Big Decisions

 A big decision has been made in the Kuenning household. Before I make the announcement I would like to thank everyone for your love and support. Jeff and I are extremely blessed to have all of you in our lives!

A few months ago, after a painful failed match we decided to pursue IVF again. So ensued daily appontments and injections. This time all of this was done in complete secrecy from our friends and family. The pressure needed to not be present. Clincally we had a wonderful cycle and a result we now have 6 beautiful frozen embryos. The downside of this was we suffered our second loss. After this devistating news our doctor did a whole panel of test and found out a potential reason for our repeat loss'   We hope that the plan laid is the right one to yield success. 

For the present time we our putting our adoption plans on hold and are leaning heavily on God for what we have to do. 

Please continue to pray for us.  Our family one day will be whole and at this time know that this is what we should be doing and hope that everyone supports our decision.

For now this will be my final post and will update those that are willing to listen through private talks.

Again thank you everyone for your continued love and support.

Love always
Jeff and Jenny

Waiting is hard...

It's been a while since I've posted. Not sure what to say as this process is getting more and more frustrating. It's tough to have strength and tough to have faith...We have no new updates to share at this time, but continue to be thankful for our friend and families support through this journey.

I found this quote this evening that sums up how I feel at this moment...

“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert"

All is quiet...too quiet...

This is my first post in a long time! Things have been so quiet on the adoption front over the last month or so that I haven't had much to talk about. No updates from our agency and our views of our profile online have dwindled. We have now been an active family for 7 months and we are almost half way through the average wait time for our program.

We continue to pray that we will be blessed!

In the meantime business has picked up and I start a new job next week. All things to keep me occupied through our wait.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love! :)
 

A new week...a new outlook

Last week I posted that Jeff and I turned down the potential for a baby born situation because of the cost associated with the adoption. Just few hours after that post we were contacted again, about the the same baby that they were able to come down in our range. (Don't get me started on how I feel about agencies and attorney's barter the cost of a child). Jeff and I agreed to the match and according to all parties involved she was committed to her decision and she would sign consent on Wednesday, allowing us to go to Ohio and bring the little girl home! However, the stars were never aligned for this to happen. Tuesday she was wavering on her decision and every day she needed "more time". By Friday, Jeff and I were so angry at the situation of having limited information and not being able to get a hold of those working for us that we kept going back and forth on whether or not we should back out. We decide to stick with it through the weekend and this morning we were told that they were "closing" the books on her and that she was deciding to parent. We're okay with it and know that it wasn't meant to be and that our baby is still out there. :) Our first match was a failure, however our outlook is good and know that with continued faith and support from our family we will prevail!

In the meantime we will continue down the path of preparing for the pending arrival, whenever it may be!

xoxo
Jen :)

Rejecting and Being Rejected

The past week has been rough. Again we were presented and again we weren't chosen. Again, not meant to be. Today, we receive a call about a baby born last night and have to reject the offer because it's above our adoption budget. Damn!

It sucks, for lack of a better term, to be so close and to watch it float away. Saying no is never easy, especially when when you think ahead, this time next week I could have a newborn baby girl asleep in her room. Being said no to, is even harder! I equate the rejection of a birth mom choosing another family to seeing a negative on a HPT. It's THE WORST FEELING!!

Baby K are you out there??

When she doesn't pick you...

For the last 8 days Jeff and I have been anxiously awaiting news on whether or not a birth mother would be choosing us or the other family presented to her...she chose them...and suddenly I find myself wondering is there something wrong with us? Will we ever hear good news?

And while I know that this baby wasn't meant to be ours, and that Baby K is still out there...rejection is never easy.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

It's been a while

Wow, I can't believe we are already into February! January was over in a blink. Things have been crazy busy with "normal" day to day that I haven't had much time to write and update. The last time I wrote was a very frustrating day to say the least, and I've had many more since then.

Since then we have the signed, approved home study in hand. It feels good to finally have that and it gives us the opportunity to seek situations without feeling like we have to rush some of the paperwork or pay extra. Other than that, all is quiet as usual. Last week, through chance, we were able to forward our profile to an expectant mother.Though we haven't heard whether she chose us or not, at least we can say our profile has been seen. The situation seemed ideal however the other shoe fell and we learned more about her family medical history and her past and current situation that if selected we aren't necessarily comfortable with taking the risk. I know...we want a baby...bad, but if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right. You can only hope and pray that there is a family out there that is right for the little one.

