We're done!!..Just kidding

    It’s over! We’re finally finished! Ok, we’re not totally finished, but we’re sort of finished…with some stuff…..almost. We did make a lot of progress this week though that has us very excited. First of all, our home study is finally finished. We had to track down a few more documents to add to the report in the last couple of days, but we received an email from our case worker today that said everything was finished. We weren’t really worried about it getting finished, but it was a great relief to finally have it done.

    The other thing we finished this week was our profile book. This is the book that our agency will show to birthmothers that they feel might be a good match for us. The book is full of pictures of us and our family and friends and gives them an idea of who we are. If it sounds a little like an advertisement for us, well, it kind of is I guess, but it allows the birth mother to get a good idea of the family she might be placing her child with. To say that we (and by “we” I mean Ashley) have obsessed over the making of this book in the last few weeks is an understatement. We’ve looked through every picture we can find and went over every word to make sure everything was just right. After reading over it several times together, we took it to a few other people to make sure it was ok, then sent it to our case worker. This was the scary part. I mean, we love our case worker, but we’ve also never made a book like this. We wouldn’t have been surprised if she came back with a list of things we did wrong that had to be fixed. Fortunately, she emailed us today and said everything looked great. While it doesn’t seem like a big deal to go online and make a photo book, getting this done was a huge victory for us.

     So now that those two things are done, we’re getting close to having our part of things finished. We’ll get the book and home study turned in, then we’ll be in the waiting pool (Not to be confused with the wading pool, which would be much more fun). Our agency doesn’t work off a waiting list, so we could get matched up with a birth mother any time after that. We’re hoping the wait will be short, and that very soon some birth mother will see our profile and think that we’re just what she is looking for. No matter how long the wait is though, we’re excited at the progress we’ve made and how close we are to getting to our child.

     We probably agonized over the profile book too much…..and the home study…..and pretty much everything else, but in the end it’s all going to be worth it. We’re excited about what’s happening with this process. Even though it might take longer than we like, we feel like we’re taking huge steps to getting closer to our child. We’re excited about what’s happening and we’re excited that you’ve all chosen to be a part of this journey with us. Thanks for everything.

Too Blessed to be Stressed

     So I’ve been having some headaches recently (don’t worry, I saw the doctor, had an MRI, saw another doctor, now we’re all good…except that it kind of led to the blog being late this week. Sorry). And though they turned out to be nothing serious, it led to a lot of concern and attempts to figure out where they were coming from. More than once someone has suggested that maybe it’s the stress of the adoption process that’s at the root of this mysterious brain pain. And while that’s probably a decent idea, I feel like I need to set the record straight at this point; our adoption isn’t stressful.

    Ok, I’ll admit, there have been a few times we’ve been stressed. When we had our home study, we were worried we wouldn’t get the house clean. When we had our fundraiser dinner, we worried about not having enough food (or not enough people to eat the food we had). But all of our worries have been things like that; the things that are associated with the adoption, but aren’t a real part of the adoption process itself.

    Maybe we just haven’t gotten to the stressful part yet. There might be some of you who have adopted and are thinking about how naïve we are and that we don’t realize all the stressful parts that are coming. Maybe you’re even right. I think we’d be the first people to tell you that we aren’t experts on this, but to be totally honest, we’re having a lot of fun with this process. I mean, who else do you know that invites all of their friends and family over (and even some strangers) to dump cans in their yard? That was an awesome night! We had a soup supper a few months ago, which was also a great time. From the yard sales we’ve had to selling t-shirts, we’ve had fun with just about everything we’ve done.

    The common denominator in all of these things is the people who’ve been involved. Everyone we’ve had who’s helped us, no matter what we’ve been doing, has been such a blessing to us. If you dumped cans in our yard, donated items for our yard sale, bought a t-shirt, or even read this blog every now and then; we seriously can’t tell you how much you all mean to us. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve helped make this process so much easier on us and we appreciate that so much.

    Eventually we’re going to print out all of these blog entries to save for our future child. Hopefully that will allow him to learn a little about the process that got him home. He’ll learn a few other things also. That dad likes to ramble and use way too many commas. That we had a few odd fundraisers to help with the adoption costs. That this blog occasionally drifts into talking about IU basketball. But hopefully he’ll also see how many of you have supported us (and our blog) from week to week and how positive of an experience his adoption has been. Trust me when I tell you that those two things are definitely connected.

