Waiting is hard

Every blog I've read, every person who has adopted that I talked to, every adoption professional said that the waiting is the hardest part. I believed them but thought "It's not going to be THAT hard!" HA! Its already harder than I thought.

As you know, we went "live" a week and a half ago. Since then, Matt has received three calls. Every time he answered the phone with the obvious "Hello?" then proceeded to say "This is Matt speaking". And EVERY time, my heart skipped a beat. In my head I thought "Could this be it? Could this really be the call? We only went into the books a week ago. This can't be the call. But it might be. Someone MIGHT have chosen us already." (yes, ALL that went through my head in about one second!) Then he gets off the phone and proceeds to tell me that it was a call for something else (all three were from his doctor actually).

Now, we just got an email from one of the social workers at our agency and she told us about a specific situation and wanted to know if we wanted to be presented to this birth mother. It just scares and excites me to know that really, at ANY TIME, we could become parents.

When you're pregnant, you know approximately when you'll give birth. You know the month and usually down to the week. You can prepare. You can mentally have yourself ready and count down the days. When you are adopting, things aren't really as easy. Yes, we are "ready". We have all of the things we need to take care of a newborn. And we are emotionally ready since we've been ready to be parents for over 3 years now. Still, it's the unknown part that is scary. We don't know WHEN we'll get the call. We don't know if it will be an emergency placement or if it will be an expectant mother in her 6th month. Its just crazy. I can't explain it. Either you understand what I'm saying or you don't.

I'm just in awe that this could happen SOON (or not!). We could be parents in one week! It's a possibility and it is just VERY odd to think about it that way.

I'm so excited to start our family and so nervous at the same time. I'm sure everyone is that way and I'm not the weirdest person on earth to be sacred but it's totally new to me. I've never really been around newborns. I've never changed a diaper. I don't really know how to handle them (except the obvious basics). I don't know when they need to be fed or changed or rocked. I don't know what to do if they get sick. That's really the scariest part of all to me. HOW will I do this?

Ok. That's enough of my rambling. Again, I know I promised the nursery pics and I'm TRYING. I just really want it to be done before I post pics and there are more things to do. If I don't post anything here before the holidays then Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Our Profile

Well, we did it! We got over the hurdle and our profile is done! I, truly, did not have much to do with the whole process. Matt did most of it. I offered come constructive criticism here and there and I wrote a lot of the text but other than that, it was all Matt, and I couldn't be more in love with it! He did such an amazing job. Even our social worker said that our profile was "AMAZING".

We now have to get 15 copies of our profile printed and put them into clear sleeves and drop them off at the agency. Then we will actually be live and waiting!

When we were first starting our profile we went into the agency to look through some other profiles just to get some ideas. I certainly don't want to put other couple's profiles down because they did what they could (and we are just lucky enough to be both graphic artists and do design for a living) but I really feel that ours is so unique. It really represents us and our personalities to a T! I can't help but be optimistic about our chances of being matched quickly. I obviously need to stop thinking like that because I don't want to be disappointed if/when it takes longer than a month or two. We just have to keep in mind that the reason we aren't being chosen is because the right birth mother hasn't come along yet and not because they don't think we'd be good parents.

I know I promised pictures of the nursery in my last post. And I WILL get that done soon. We've just been so busy trying to finish up the profile and other projects that needed to be done. Things are still really busy right now but I'm going to try and get pictures of the nursery posted this weekend or early next week. I can't promise anything though!

Things are finally moving along!

As the title says, things are starting to move along! Yay! On the 17th we have to go to our local office and make our profile video. Out of everything that we've had to do, this is by far the most nerve wracking. I don't mind public speaking much (I know, I'm weird) but being in front of a video camera and talking to an unknown person just scares me. I'm not even 100% sure what to say on the video! Granted, its only about 4 minutes long so if both Matt and I talk, we can each talk for about 2 minutes. 2 minutes in our entire life shouldn't be so scary. But it is!