While we continue to wait for that "right" situation, we did some research on the Catholic Charities here in our area and we might be joining their list of prospective parents. Also, I've been busy bugging Jeff about our nursery and at least getting a head start on the prep of the room. I've selected a theme and selected wall colors. I feel like if I keep working on this room and "prepping" for baby K's arrival that we will be rewarded sooner rather than later!

This week, I also hope to create a facebook page as a supplement to our online profile. Maybe through this form of networking we can identify a birth mother or someone who knows someone. Stranger things have happened.

This is why I haven't gave up...

Today has defintely been one of those days where the thought has crossed my mind several times to quit, move on and never look back...This quote sums up why I haven't given up...


Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone

My desire to be a mom is strong, and the desire to love something so deep is stronger.

On a positive note our home study has been approved! A little under 3 months from start to finish.

Just praying that our little one is out there and that 2012 will be a blessed year for our family

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

From our family to yours, we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy New year! Cheers to 2012, may each of you (and us) be blessed with a great year and many joys! :)

Hope to get back to writing once we get pass the holidays!

Jen

I love & hate this time of year...

Christmas is the holiday for joy and cheer. I love that my house if fully decorated and smells of Christmas. I love that I can listen to Christmas music non-stop during the day and I love that this time of the year brings out the best in otherwise hurtful and hateful individuals. Christmas is also rather depressing for those of us suffering from infertility. Why? Because this time of year everyone is posting their pictures on facebook of their little ones dressed in their cute Christmas best or posting comments about how they will be spending their first Christmas as a family with their new baby. And so on and so forth...And while I'm happy for those that have had a joyous year and have been blessed with a baby, I'm also extremely angry and jealous.


The first Christmas without a baby came and went, the second Christmas (last year) came and went as well but at that point we already knew what was beginning in January 2011. This year, Christmas is just plain depressing! A whole year has passed and again we are with out a baby, without a complete family and no idea what lies in 2012. So we are making the best of what we can, enjoying as much as the holiday we can in hopes that 2012 will bring a year of joy and cheer and that next Christmas will be our special Christmas.

The adoption process as I mentioned before is an uneventful process unless your matched or close to being placed. We are now beginning month 3 of this journey and the only nibbles we have had are from my networking with a facilitator in California were cases neither one of us were certain were the best for us and for our family. A high price tag and a very spotty past of the mother and an unknown birth father are hard pills to swallow. :/ So we continue to wait. I'm trying my hardest to remain optimistic and often find myself breaking down in tears. I question my emotional and mental strength. Can I continue down this path? Sometimes I wonder if God is listening...does he hear the pain in my voice, the sadness in my heart? When will it be our turn?

In the meantime...we wait, we continue to pray, we continue to hope that we will have our turn and will be blessed with a beautiful baby.

Many thanks..

This year has been less than stellar for Jeff and I. But with Thanksgiving day tomorrow I wanted to say how thankful and blessed I am for the life I was given. I am thankful for my husband, my friends and my family. Despite infertility, I'm thankful for my health and know that I can conquer this disease. I'm thankful to be on our adoption path and know that God will bless us with a child. I'm thankful for all the support and love that everyone has given us and know that this support and love has made us stronger!

From our family to yours may you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Love,
Jeff and Jennifer

Updates

Sorry for the delayed update. Busy with work and more work! :) 

Wednesday Jeff and I had our home study visit. I frantically spent the morning cleaning our house (even though we had it cleaned professionally the week before). I wanted to ensure that everything was in place and "perfect" for our social worker. Since this was the first time we were meeting, I wanted her to have the best "first" impression of us. We sat in our kitchen and talked about our application, what we are comfortable with, what led us to where we are and we went into further detail about our biographical statements. That was the hardest thing about the visit. It was almost like therapy having to explain your childhood etc. We survived! An hour and a half later we were wrapping up and she asked us to see where the baby would sleep. Besides the kitchen and the foyer that is the only room she saw. Oh well, at least I have a really really clean house! From here it will be about 2 to 3 weeks for her to write her report. As of now we know we have not been presented to any birth mothers, but she indicated we are still early in the process. She indicated that the process shouldn't be too horribly long (though that is easy for her to say...she's not the one waiting!)

Through the advice of our agency we were told to "search" for potential birth mothers or situations to speed up the process. The internet is a helpful tool, but you have to be weary of potential scammers. Last week we did find a situation of a baby that was to be born this week in Las Vegas. We contacted the agency and through our conversation with her decided that we would be presented. However, after continue discussion between Jeff and I we decided that this situation wasn't the best situation to take a risk on. We declined to be presented. It's amazing how close we were to having a baby, but know in our hearts that there more risks that could potentially lead to issues down the road. 

