we're super excited, especially since Don will be traveling for work on our actual anniversary.  This isn’t something new; we’ve dealt with it before and really all that matters to us is the acknowledgement of starting our lives together which was 5 years before we made it official. 

Hopefully soon we'll be worrying about how to change diapers in a theme park or while waiting in line places.

An Oops that led to a room swap and our weekend

We’ve been busy working on the craft room and the game room.  We finished what was supposed to be the game room last year and then packed up all of my crafts, sewing and collections and moved them into said game room.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago where we started painting the craft room (now that last year’s construction is over).  We chose to do it in 2 colors so that meant long drying times to ensure it was dry before spraying the next color.  Well after spraying 2 coats of gray and waiting it became apparent it’d be so much work to tape off the ceiling and walls so Don decided to roll the Orange.  Much easier and it came out great!

 Painted walls and new cabinets 

My craft and sewing tables as I attempted to organize

So once it was all dry we started hanging cabinets for storage.  They look great and then we moved in furniture and I started digging through boxes to begin sorting and putting things away.  That’s when the problems started.  The majority of my Scrapbooking stuff wouldn’t fit in the cabinets.   Then we set up the game table in the game room and there wasn’t enough space to move around the table with Chairs.

That led to us revisiting Home Depot for shelving to put in the game room and once that was in we moved all the furniture out of the craft room and into the game room.  Guess whose room that game room is now.  Yep, mine and I’m still going through boxes but at least the cabinets in that room can hold all my craft stuff and then we moved the sewing cabinet back in there.  With the smallness of the room Don will do his painting in the game room and now he even has space to play his drums since the game table folds down to a smaller table. The added bonus to that is not just good exercise but it opens up the storage area under the stairs next to my desk.  So I get to use that space for anything I just want tucked away like my extra sewing machine or that box of vacation shirts I want to make into a quilt. Don is even thinking we could build a train layout around the room.  I think it’s a great idea.  I’d love to unpack the trains more than once a year for the Christmas tree.

my new room cabinets are filling up

Parker waiting to help me unpack this box

So while I’m doing all that unpacking  Don is going through all our music and reorganizing it all so it’s easier to find and put on our phones.  Yay! No more low volume older music versus high volume new stuff playing in the car.  It should all be leveled now.  That’s how we spent Saturday and then Saturday night we had tickets for the theater.  It was for the play Assassins .  When we were given the tickets I looked it up and was like huh, weird content for a musical.  Well it totally works and it even had us talking about it all the way home from Seattle.  I even looked up two of them because I wasn’t familiar with their stories.  No time like the present for a history lesson.

Sunday was nice and fairly lazy.  I unpacked a few boxes and reorganized some stuff and Don continued to work on the music.  We even played our first game in the game room last night.  A game Don was given for Christmas and I wasn’t sure I’d like it (Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures) given that it’s a starship combat game but it was fun.  I can see us adding the expansion packs to it over time.

That’s our last few weeks.  Here’s to a great week of unpacking.

Forever in our hearts and always on our mind

Dear Baby,

We can’t wait for your mom to find us and ask us to be your parents.  We don’t know if you’ll be a boy or a girl but we are excited to find out! I can’t wait to see your beautiful face in your first moments and hope we get to be a part of it with your birth mom. I know, even when you spit up all over my hair and shirt or have that up the back total blow out just how happy I’ll be to clean you up and how very grateful I’ll be that your birth mom chose us. 

I see so many cute things when I’m out shopping and think how great it’s going to be to bring it home for you one day. I admit though I have broken down and have a bunch of things already from jammies and onesies to burp cloths and bedding. You have so many quilts because your grandma is overjoyed you will be here someday, hopefully soon. Maybe you’ll have a favorite you just have to have with you all the time like my brother did. She loves to sew and also made you car seat covers so you can sleep soundly without the sun in your eyes (although mom’s car has tinted windows to help with that). In fact when your grandma found out we were hoping for you, she bought the crib on our wish list.  We haven’t put it up yet but when you’ve found us we will get the nursery all put together.  We also have the cutest red leather toddler chair for you when you start to grow and want your own personal chair like mom and dad have.  I’ve been collecting books for you too.  I can’t wait to read them to you every chance we get, but especially at bedtime.  I have many more on our wish list for you and hope you have many favorites among them.

Speaking of growing up, we are almost finished redoing the craft room and when you get a bit bigger you will get to have so much fun in there with us creating whatever you dream up.  You will get to finger paint and color, on paper, not the walls (we hope!) and play with clay and play-doh.  I can’t wait to see your creations.

Your birth mom will be forever in our hearts and always on our mind.You will always know her greatest sacrifice was out of love for you.

