Bonus!

I admit...i can almost admit it to myself....We have a match! (pretty much I think). I'm on the verge of panic attack half the day and most of the night.

Any way...our emom is near enough that we don't have to fly!! YAY!! I'm so very excited about that. I was not at all excited about taking a newborn on a giant germ tube.

Another bonus is that we can finalize before we leave the emom's state. Which leads us to the biggest bonus! We won't have to deal with our dipshit social worker once we get home!! Thank you Jesus. Unfortunately, I will be seeing her next week to update the homestudy. I don't know if I should take the entire day off since there's no way to tell when she might show up (despite making an appointment).

I'm still pretty much in disbelief. We haven't really told anyone IRL. My two best friends know because I was freaking out since Mr H is gone. The girls at work know because we work in an open office and i'm constantly on the phone with our lawyer, the lawyer we hired for her, and the facilitator. It's been crazy. I can only imagine it's going to get crazier. It's really hard for me to enjoy this and allow it to be real....no matter how it turns out.

Out of Body Experience

Talking to the emom is like having an out of body experience. I hear myself talking to her. I hear her telling me she wants us to parent her baby. I hear her saying she wants to give her child the life she can't and she wants to give me the child that I can't conceive.

I can't believe it's true. I'm excited but I'm cautious. We've told 2 friends. That's mostly because Mr H is in a different hemisphere and I'm in full freak out mode. I can't imagine how he's feeling. Luckily he's exhausted from the time change and I don't think he's dwelling on it like I am. I know he's excited and cautiously optimistic too. He's just not the one that's here..making the calls, getting calls from C etc etc.

I have let myself look at baby stuff online. And I've dug the baby quilt out of the hall and intend to get back to embroidering it.

How did you all handle this phase - if you're fortunate enough to have made it to this phase? When did you know it was official? Was there paper work to sign? Commitments to make legal? I hope we'll know more Monday or Tuesday.

Still waiting

Hello all...anyone still bother to check this blog I never update?

I just got back from a driving trip to CA.

I'm going to be a better blogger :-)

I'm reading all your blogs. I just live by the adage of "if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all."

SO the emom that we talked to.....
she called the facilitator right after we talked and said she really liked us...but wanted to talk to another couple. Then she called C late, late that same night asking for a counselor. C found out she was upset that her purse had been stolen, she'd lost her rent money etc etc. C said it sent up huge red flags for her. C suggested she call the police. Said she couldn't really do anything for her. After all at this point she was just an emom calling about the services she wasn't "signed up" or anything.

C hasn't heard from her since.

And THAT would be the latest on our adoption front. I've accepted the fact that if..after our 3 years with C are up (we have 2 left) that we may not have a child. Then I'm done.

Currently, I'm ok with it. I'll be 41 then. Mr H will be pushing 50. We'll just call it another one of those life things that didn't work out like we thought it would.

Maybe I"ll be surprised. We'll see.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

So easily disappointed

Got a call today. The caller id said "blocked". The ONLY blocked calls we get are from C, our facilitator. Well, it used to be those were the only blocked calls we got. It was the plumber :-(

Oh well. I'm feeling better. Mr H and I celebrated our wedding anniversary over the weekend with a lovely room in a historic hotel. We ate ourselves silly and spent did some relaxing in the deep and spacious jetted tub. He planned it all :-)

As he says "I am a lucky (wo)man!"

Update Time

We've been shown 17 times since we went active in August. I see another family has gone missing from the website so now it's at 18. C said Dec was quiet but January has been very active thus far. Dec had 2 births and there's been one this month. She also said there are 2 matches working for January and she's hoping to have several more.

So that sounds pretty good.

I just read The Thirteen Tale and loved it! My bookclub was tonight and we discussed The Rope Walk. It was a slow book to get started but then I found it to be sweet and very descriptively written.

Have you all been reading anything good? There's not much fun to do here with all this snow and ice and cold.

Nineteen

Now there are 19 waiting families with our facilitator. I've been keeping track. The two latest families include professional musicians and rocket scientists. F**k me. I think i might be starting to get crabby.

Not to mention my little job is going to turn into a full time job (blech) when i take over for the PREGNANT chick when she goes on maternity leave. Plus I think I heard another chick in the office is pregnant.