In the meantime, we are looking at other Florida agencies and national agencies pricing their programs and potentially will sign with an additional entity to get us exposed to more birth mothers. I continue to look on line and have added myself to newsletters with respected agencies in the industry for "hard to place" situations. 

We also have made progress in Baby K's room! We decided on the furniture and placed it on lay-way this week. This gives us time to pay it off and gives us the opportunity to have it delivered when needed vs having it in the room for months waiting for baby. :) 

Thank you again to everyone for their continued support, encouragement and love. It means the world to us and our future child. :)

From our house to yours we wish you a healthy and happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful and blessed to have you all apart of our lives!

Love,

Jeff and Jennifer

Baby on the brain!

**Update** Home study has been rescheduled for November 16th. Will update next week once completed. On the bright side, we had our house cleaned yesterday and it looks great! Lets hope it stays that way! :)

This week we are scheduled for our home study! I'm so excited and nervous and hope that everything goes well. Just hoping for that phone call soon with good news of a match! All I can think about is baby stuff. Jeff and I went and looked at baby furniture and I think we found what we would like for the nursery. We've started our registry and have bought some small clothing (gender neutral) items. Some might say that it's too early, but we are expectant parents just like a pregnant couple would be. So why not start planning and purchasing! I know deep in my heart that this won't be a long process so why not be prepared. It makes me happy to have baby things around! :)

I'll update after our home study!

Love,
Jen

A down day...

Maybe it's the weather (cloudy and rainy here) or maybe its my hormones, but I am feeling depressed and blue. I suddenly found myself while sitting here at my desk thinking about the baby we lost and where I would be in the pregnancy process. This weekend we would've been entering our 15th week. It's been 10 weeks since we lost our "poppy". Its weird to think that at this point we would know the gender and would be planning our nursery. I know with time it will get easier, but today my heart aches and wish that things could be different.

Waiting is the hardest part...

Not a lot going on with the adoption process right now. Last week I completed our "Dear Birth Mother" letter for our profile and made some tweaks. Our first part of our home study is scheduled for November 9th. I plan on taking that day off and making sure our house is in top shape! Other than that, we are just waiting. Our agency can start presenting our profile to prospective birth mothers so it's just a matter of time before we are selected. It's tough being patient!

In the meantime I am keeping myself busy with my Etsy business and planning ahead for things for the nursery as well as Christmas. I'm finding other blogs and communities to go to reading about experiences bad and good and what other couples do in the waiting game. I take comfort in knowing that we are not the only ones going through this.

Cheers for now! Happy Halloween! :)

The last week...

I've been meaning to post, but things have been crazy busy...which is good! This past week Jeff and I celebrated 5 years of marriage!! It is amazing how time flies and I can't wait for the next several decades! We celebrated with a fancy dinner and a night downtown. Something that was needed! It was nice to get away from the house for a night :)

Most of you know that I'm a small business owner on the side as well. Our shop has been super busy this past week with 4 orders and a few custom requests. We've been busy working on this as well as preparing our holiday home decor items :) Thankfully I am good at multitasking!

On the adoption front we have been busy gathering documents needed for the home study and getting them uploaded to our social worker. The most time consuming of these items are our biographical statements. Mine ended up being nearly 5 pages in length! As of yesterday, our profile can be shown to prospective birth families! It has been a work in progress all week and we now about our "About Us" section and pictures galore. We are still struggling to write our Dear Birth Mother letter and hope to have that completed soon. I think I'm making it more difficult then what it needs to be. Our social worker should be calling us this week to schedule our home study. I'm enjoying each step of the process and feel that every step is one step closer to our baby! :)

** Our home study is scheduled for November 9th! WooHoo!!

Cheers for now! 

Jen :)

What do you say?

I hope everyone had a restful weekend! Jeff and I were hoping to working on our adoptive parent profile, but ran into computer issues with the site we are using...BOO! Instead, I'm having to work on it while at work in between doing other things. Hopefully we get our computer issues resolved. 