Famous...well....almost famous

        So, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last week or so, let me break the news to you: we’re famous now. Seriously, we’re multimedia superstars! I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it, but if you haven’t, let me get you up to speed on our new-found fame. A few weeks ago, Marcia Walker from The Salem Leader came by the house to talk to us about our Can Our Yard Night Fundraiser and our adoption in general. We had a nice conversation for about an hour or so before she left. We didn’t ask when it would be in the paper because, quite frankly, we didn’t know if she would even find any of our story newsworthy. I mean, granted, the whole can in the yard thing is interesting in a whole “those people are weird” kind of way, but is it really worth dedicating a story in the paper to? Apparently it was, because we opened the paper last week to find our picture in there. (It’s also online, hence the term “multimedia superstars”)

http://salemleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=54&SubSectionID=276&ArticleID=6947&TM=82175.33

       It was great to have the article in the paper, and the fact that they even wanted to include it in the paper was awesome. The whole reason we’ve been so open about our adoption process is that we’ve wanted to be a resource for others thinking about adoption, so getting our information out has been great. We also like anything that publicizes adoption more. After all, if someone sees us in the paper, whether they’ve ever met us or not, it might make them consider adoption. And with all the children in the world who need homes, the more families that are willing to adopt, the better.

      But for all the things that were good about having that article in the paper, there was one thing that bugged me about the whole situation. It was that this was even news in the first place. Granted, dumping cans in someone’s yard to help them raise money is news, but the adoption process itself, and even fundraising to pay for it shouldn’t be. One of the biggest hurdles that separates people who think about adoption from people who adopt is that the costs become too much. Most people can’t afford to just write a check to cover adoptions. Fundraising is the key that allows average people to take on the above average cost of an adoption. Personally, nothing would make me happier than seeing adoption fundraisers in the newspaper every week. The more common fundraisers become, the more kids are finding loving homes.

       I know fundraising can be kind of a touchy subject. Some people may even say, “Hey, it’s your choice to adopt. If you can’t pay for it, that’s your problem.” And I understand that completely. But if having a fundraiser, whether it’s for us or someone else, helps get a child who needs a home into one, then I’d be happy going to fundraisers every weekend. I hope that’s one of the things people take away from this blog and our openness about the process is that, even though you think you can’t afford to adopt, there are options. Our greatest goal is that this causes other people to talk about adopting. And while I can’t afford to pay for other people’s adoptions at the moment, maybe I’ll win Powerball or something and I’ll pay for a lot of them. Maybe it will even be yours. Just tell people your adoption was financed by some multimedia superstar.

You Silly Goose

Parents can have some pretty high expectations for their kids. Some parents are convinced that their kid is going to be the next Michael Jordan, the next Mozart, or the next Albert Einstein even before they’re out of diapers…sometimes before they’re even born. But to be fair, we have some pretty high expectations for our future kid also. Like his mother and father before him, we expect our child to be a huge dork.   

     What brings this up is that it’s almost time to have our annual NerfWar at our house. For those of you who are more mature than us (pretty much all of you), NerfWar is like a big, grown-up game of capture the flag. Everyone has a Nerf gun and, if you get shot, you’re out. If you’re wondering, yes, we have the maturity of 7 year olds, but it’s not just us, our friends are dorks too. Just picture a big, open yard full of adults (and we let some kids play too) running around with Nerf guns. Sounds pretty silly, right? It gets worse. This year we’re dressing up like superheroes. Like I said, we’re dorks.

    It’s weird, we know, but we have a lot of fun with it. More than anything else, it’s an excuse to have our friends and family over. We get to run around the yard with the people playing the game, and get to spend the rest of the night enjoying a cookout with everyone else.  But that’s why I’m pretty convinced that our child will turn out to be a dork…because he’ll be surrounded by them! No offense to any of our friends and family members reading this, but you guys are huge dorks too. Our child will grow up with parents that not only think adults playing with Nerf guns is normal, he’ll be surrounded by them!

    I think our future child’s dorkiness is a great thing though. Although I’m sure he’ll eventually be embarrassed that mom and dad are shooting at their friends with Nerf darts, there’s going to be a time when he has a lot of fun with it. We’re looking forward to having him around. We can’t wait to have our own little NerfWar player running around the yard with us, trying to capture the other team’s flag. Hopefully by the time we have our next NerfWar, we’ll have our little Nerf Warrior here. I think he’ll love being a part of it. Even if it means having a family full of dorks.