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