I hope you find us soon little one because we already love you so much and we can’t wait to meet you both. 

Love mom

Frequently Visited States

Our agency posts stats every month and it can be exciting or discouraging.  This month was discouraging. We met most of the expectant parent intakes (they are shown by a number so they are anonymous except to the agency) except they chose state restrictions. I know to help make the letters they do get more manageable they are asked for specific things they are looking for in hopeful adoptive parents so the agency can narrow it down for them based on our own profile questionnaires. Now I understand where they are coming from with over 600 waiting families it'd be daunting to get even a third that many profiles to go through. They may also want to be sure they are close enough for face to face visits and we understand that but seeing state restrictions for states we frequently travel to, hurts. So this post is about states we frequent or could frequent because of close ties or we drive through it on our regular trips south.

California:

Don and I were both born and raised (for the most part since my parents divorced I also lived in NV and WA) in southern California. We routinely travel to visit family and friends there and thus we also drive through Oregon, so an expectant mom in Oregon or California would have frequent visits lining up with our travels and would be just one more bright spot for additional visits home.  We always stop to visit friends in Northern California then head south and stop to see them again on our way home.

Now on top of our  California connection we also have direct connections to Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas. 

Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee:

Don worked in Atlanta for over 2 years so we grew many friendships and that we'd visit multiple times a year, including Dragon Con weekend.  We are guaranteed to be there one to two times a year.

Alabama and Tennessee are less likely now but if we had birth parents from there it'd be a priority. When Don was working out of Georgia we'd drive to see our friends but since he's been mostly home we plan on Dragon Con weekend every year so we spend 4-5 days together on vacation in Atlanta and have a blast catching up.  Now one of my best friends lives in Tennessee and we text, Facebook, and face-time regularly. In fact recently we face-timed while Don was driving to our friends place on super Bowl Sunday for about 20 mins. (Don was driving so it was safe).  I haven't been to Tennessee since I was 16 but I do look forward to going back to visit and what better excuse than the parents of our child live there and so does my BFF.

Texas:

My brother and his family moved to Texas and Don and I lived in Texas for a couple years so we have friends and coworkers we visit there. Don even travels for business to Texas still so traveling there is easy and frequent. Speaking of Texas, we used to drive to surrounding states for the weekend or vacations so that's not out of line for us either. We LOVE to travel!

So in short, I understand most parents can't guarantee multiple visits from a far off state but we can and so it's discouraging to see the limitations each month when we'd otherwise be a letter they'd receive; especially when it's places we regularly visit anyway. It of course doesn't mean they'd give us a second look but it's the fact we could be considered and not automatically discarded based on where we live. I know it'll continue because it's the way this process works.

 I also know that no matter where our baby's birth parents live we'll be thrilled to come for visits.

 Our Dragon Con meet up

 with our friends from Atlanta in Italy

Goofing off in New York

Giant Silent Void or 28 months and counting

I realized recently that I haven’t really talked adoption in quite awhile in my blog posts except in short blurbs.

Well, honestly there is nothing to report.  We’ve had a few contacts that were scams and were presented with a couple different situations that were way out of our range but otherwise it’s a GIANT.SILENT.VOID.   

I’m so glad to have the friends I’ve made in the adoption community though to share the wait and the ups and downs of it all. Today’s topic seemed to be the Last Minute Hospital List and someone mentioned only 8 more months until they’re eligible for the National list and I said yep, us too, especially since we aren’t eligible for the agencies local list since we live 2 states away.  She responded with I hope you never see that list and I needed that.  I hope neither of us sees that list but it’s good to know it’s there.

So with not much going on I’ve taken the time to refresh this blog with easier to navigate pages and have updated the color scheme. I’ve also starting making a private adoption website as just another way to spread the word it’s been 28 months and counting and we are SO ready to be chosen.

The website is nice because I can keep it pretty streamlined unlike Facebook, Twitter, or many of our other sites where you have to dig through tons of info.  I like that if all you want to see are pictures I can have nothing but tons of pictures to look at or if you want bullet points on some of our favorite things it’s there. It’s definitely a work in progress but if you would like to have a look you can find it HERE. 

On another note we'll be going to a Super Bowl party at our friend's place and I can't wait.  Really hoping for a Denver win but we'll see how it goes, Carolina was a tough team this year.

After that it's home where I have to prep for Jury Duty for the next few weeks. Really not looking forward to that at all.

Intake Stats, Google Analytics, and Me

Every month our agency posts stats on the intakes, matches and placements.  Most of the waiting couples look over them to get an idea if our letters went out and to where.  The system for reporting it is anonymous but it’s great to see how things change from month to month. August wasn’t the best month in terms of intakes and matches which can be a bummer to see especially when compared to our Google Analytics for the month of August. We then get our actual numbers from our counselor once they have them telling us how many times our letters went out.

