Surprise! We found a house!

What a big week for Tim and I! First, we are officially activated with the Adoption Support Center! Yeah! The bios are complete and I've paid the advertising fee (the higher amount...ugh!) When calling to pay as usual with my credit card, I discovered I couldn't use my card for this part of the fees. Hopefully the communication I've had with the agency will help them make changesto make things more clear to other couples who may be confused by the advertising fee and use of credit cards.

Other big news this week....we signed a contract on a house! Yikes! I was mentally prepared to spend a few weeks looking around and then we found a house we really liked. It's been owned for by a couple who are teachers. They've lived there for 40 out of the 45 years they've been married. They've raised 3 children there including an adopted daughter. It's about 1900 sq. ft on the main level with another 1200 ft in the basement. It has 3 bedrooms/2.5 baths. The master bedroom was an addition in the 80s and is now a big room with a very nice bathroom and not 1 or 2 but 3 closets including a walk in closet! The basement has an office space for Tim and a great workshop that'll give him no excuses for avoiding those honey do jobs. :-) It has new carpet and a new roof. It's in a quiet neighborhood about a mile from Tim's work and is next to the Monon Trail. It's in Nora on the north side of Indianapolis which has some great little shops and an organic grocery store that we really like. I visited the school about 6 weeks ago when I was checking out the area and really, really liked it. I met teachers there who were students in the same school once upon a time. When people come back to teach in the school where they were taught, I think it says alot about the school. They do school wide looping in 2nd and 3rd where children have the same teacher for 2 years in a row. They do the same with 4th and 5th. This can be so good for kids. I looped from 2nd to 3rd one year and the growth I saw was amazing from my students. Overall, it just felt like the right place for us to be AND we got a good deal on it paying much less than we were thinking we were going to pay for a house. Yeah!!! We close May 8 and take possession around May 16 depending on when the current owners can get everything moved to Seattle. Then the painting and cleaning begins! Anyone want to come visit the end of May? :-)

House Pics

House Hunting Begins!

We have officially begun house hunting! Saturday we went our with our realtor and friend, Deb, to look at 3 houses. The first needed way, way too much work. The second was just up the road from another adoption friend and was really cute but a bit too small. The kitchen was tiny and had an oven that looked more like an Easy Bake one with no room for a larger one. The basement had a fun bar with a control panel of 8 dimmer switches to control the mood lighting in the basement. You know Tim had fun with those. :-) The last one was straight out of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It had a great floor plan with 4 bedrooms, laundry near the bedrooms...yes!, finished basement, nice backyard....definately like what we are looking for but we didn't care for the area so much. The search continues. We had dinner with Deb and Ron at a great Thai restaurant near their house...yum! Wednesday I am going out to look at more houses with Deb and I'm sure I'll be busy researching away online. I spend way too much time on this computer since we've moved here. Soon, hopefully soon, we'll be a bit more settled and I can spend more time redecorating our new house and less research time. :-)

Revising and Editting and Money Oh My....

It's been a bit more stressful of a week in the adoption journey with a few bumps to smooth out. We received a letter from the agency letting us know they were missing copies of our driver's license, birth certificates and physicals. I called the dr's office who say they mailed them and then called the agency who says they didn't. Hmm...perhaps they've gone to the land of lost socks? I went by the agency to pick up copies that I could drop off to the agency. The other 2 things should have been easy except Tim somehow lost his copy of his birth certificate when he went to apply for his IN driver's license. Luckily, his mom and dad had a copy that dad was so kind to take to work, scan and email to me. Yeah Dad! Thanks so much! That was a HUGE timesaver!
The next big thing that happened was we were emailed copies of our web paragrah which birthmothers will be able to see online and our bio sheets that will be given to birthmothers that might be interested in us. The web paragraph was easy to look over, made a few changes and voila! Done, checked off the list. The bios proved to be a bit more challenging. The bio is 3 parts: a Dear Birth Couple letter with our picture and a scrapbooking background; 2 pages of narrative text about us; and 2 pages of pictures about us. The Dear Birth Couple page was fine except I didn't care for the background paper. The one the director, Julie, choose was very modern with lots of browns and light blues. Not really fitting our personalities so I choose something softer with rusts and greens. I like it much better. The other challenge was the 8 pictures chosen. She wants to include a picture of our house in GA which I'm hesitant to do. I don't want to lead a birthmother to believe that her child will be raised in a house that looks like that since we do not plan to buy anything like it here. We agreed to leave it in understanding that we will update it after we buy our new home later this spring or summer. There was a picture of Tim with children but no picture of me with children so I asked to one one put it. I left the meeting with Julie feeling a bit stressed and am trying to stay positive.
The final adoption stress of the week was in regards to the advertising fee the agency charges. They have one amount for most couples and an $1800 higher amount for couples with children and couples over 40. The higher amount is because their experience shows that these 2 categories typically take over a year to place and result in higher advertising fees. I am 39 and Tim is 43 so , in our opinion, we are not a couple over 40 but, in the eyes of the agency it turns out, we are. This fee is explained in their paperwork and was talked about in the opening seminar. We were very surprised though to learn that we were considered to be in the over 40 category. I've written to Julie requesting we be considered for the lower fee because the fact that one of us is over 40 is the only main con against us. We feel we have many, many pros on our side. The fact that I'm a teacher, we are very active, willing to consider different ages, races, premature birth, some types of drug use and even do a full open adoption which we are told they have very few couples willing to do so should all help us. We also have great networking skills and will be working to locate a birthmother on our own (You can help!). We are also uncomfortable with their policy to charge the extra fee up front when their policy does not include refunding the extra money if we do adopt in less than a year. We would be totally willing to pay the additional $1800 at the 12 month mark if it was necessary. We expect a letter this week giving us our final home study approval and along with it will come the advertising bill. What amount will it ask for? If nothing elses, hopefully the "over 40" couple will be more clearly defined by the agency so that future couples like us will not be confused as well. All in all it was quite a stressful week in the adoption process. I'm sure it'll have lots of ups and downs and this week was certainly one of the downs.