Once we have the video done we only have two more things to finish before we can officially be in the books. We have to do our profile key. The profile key, which I'm sure I've mentioned before, is what we have to fill out to show what scenarios we accept regarding race and drugs/alcohol/mental health of the birth mother and father. This is another hard thing to decide. We've talked about it and thought about it a lot and we've decided that we're going to go conservative for a few months (i.e. little to no drugs or alcohol) then if we don't get any hits, we'll change our key to accept more. We just have to remember that while we do want a baby, we can't sacrifice what we know is our limit when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

We also have to do our profile. This is a 5 page/10 sided "book" all about us. We need to write a hello letter and info about our lives and ourselves. We also have to pick pictures that show who we are and then arrange it in a pretty way that makes expectant mothers want to look at our profile. Good thing we're graphic designers! At our profile meeting a few months ago a lot of the other PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) had no idea how to even create the profile. At least we have somewhat of an idea (since we do it every day!)

Our goal is to get everything done by the end of this month. Thankfully our photography business has slowed down and we should have weekends and evenings available to work on everything.

On another note, our nursery is almost done! We need to get a few more things. We want to get a bookshelf and a night stand. We also need a mattress and I need to get started on making the curtains and crib skirt with my mom. After those few things we need to get our prints on the wall and everything will be done. I'm extremely proud of this nursery and I can not WAIT to show it off! I looked at a million nurseries trying to decide what style I wanted to go with. I knew I wanted something a little more contemporary and adult (i.e. no Winnie the Pooh, zoo animals or anything like that). I was also torn between calm, neutral tones and bright, vibrant ones. Well... the vibrant ones won out and they look AMAZING! Matt was kind enough to let me do whatever I wanted with the nursery and I'm so thankful that he loves it as much as I do. I will get pictures taken in the next week or two and post for everyone to see.

Well, that should do it for now. Check back soon for the nursery pics!

The Perfect Poem

I was shopping on a website that is geared toward children's toys, clothes and the like (that's correct... we don't even have a baby yet and I'm already constantly shopping for them. Not buying... just window shopping, if you will).

Anyway, I came across this poem that really spoke to me. I have no idea who wrote it so if you happen to find it and know, I'd love to give credit to the author. I love it so much I think I'm going to put it in the nursery.

(just a side note, if you are a cryer, have the tissues ready!)


The Chosen Heart

Longing for a child to love,
I'd wish upon the stars above.
In my heart I always knew,
A part of me was meant for you.

I think how happy we will be,
Once I adopt you, and you adopt me.

I dream of all the joy you'll bring,
Imagining even the littlest things.
The way it will feel to hold you tight,
And tuck you in every night

The drawings on the refrigerator door,
And childhood toys across the floor.
The favorite stories read again and again,
And hours of games with make-believe friends.

The day you took my outstreached hand,
A journey ended, but our lives began.
Still mesmerized by your sweet face,
Still warmed inside by our first embrace.

I promised to give you a happy home,
And a loving family all your own.
A house you've now made complete.
With laughter, smiles and tiny feet.

A parent is one who guides the way,
Know I will be there everyday.
Rest easy as each night you sleep,
A lifetime of love is yours to keep.

Longing for a child to love,
I'd wish upon the stars above.
In my heart I always knew,
A part of me belonged to you.

Success!

Today was the delivery day for our sandwich sale fundraiser. I have to confess, it made me feel really good to see so many friends and co-workers willing to support us, even if it was with something as simple as buying themselves a tasty (and affordable!) lunch.

It's easy to get down sometimes during this process, especially when the goal seems such a long, long way off in the distance, but I try to hold on to days like this, when I'm reminded that we're not going through it alone.

I know this is kind of a short post, but I just wanted to put a little bit of my happiness out there for everyone. Thanks!

Not much happening

Well... not much is going on right now. We're just still working out a way to raise and save as much money as possible. We just finished doing a sub/sandwich sale that went well.

We plan on doing another spaghetti dinner soon. I'm also thinking about doing an online silent auction.

Would anyone be willing to donate items for the online auction and/or the spaghetti dinner raffle? Also, what do you think about a date for the spaghetti dinner? We want to make sure it's on a Saturday this time so hopefully the location we had it before has a Saturday open. Would November or December be better do you think?

Leave comments, email or whatever you need to to let me know what you all think about dates and donations.

I know this whole post is a lot of rambling... sorry for that!

THANK YOU! :D

Our Journey So Far

Let me forewarn you that this is going to be long, so hopefully you have time to read!