In reviewing what will be in our profile, I am having a hard time deciding what to say and what pictures to choose. Were essentially marketing ourselves to potential birth mothers and I don't want to come off in a bad way.  How much is too much in regards to the information we give? What do you say to the person who's giving birth to your soon-to-be child? How do you articulate through words how much this child will be loved and cared for?  The online communities weren't kidding when they said this would be the most difficult letter you'll ever write! I guess the easiest way to do this letter, and the rest of the profile is to speak from my heart and hopefully the words will flow.

This week also marks Jeff and I's 5th year Wedding Anniversary! I'm so incredibly lucky and blessed to have him in my life!

All Things Adoption!

Today Jeff and I met with our Agency of choice, Heart of Adoptions Inc. here in Tampa. We were nervous and excited as we pulled into the parking lot...this was our first "big" step to completing our family! Application in hand, questions listed out we opened the door to what we hope and pray is a joyous road.

Ms. S. went through the application, discussing each section and the situations that can come from it. We discussed how the process works, and what our next steps are. Jeff and I were excited to learn that once our local and federal clearances come back our profile will be ready to be viewed by birth mothers. She shed light to the number of families in waiting, the average age and the percentage of birth mothers who decide to parent. Jeff and I left our meeting feeling very informed and more confident of the process. With a few minor details to discuss we returned to the car to finish the application. I was so eager I told Ms. S. that I would be back in a few minutes as I didn't want to mail it in!

Here I am writing out the check for the application fee!

The application has been turned in, we can begin working on our profile and we will be making an appointment to initiate the local and federal background checks! We can officially say we are "in the process"!

Today was also a very hard day. Because of timing and scheduling, we also met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist to discuss what our next steps were/are and to talk about our miscarriage. Tears flowed as we talked about what happened and what we have for us in the future. Our doctor is confident that if we try IVF again, it can work...he just doesn't want us to give up. He does support us however in whatever we choose. The discussion is still open on when we will approach IVF again...and we know that it's not in our cards at this moment in time. Dr. S has been wonderful and as we left our office he gave me a hug and said that he wants nothing but the best for us!

I like the feeling of being an official parent in waiting! :)

"All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired." Martin Luther



What Every *Prospective* Parent Should Complete...

In my previous post, I was confused and conflicted at the prospect of adoption. Waking that next morning I realized that my emotions were stemmed from the recent announcement of a "facebook friends" pregnancy and the fact that it seemed like everyone I'm surrounded by is lucky enough to conceive and share their joy with the world. I was jealous and envious of what they have. I am happy to announce that my doubts are no longer there, and we are continuing on our path.

This coming Wednesday, Jeff and I have two very important meetings. The first is with the adoption agency we are applying to and the second is with the RE, to discuss what went wrong and to hear his insights about our future chances with IVF. Both should be very interesting as we are closing one chapter of our story and beginning the next...

We received our Home Study Packet to get a head start collecting the items needed. The home study process can take 6 to 8 weeks to complete and includes all of the following:

1. Local/State/Federal Background Checks

2. Fingerprinted by the FBI

3. Income Statements

4. Medical Physical

5. 5 Letters of Recommendations

6. Employment Verification

7. Biographical Information of both adoptive parents to include information on your family relationships, childhood, marriage, views on child rearing, education, community and religion and how all of this will effect your new soon to be child

8. Good Moral Character Affidavit

9. The list continues...and continues...

It is absolutely mind boggling at the amount of information we have to gather and put together just for the home study. They even inspect your home! It is crazy that only adoptive parents endure this...all prospective parents should have to do this. I think it would solve and prevent certain individuals from parenting.

So next week I will begin looking into the background checks and fingerprinting and will be scheduling our physicals. At least I don't have to track down Birth Certificates or Marriage Licenses...Bonus!

I've even started on our "Dear Birth Mother Letter" or adoptive parent profile. I'm excited to see how it will turn out. :) Jeff is thrilled that I am super organized and enjoy filling out paperwork...because for the next several months there will be no shortage. 

Happy Friday!

Conflicted...

Back from a restful relaxing week on the beach...wanting desperately to go back, the ocean is so soothing! It was so nice to have family in town and to spend quality time with each other. Makes me miss "home" more. The longer we are away the harder it gets...

I'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things...both at work and at home. My mind has been in a million places. Before leaving for vacation Jeff and I contacted about 5 or 6 agencies to gather more information. And information we gathered. From that we have selected two that we are potentially going to apply to. Suddenly fear and doubt is creeping in my head and heart. Is this the right path? Should we try IVF again? Back and forth...back and forth. Such a big decision.

Tonight I feel lost and confused. Fear of the unknown is powerful.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' Eleanor Roosevelt