Cincinnati and Chicago Oh My!

It was a very busy weekend! Friday I went to Cincinnati, Ohio with a friend, Stephanie, and her daughter, Maya, to pick up the new infant car seat and stroller I had bought on Ebay...gotta love Ebay! Yes, they could of shipped it but that wouldn't be much of a fun adventure now would it? :-) I love, love, love the new car seat. It's green with burgandy stripes. Now all we need is the baby! My sister says she's sending me a baby doll to practice with in the meantime.

We had a great time on our gypsy trip! Stephanie got to visit with a friend she'd never met face to face and we had fun wandering around downtown Cincinnati. We at at Bar Louie's right on the water. We ate meatball subs..yum! and bruschetta that was served in a HUGE martini glass.

The next day Tim and I drove to Chicago to visit with his Aunt Dee and Uncle Tony and had a great time without ever leaving their house! I could listen to Aunt Dee tell stories all day. She was making me laugh! Tim enjoyed talking about everything from fitness to finance with Uncle Tony. We also enjoyed a delicious dinner of chicken dumplings and cousin Mike joined us for dinner. Aunt Dee and Uncle Tony are both such beautiful people to the core and we are so excited to have moved so much closer to them now so we can see them more often.

Today was also a BIG day for our adoption. The staff at Adoption Support Center met this morning to review our file. Now we wait for a letter this week to let us know if our home study is completed and we are ready to have our bios created and advertised. Checking the mail is even more exciting this week! I've posted a link to the Adoption Support Center's website where our profile will be posted eventually. I know I'm checking everyday already! :-) Hope all is well with each of you!

The Waiting Jar in March

We are still adding green beads, one a day, and they are starting to pile up. Once we are officially activated, I'm going to change the color of the beads. I sure hope we don't fill the jar up!

Home Study Part III - Home Visit

Last night I had a dream that we adopted a little girl....my first adoption dream. In the dream, Tim and I were holding and loving on our new daughter and there were 2 female friends there who kept trying to put little knit caps on her. Whenever I would pull one off, I'd discover 3-4 more underneath it. Hmm...what do the dream anaysis books say about that?

Yes, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned before our social worker Amanda came over for the home visit. How could I not? I was feeling actually pretty calm about this part of the process. Amanda came over about 9 a.m. and stayed for about 3 hours. We liked her alot! She was very comfortable to talk with and I could easily see why the birthmothers she works with come to trust her and talk with her. She asked about things we'd been asked before like our families, education, income, interests, etc.