Our update is on the tenth. I can pretty much tell you what it's going to say.

I'm REALLY tired of this cold cold arctic weather. We're under yet another winter storm warning. 5 -8" of snow, near white out conditions, -20 to -30 degree + wind chill. Yippee! At least I don't have to worry about taking a baby out in that kind of weather right?

Good Choice!

I am VERY happy with our facilitator, C. She called today because she knows the holidays can be tough. She wanted to wish us a happy holidays, find out if we had any travel plans that might affect being able to contact us (ha!), and give us a mini update. We went active Aug 9th. We've been shown 14 times. Four of those were new emoms. Only one of them has made a match with anyone. I guess I d0n't need to call her for an update this month!

My birthday party was lovely :-) I spent yesterday in a bed. We had a heck of a good time packed into 4.5 hours! Now we're currently waiting to see if we're getting this blizzard that is predicted. It's to start after midinght tonight. 100% of snow for Tuesday with 6 - 13" of snow by Wednesday night with 40 mph winds. I better check our grocery supply!

So Here We Are

Waiting. I don't know what happens next. I guess we call her on the 10ths of the months and ask if we've had any action in the past month. I see there's another waiting family on the website. That makes 16 of us. Well, maybe it's still at 15 if our non-birth mom picked someone from our facilitator.

I have my licensing exam again tomorrow. I'm getting the ick. H1N1 is rampant in these parts. The locale big box is sold out of thermometers, ibuprofen and ancetmenophon (which i know I can't spell).

Lots of babies about to be born. Let's home some more are getting conceived. Drunken Halloween parties might help right?

Update #1

I got a call back today while I was in the shower. She left a message. The answering machine causes my dog to HOWL something awful. I thought he'd fallen off the bed or something so I leapt out of the shower all dripping and shampoo-y. Anyway, C left a message. Our letter has had lots of activity. It's gone out to 10 potential birthmom's in 2 months! She didn't have any feedback for us though. I don't know if I should be excited or be sad/neurotic!

Two Months

It's been two months since we went active. The facilitator said we should check with her after 2 months (and really not before then) to see what feedback there was on our profile. So I have emailed her.

I haven't heard anything.

Surprised?

Me either.

Patience is a virtue - Patience is a virtue - Patience is a virtue - Patience is a virtue

Advertising

I got an email from C today with a spreadsheet showing the # of ads she has dropping in yellow pages each month. In the next year she'll have 1700+ yellow page ads! I think that's good news! We're also finally posted to her website.

I also saw in my hometown newspaper an ad for a couple looking to adopt. So good luck Steve and Jenny. This paper is in a town of 700 people though I don't know what their circulation is. My friend, Katy, works for the paper. Maybe I'll call and see if she has any "scoop" on the ad.

Not much is happening here. The kids are home. It's the second week of school. Mr. H is away on business but is supposed to get home tonight. The four of us are going to Chicago to the Harry Potter movie exhibit at the museum of science and industry this weekend. I've got free hotel room nights (on of the few perks of Mr. H having to travel). We'll probably also hit the Lincoln Park Zoo and the new Nature museum (both free).

I've been having baby dreams which is weird for me. I usually don't. Mr H seems to hate every name I like. I guess I've been pushing the adoption to the back of my mind. Seems easier than dreaming. speculating, and planning.

Finally

Looks like we may have finally made a good choice. I've been in daily voice and email contact with our facilitator...C..(from here on out). I think we've finally gotten enough pictures to her that are action packed and loving enough! I still have this sinus crap lingering so I'm having her turn it over to her graphic artist. Saving myself a headache sounds like a great plan!

I'm getting excited about adoption again rather than crying about the hoops and frustrations. I need to have a talk with my mom about adoption. She caused me to cry when we were in Europe. She just doesn't get it. My dad...lol...got a new camera and is taking crazy amount of pictures with it...he happened to catch a picture of Mr H comforting me as I was crying. Lovely. There'sa vacation memory i'd like as an 8 x 10 ...NOT!

Babies and calls seem to be happening all over! let's hope it rubs off on the rest of us!

Apathy

i feel nothing but apathy toward this adoption process at this point. I hope it's just because I'm sick and exhausted.