I am a bit obsessed when it comes to the stats and visits to our page and our blog.  It’s more about the comfort found in being seen rather than not.  Since we are in the middle of our agency’s website for families we’re viewed less often as a general rule of thumb. It also tells me where the traffic is coming from to our site so it’s good to know if I’m getting direct traffic versus say Twitter, Facebook or this blog. It is a great tool to use in terms of how to focus your efforts on the most seen places.  Since Pinterest doesn’t really drive anyone to our sites it’s fair to say I don’t spend much time or energy on trying to keep our daily lives updated there. I also tend to have more personal stuff on our Instagram account rather than adoption related specific things so it doesn’t drive much traffic either but it’s so easy to use I regularly post. All the different pages that link to our profile are but just a few ways to get to know us better and I like knowing which are working for us.

We also have Google Ads with our agency and another website we’re on.  While I can’t track the other website directly they do have their own tracking on the site. The problem with the tracking for that site is after 30 days after the person viewed it they fall off so you can never reliably check on what state the view came from. Something changed in the system earlier this year because it didn’t used to do that but for the most part we can see where the views come from and how long someone looks at the page on average.

One of the ads they run for us

So why am I so into where people view us? I’m just a researcher by nature.  I love knowing what is going on or not as the case may be.  While waiting to adopt the not knowing can drive you bonkers because you never know when or where that call, text, or email will come in. I like that on any given day I can see how many bots viewed our blog or how many people clicked that Google Ad or viewed our agency page directly. It helps me feel better in the zero control situation that adoption is. I know others don’t ever look at their analytics because they don’t want to become driven to check it all the time but for me and my needs it works.

Home Improvements

Summer is coming to a close and our construction in the basement will soon be completed.  We have walls again which is great because the open staircase was honestly frightening.  The cats were quite upset though as they discovered the under floor as a great hiding place during the two weeks the walls were open.

 Oscar with cobwebs on his face after his first exploration of the under floor

 Oscar made the gated stairwell his personal space

The drywall taper will be here tomorrow to tape and plaster and then again probably Monday for finishing the walls.  After that it’s a quick coat of paint then flooring, baseboards, and the custom cabinets will be installed. New living and entertainment room will be complete in about 2 weeks. I can’t wait to finally get the room we’ve always wanted in that space.

Looks great with the dry wall back up

Once that’s done however we aren’t finished with the home improvements. We will go back into the craft room and paint it, put in shelving and move all the stuff back in.  Eventually we will paint the back room next to ours, which will be the nursery someday. I’m hoping that’s sooner rather than later but we aren’t setting it up until we are matched so time will tell. At least for now we have projects to keep us busy and improve our home while we wait.

Dragon Con is coming soon!

I can’t believe in less than two weeks we’ll once again be in Atlanta for Dragon Con.  This year everyone is able to make it and it’s going to be a blast being all together again and the bonus is we were all able to find rooms in Downtown this year instead of the airport, no more 1 hour commutes in by transit or expensive taxi rides.  Granted we aren’t staying in any of the big 5 hotels but then for the cost of one room you need 6+ people to a room in order to afford it, so no Thanks.  We don’t spend much time in the room anyway so why a big fancy over-priced room when you can use that money to buy cool things.  I’m hoping our room has a fridge and kitchenette this year so we can store some food in there and skip some of the lines for food and have more time for panels, games, shopping or photo taking. Our original room did but I goofed and booked the wrong dates so not sure what kind of room we’ll have after we realized the mistake and changed to the correct dates.

The other thing I’m excited about is our long time friend from California is flying to Seattle the day before and will be going with us this year. I’m glad he’ll get to meet our other friends from Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Don may actually get to play games this year (which never works out other years we’ve gone) with Kevin going.  I’m hoping the panels list comes out in the next few days so we can start planning on what we must see; we usually only make 1 or 2 panels a day because of the line up times.

Every time we’ve gone I’ve always been a shorts and T-shirt girl but I was talked into dressing up this year and I’m working on that costume now.  We had talked about doing Steam punk this year with a couple of our friends but I couldn’t come up with anything I liked so my Cosplay friend suggested a character based on something I was watching and it all clicked.  Maybe next year I can go for Steam punk if I can find things I like this year to use with it.

Someone Don works with also goes with a group of his friends and this year he and my friend Lara are doing a costume together.  I can’t wait to see how that turns out for the Friday Night Archer party. Don and I talked about dressing up on Saturday since it’s the big day for costumes but his co-worker made a good point that we’d be constantly interrupted while we tried to hang out with our friend’s costume watching so we will dress up Friday instead. 