We started the adoption process (filling out the application) in March. We were promptly approved and we had our all-day adoption class on April 18th.

I was obviously a little nervous for the adoption class. Everything ran through my mind. "What would the class entail?" "Who else would be there?" "Why is it ALL DAY?" "How many other PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents) would be there?". We arrived at 9:20 (class started at 9:30) and took a seat at the conference table in our agency's office. There was a packet of information along with a book for us. Looking around the table I realized that there would only be one other couple with us. The other couple arrived (a husband and wife who looked to be around our ages, maybe a few years younger). Then one of the social workers came in and started the class.

Since this class was about 5 months ago, I'll admit (don't show my social worker this!) that I don't remember everything we went over in the class. We obviously went over information about what to expect with this adoption journey (fees, laws etc.). Some of the other things we did were pair up (boys vs. girls) and we had to talk over what we're missing by not having biological children and what we're gaining and also what we're missing and gaining by adopting. One of the things that I remember vividly (and I feel one of the most important things) was learning about the Adoption Triad. I'm not going to go into in detail about what every part of it means but you get the idea from this image:




We got a break halfway through the day and we went out to lunch with the other couple. We got to talk to them and find out what lead them to adoption and we talked a little about our journey as well. It was nice getting to know someone going through the same difficulties and emotions as us.

After we got back from lunch we met a local birthmother who had just given birth and made an adoption plan for her son a few months before. We listened to her story and I was completely in love with her! She is such an amazing young woman and all I could think was that I can only hope that our birthmother is as amazing as she is!

At the end of the class we made an appointment to go back next week to start our home study.

The home study...Ugh... just remembering the home study makes me slightly freak out. There was SO MUCH PAPERWORK! I still can't believe that somehow we got through it all. It took months for us (about 3 to be exact) to complete. Here's just a brief overview of what we had to do/fill out:

• fingerprinting/FBI and child abuse clearances
• tax reports for both of us for the last 10 years
• child abuse clearances for both of us
• copy of the deed to our house
• paperwork on all of our bills, income and savings/stocks/bonds etc.
• our high school or college diplomas
• we both had to get physicals
• and the hardest part... an autobiography for both of us

The autobiography was hard. VERY hard. There were so many questions about every part of our life. What are parent's names are. How we grew up. Where we grew up. How we were punished. Where you met your husband/wife. How long you dated. Those were the easy questions because they happened. The hard ones were: how do you plan on parenting (my first thought was "I'll tell you that AFTER I've parented". Questions like that also bothered me because those who are pregnant don't USUALLY think/talk about things like that, so why do we have to?) have you ever thought of a childless life. And even things about our marriage like: what are the strengths of our marriage, what are the areas for improvement, and how do we get along with our in-laws.

I wrote my autobiography while on vacation over our anniversary. It took me about 3 days to do and I wrote around 35 back-to-back pages. Then I had to go home and type it all!

After we got all of our paperwork done, we handed it in to our social worker. She read it all over then she came to our house for the actual home study part of the home study. I was a bit nervous but it was really nothing. She came in, sat down with us at our dining room table and just went over the home (i.e. town house with 3 bed, 1 1/2 bath, walk out finished basement etc.). Then she toured our house. That's it. Done. She said we were approved at the end of the home study and it would take her about 4 weeks to write up the paper work for us.

So what's next for us you ask? Well, surprisingly, the easy stuff is done and now comes the hard stuff! First of all, we need to raise/save/get in some way, $25,000 . This is the amount of cash we need available to us at a moment's notice before we can proceed (if you are one of those amazing people who would like to donate to our cause, we have a donate button through paypal in the upper right side of the screen... we swear that ALL of the money we raise will go toward our adoption!) We also have to create our profile (a 10 page booklet for the birth families to view), a video for the birth families (YIKES!)and we need to fill out our profile key.

Our profile key in and of itself is tough. It has basic info like what religion are we, what religion are we going to raise our child, how much time off work are we going to take, what type of care will the child have (daycare, family, full time stay-at-home parent) but the hardest part to fill out is the drugs and alcohol. Each section is broken up into drugs, and then broken up into trimester. So we could say we're ok with the birthmother drinking 1-2 drinks in her first trimester only. Or we're ok with heroin use throughout her entire pregnancy. Don't get me wrong when I say "we're ok with" these senarios. We're totally NOT ok with them. Actually, that's one of the things I've been struggling with the most throughout this process. I have NO control over what the birthmother does. Of course, If I were pregnant I wouldn't be doing any drugs or drinking at all and it really hurts me to have to relinquish the control over that as well as "be ok with" it. Its just so hard to decide what senarios we're willing to accept and which ones we're not.

