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