So this is the way to end the summer for us and we do it every year.  Maybe next year we will have our family and be able to introduce our child to our friends.  

All of us last year being goofy for the picture

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition – William Arthur Ward

I saw this on a church sign while driving home from the store and it is absolutely true.  I’ve been looking at the wait in a whole different light this week and all it took was a simple quote to hit home.

We’ve been through a lot in the last 3 years to give up now.  So much paperwork and SO many scammers!  It was especially hard on us when K miscarried because I’d grown so close to her and looked forward to talking every day.  It wasn’t easy getting over what happened, like it happened to us, well it did but indirectly.  No one knows what to say about such things in the everyday but much less so in adoption.  It’s a tough hurdle and it took me a lot of time to make peace with.

 However, I’m back and looking forward to growing our family through adoption.  They say everything happens for a reason and in the right time so I’m trying my best to embrace that. I’m hoping to have a similar relationship with our expectant mom where we both look forward to daily chats and hopefully it can grow into more of a sisterhood of shared experience and love for each other and the child.

I’m so thankful to our support system, especially my best friend, who herself is going through so much right now but she’s always there, as I am for her. I can’t imagine trying to go through an adoption alone without support of family and friends. I hope our future birth mom will have that support as well but if they don’t I hope they know they have IAC and us as their champion for support before, during, and after birth.

So no more conscience cloudy days for me I WILL regain my sunny disposition and continue forward to our dream of becoming parents.

Open Adoption: What is it and why we chose it and our agency.

We’ve been asked a lot about how open adoption works, why we are waiting so long, and aren’t we worried about contact after placement. Most recently we were asked about adoption and our agency from an expectant father who called us looking for an agency and asking questions on how to place.

So the basics of a modern adoption are that the expecting parents choose the family.  We aren’t on some numbered list of the past where we get a call from the agency to pick up a newborn.  However, there is a last minute hospital list we aren’t eligible for but again the family is chosen by the birth parents.

The open part of the adoption is different for every family.  It is outlined into an agreement with the agency, expecting parents, and hopeful adoptive parents to meet the needs of all of us.  Some families have lots of contact, some only want letters and pictures or Facebook updates. This is one of the more important aspects of the open adoption.  Our agency always reminds us not to go overboard with contact but be realistic when it comes to being able to maintain that level of contact for years to come. You can always see each other more often than stated in the agreement but if you over promise it can damage your relationships.  We agree with that. We want as open and realistic adoption plan as possible but it has to work and be comfortable for the expecting parents as well.

So in an open adoption is it co-parenting? No it isn’t.  It’s about the birth family getting updates and seeing how happy and loved their child is.  Adoption is a choice made out of love for the child and wanting the child to grow up in a stable and loving environment that the birth parents aren’t in a position to provide at this point in time. The child grows up knowing about his/her adoption and any questions he/she may have as they grow up they can ask their parents or their birth family.  There is less confusion and angst when the child grows up knowing why they were placed and where they come from and who do I look like. Many families who have adopted through our agency say the birth family is an extension of their own family.

So we chose open adoption but why did we choose IndependentAdoption Center in California instead of an agency in our home state? They are ethical, advocate for birth parents, and explain all options.  They have offices in 8 locations around the US not just California. They have lifelong counseling if needed by anyone in the triad (birth parents, adoptive parents, or the child) and I like that the social workers are different for hopeful adoptive parents and expectant parents. They have also been around a long time being one of the first agencies to advocate open adoptions and don’t discriminate.  Anyone eligible to adopt can adopt through them.  Other agencies we researched can and will say no to single people, LGBT, and religious differences among other things.  We prefer equality for everyone.

So why are you waiting so long? This is a hard one; we are like all the other waiting couples hoping for that perfect match.  For us we have had a few contacts that didn’t work out (one chose to parent, one went with another couple and one had a miscarriage so you just never know how things will turn out). We keep on waiting, hoping, and someday we will be parents if we remain patient with the process.  The right person will see our profile and we can move forward but until then waiting is all we can do.

Home projects in full force

I haven’t posted in a while but we’re here and busy with many different things, like finding contractors for work in the main part of the basement and for the backyard. I will finally get the yard fenced, retaining walls and an upper deck.  I’m super excited to run around with my dogs out back and play ball with them and our future child.  It’s a long time coming for all of us!