Once we get the money, our profile, video and the profile key done THEN we can go into the books and officially be "waiting". Once we are waiting we can get called at any moment. Some people get called within a few days, some take a year or so. It really all depends. The two possible senarios for us are: 1. we get called with a birth mother who is still pregnant and is due in a few months. At that time, we would most likely meet the birth mother to see if we're a match. If we are a match... then we just wait until the baby is born. The other way is: 2. we get a call that says "you were just matched to a birth mother and your baby was born. Come to so and so hospital within 24 hrs to get your baby". At that point we need to get everything we need for a two week stay (if it is in another state) and travel to meet our new baby.

So that's where we are. For the most part we're caught up on what we've done and the technicals of everything. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

We're Adopting!

Hello everyone! Welcome to our first post! If you found our blog by accident, welcome! More likely though, you already know one or both of us and got to our blog through us talking non-stop about it!

Matt and I are adopting. Surprise! You never knew right? :P This blog is going to start off as our adoption blog but we hope to keep it up with info about our little one as he/she grows as well as our daily lives as a family. We're going to try and update it whenever we have something to say. This is mostly for us just to be able to write down our feelings (the good and the bad) but it's also to keep our family and friends in the loop of our journey. Hopefully we'll make some new friends along the way!

I've wanted to start this blog for a few months now. For a few weeks, I kept bugging Matt to help me come up with a name. I had a lot of bad ideas and even some really good ones. But low and behold, Matt came up with this one (he ALWAYS has the good ideas!). Here is the info behind the name. If  you've ever watched Friday Night Lights, you'll probably get this reference. In the show Friday Night Lights, they always say "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose". We both love the show and it really fits how we feel about our adoption journey. We decided to change Full Hearts to Open Hearts because were pursuing Domestic Infant Open Adoption.

Now that we got the introductions and basic information out of the way, lets get on to the reason for this blog!

Matt and I have been married for 5 years. About 3 1/2 years into our marriage we started talking about kids. I went off birth control and we let nature take its course. About a year into trying we knew things weren't working like they should. (That, or nature needed a GPS!) We saw my OBGYN and she did some blood work. The blood work came back with me having a high FSH. She didn't tell me the number but she did say that it was "a little" high. She then referred us to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) at Hershey Med. We met with Dr. Dodson (whom I can not say enough great things about... we LOVED him) in his office. He went over our issues and history. Just through talking with him he thought I might have PCOS (Polysystic Ovarian Syndrome) but he wanted to wait and see what my file said that my OBGYN was sending over. A week or two later we met with him again. He said that my FSH levels weren't "a little" high as my Dr. had said but very high. And average FSH level in normal women is 3-12. Mine was at 31. He said that he didn't think I had PCOS but instead he thought it was POF (Premature Ovarian Failure). Since the tests were a few months old he wanted me to have them taken again to be sure.

After the test results came back he gave me a call. He said that in the few months between the first test and the latest one, my FSH levels went from 31 to 81 and he officially diagnosed me with POF (Dr. Dodson prefers POI - Premature Ovarian Insufficiency).

A month later Matt and I went back in to see what our next step would be. Dr. Dodson said there is a very slim chance that I would ever be able to get pregnant on my own (not out of the question but not likely either). Really the only way would be to do IVF using a donor egg. That would cost about $20,000 for one try.

Matt and I talked it over. There were many factors involved with our decision but in the end, we did not want to go through with any medical treatments and decided on pursuing adoption.

I searched and searched for agencies. I got brochures from 3 different ones and compared them. We met or had phone interviews with a couple of them and in the end, the right one for us ended up being Adoptions From the Heart.

Stay tuned for more information about what we've done so far with our agency and other info. Thank you taking time to read this and we hope you continue to follow our journey to creating the family we've always wanted!

Special shout-out to our good friend, Karlo of Karlo Photography for the awesome photo of Matt and I!