I emailed our corrected draft of our letter to the facilitator on june 16th. Yesterday I emailed her to let her know we were home and to find out what's next. She said she was waiting to receive our letter. UGH.

I re-emailed it (to the same address). She's reviewed it, made notes, and will call me today. woo hoo. not.

tell me this is just a phase.

Final Draft

The final draft is at the facilitator. She has to approve it then we need to add images (some of which still need to be taken) and make 50 copies.

We leave on another trip Saturday morning. I don't mean to sound blase about it. I'm very fortunate and lucky to be getting to go so many places and see so many things. I just really wanted all this crap taken care of before we left. (Patience is NOT my best known trait - neither is being positive). Oh well.

Babies are being born all over the place. That's good right? It's just not our baby. Maybe ours is being conceived now....drunken, hot summer nights and all :-)

We're back in time for the 4th. Good thoughts for all of you out there in blogland!

We're back

We are back from our family vacation to Yellowstone and Glacier. It was a heckuva drive and a great trip. I was really worried about that much non-stop family time but it worked out ok. The kids go to their mother tomorrow night until the middle of August.

On the adoption front: I got a corrected notarized copy of the homestudy today.

I/we HAVE to get out birthmother letter/profile done this week. We leave on another trip next Saturday and I want to be active before we leave.

Against my better judgement I already wrote a birthmother letter before I had specific criteria. I'm very happy with the letter and very grateful to Karen for all her insight. Thank you!!!! However, it's not what the facilitator wants to it's practically back to the beginning.

Looks like lots has been happening while we were gone...I'm trying to get caught up with all you! I missed you and thought about you lots!

I think I might throw up

I just sealed an application/contract and a HUGE check in a envelope to mail to a facilitator.

We're really doing this!

Are you kidding me??

I just saw a story on the evening news about a HORSE that got pregnant with twins via surrogate IVF!! Are you kidding me?? For some reason that really sets me off!

in other news - i sent my fingerprints off again today. So now we wait. I need to send the contract, our photograph and a HUGE check to the facilitator, too. I keep delaying that for some reason as well.

Mr. H's birthday is tomorrow. He'll celebrate it by going to Tucson on business for 3 days. Ugh!

We've Decided (I think)

We're going with a facilitator. We just don't want to handle the screening/find ourselves. Of course, that means we now have more paperwork to fill out.

We are done with our SW except for waiting for the written report. We have verbal approval from her at this point. It doesn't appear that she used any references other than the ones we gave her. We had another almost 2.5 hour meeting with her last Friday to go over the TWO questions she forgot to ask us. We are not obligated to use her for post placement :-)

I went berserk at garage sales again last week. I got 5 or 6 outfits, what to expect the first year, and two huge baby gates - one of which has never been out of the box - all for under $10! My sister has the same baby gate and says one of them was $100!

It's a Date

Our first home visit is scheduled for April 10th at 12:30. The kids don't have school since it is good Friday but the Boy has a soccer game that afternoon. The SW is going to do the safety inspection and meet the kids so that they know her a little bit before she has to interview them. I could have scheduled it sooner but I have my licensing exam (BIG DEAL) test on the 7th and need to concentrate on studying first.

We had callbacks from the references provided by the facilitator we're considering when we returned home. Mr. H talked with one of them. They had glowing reports about the facilitator. They had been trying to adopt for a long time. 1st through an attorney, then through a Christian agency ( I think it was for 2 -3 years) then finally with the facilitator. Within 3 months they had a baby in their arms! I realize that's an anomaly but it continues the good feeling I have about this lady and her company.

The Bad Economy is a Good Thing?

Mr H talked to another facilitator tonight. She said it's a weird time for adoptions because of the economy. There are fewer people who can afford to adopt and there are more BM's that can't afford to keep their offspring. So that's good for us. Isn't that awful?

The lady also said she usually has 25 couples in her pool - which is her self-imposed limit. However, she currently only has 15!

I'm getting excited again! I was in the dumps all day, too. I want someone to say to me "this is the agency/facilitator for you". Beyond that I'm willing to make all the other decisions, but this one just seems too much for me.

Mr H fell asleep writing the first paragraph of his autobiography last night. He therefore concluded that he leads a boring life. I have to say I read that first paragraph...... He might not be wrong!