We've been very busy around here with home projects.  They sound so easy and simple weekend tasks but as most people know it’s the unknown that sets you back. Our flooring came in right before we left for Italy and just as we were going to start painting and laying that flooring in the first room, Don was called to Arizona on business then he drove to California to spend time and help his parents that weekend following his week away. His mom recently had knee surgery and his parents could use some help with clearing things out, cleaning a bit around the house, and just moral support. Thankfully all is well on that front and she is recovering wonderfully and his weekend there was a big boost to his parent’s morale.

So we again begin to think of painting and flooring.  The first step is to remove all items from the room.  Now this was our store room and Don’s craft room so lots of stuff to move into the main basement area, then came removing the carpet and carpet pad.  Now the carpet wasn't so hard to cut and remove but the carpet pad was a bear. Once that was up and removed we had to remove the nailed into the concrete foundation carpet tacks.  That was so much fun, NOT! We inspected and repaired the foundation including those many nail holes from the carpet tacks but only after scrapping and scrapping some kind of fiber glue from it.  Don’s quote of the weekend was “I feel like Cinderella!” I couldn't stop laughing.  I, too, had attempted removing that glue from the foundation and it WAS NOT EASY!  Once we had the foundation in order, Don painted the room and ceiling. 

The following day we began laying the new flooring which was by far the easiest part besides the knee and back pain from being on the concrete floor for hours on end.  It was like we’d moved into a new house once it was done.  Removing the ghastly steel blue carpet for bamboo flooring increased the lightness of the room a 100X.  We gave the floor a week to settle before starting on the cabinets the following weekend (this past weekend).  I have to say I love the new room. It’s bright, airy, and just what a basement room needs.

This is the best way to rest while working

Finished room is dog inspected and approved!

Today was spent figuring out where all the stuff we had in that room was going to go and then moving it.  That room is now going to be my craft room and boy oh boy do I have a lot of stuff to transfer over from my current room. The sewing, scrap-booking, paints, etc will be fun to reorganize though into the new cabinets.  My current craft space will get redone into a family game room. We will not only store our games and play them in there with company but it will also have a TV for video games and my exercise machine.  I’m kind of looking forward to having a TV to watch while I exercise and it’ll be nice to have all the games in one spot.  We moved all the stuff into its new home today and throughout this coming week we will begin moving the computers and office area furniture into the main room.  Each area getting set up as we move it so we still have online and general computer access.  Once we get that done we hope to begin removal of the carpet and installation of the new floor.  Since we previously painted and redid this area minus the floor and lighting it should be a fairly smooth and quick weekend project.

Is it negative or is it real?

The true value of an adoption blog is about being who you are in all the messy glory that entails.  Not every day is sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. That said, I and others in the adoption blog community have been told our blogs are too negative and should add more fluff to make people happy; to entice expectant mothers to want to read more and possibly pick us to parent her child. I hope the expectant mom who reads this blog and picks us knows shes seeing us not fluff.

I’m all for being real.  I can’t and won’t live with faking myself, my emotions or our lives.  The emotions, all of them, in our journey are very real. The blogs I read are real people with real ups and downs and from all angles of adoption. I read birth mother blogs, hopeful adoptive parent blogs and blogs of those who have adopted domestically, internationally and through foster care.  They all have unique perspectives and I feel the more we read the better informed we are and will be when our time comes. 

I believe that showing yourself in your true light is how to get noticed by the right family. Open adoption is a difficult path for everyone involved and also extremely rewarding when the match is right.  I've watched it unfold for many happy families with our agency.  Is everything always perfect? No, but having the right match with the right expectant mom will be our gift.  I want that expectant mom to know us, the real us, when she chooses us for her adoption plan.  I have a great desire in maintaining that relationship for life because our child is for life.  In that desire I have to know and so does she, that we are right for that lifelong commitment. However that looks for her and us at match, placement, and as life goes on. We need to be flexible but committed with our agreed on plan which is built on trust and if we are true in our blog and other social media then when we talk she'll know it's truly us.

There are so many variables in people and it’s just as varied in adoption.  You never know what an expectant mom will be looking for or where she will see you so that online snap shot of who you are better be the people she meets.  

If our blog seems negative or depressing to you, try looking at it from a different perspective.  What may seem one way to you may be giving others hope or just the knowledge they aren't alone with how they are feeling that day. It’s also about our adoption journey no one else’s.  It’s as unique as everyone’s fingerprints.

Our blog is about processing our emotions whatever they may be. It’s about two people looking to have an open adoption. It’s about showing snippets of our daily lives from food, to pets, to vacations, to remodeling, playing games with friends or spending time with family. It’s about our dreams and holding on to hope, having faith it’ll happen, and writing about it. It’s about documenting everything while waiting to adopt to look back on. It’s about a future we long to have as a family of 3.