She asked why we've chosen domestic adoption. I knew next to nothing about my birthfather until I was 38. Tim and I were planning on starting a family and I realized I really wanted to know my health history on my father's side to understand what genetic makeup I could pass along to a child. Amazingly, I learned that my mother and my birthfather's family had grown up next door to each other and an uncle from each side had been friend's since they were children. The one aunt got in touch with the other aunt and one day, much to my surprise, I received an envelope in the mail. I opened it and saw my father's face looking back at me. There was completely no doubt that I am his daughter as I look just like him! The pic above is the one I saw first. Since then, I've had the opportunity to get to know some of my family on my dad's side. He passed away when I was about 8 but he came from a family of 10 and also had 7 other children so my extended family is VERY extended now! I am so thankful to my aunt and uncle for introducing me to this side of my history! It is so amazing to see people who look like me and also to have access to health history info. So....that is why we have decided on domestic adoption. It feels like a natural choice for us to make. We want our child to have that same opportunity if possible one day.

Back to the home visit....she also asked about what we thought made a good parent, how we would discipline and took a walk through the house which took all of about 3 minutes. I felt that everything went very, very well and was on floating all day. It is becoming more and more real that we are really going to be parents...wow! I guess you could say that we are officially pregnant at long last. :-) Next, the agency will meet on Monday to review our file and will send us a letter letting us know if anything is missing or it'll be a Home Study Approval letter. After that, we'll just need to wait for them to put together our bio sheet and post our info on their website. Then we officially begin looking for our little one....where, oh where is he or she? Please help spread the word...you never know when someone has a cousin, neighbor, friend, coworker, sister, etc. who is considering adoption. Your doctor and church are 2 good places to put in a good word for us as well. You could be the one to connect us with our child!

The Family Picture

The Adoption Support Center will have info about us posted on their website along with a picture of us. Many of the pics we have are not up to date with my new shorter hair and Tim's clean shaven face so I wanted to get a current pic. I thought it would be fun for the first picture a birthmother might see of us to include our furry children so.....armed with a dog, a cat and a digital camera with a timer, Tim and I set up to capture the perfect family photo...what a hoot! Mac wasn't in the mood for having his pic taken and Dottie was a rag doll flopping into whatever position Tim quickly lifted her in...our own photo booth in action. Here are pics that I thought would make you laugh too!

Later that day, we headed to a park since it was 70+ degrees outside...yes! Love springtime! We discovered Fort Ben Harrision state park near us which is 1700 acres of trails and play space including a lake for fishing and horses to ride. We also discoverd Holiday Park with the coolest children's playspace I've every seen! It was tons of fun things that even I, a big kid at heart couldn't resist. I slid down one of the huge tube slides but resisted climbing the giant spider web. I'll save that for another day. The park also has lots of trails that go down to the White River and an amazing nature center that looks like it's bustling with lots of activities. Very fun! We are liking our new Indianapolis home very much!

Home Study Part II - The Class

Tim and I attended a full day class at the Adoption Support Center. The Center, btw, is in a really cute old house in Broad Ripple. It has a swing on the front porch and is next to the Monan Trail. It has a fun, homey feel to it which I think is perfect for an adoption center! Anyway, we spent all day today there with Marlyss who led the class. There were 6 other couples there. Two of which had adopted before through the center and were returning to work with them again. One of them has waited 18 months for their match and then got a call that a baby had just been born and would they like to come pick him up?! Wow! The birthmother apparently had a very difficult life and had hid her pregnancy. She checked into the hospital under a false name and wanted to just have the baby and leave. Very sad... The other couple got a match within their first month being active. They met with the birthmother a few times and were at the hospital when their daughter was born. They really liked the birthmother and continue to stay in contact with her now. Two very different experiences and two peeks into what might happen for us when we become parents.

The purpose of the class was to help up understand some of the possibilities that might happen along the way so that we'll understand and try to be prepared for anything. They talked about what we could expect from them and what they expect from us. They make it very clear that at the minimum, you will provide letters and pictures for the birthmother if she requests it. Anything else is optional. We would love to find ourselves matched with a situation that we could have a fully open adoption. Of course, we would only want them if it was going to be a healthy relationship for all involved so we will be careful as wel go along. The center tells us that the moms who often times want the fully open adoption are some of their best moms because they usually have full prenatal care and are usually healthy physically and mentally.

We turned in all the paperwork!!!! Yeah!!! All 150+ photos as well only to learn that they will pick from the photos and come up with a 2 page photo collage about us. Shoot, I could have done that much faster than gathering all those pics. Ah well.... They do it that way so they can be very picky about which pics they use and also so all couples are on the same level with what is presented to the birthmothers. Some other agencies have the couple prepare a scrapbook about themselves. This can sometimes set one couple apart just because they are more creative than others which does not necessarily make them a good match for that child.

We went to Bazbeaux's Pizza in Broad Ripple for lunch...yum! Tim and I ordered the tuna pizza...a memory from our honeymoon in Italy. Yes, the others thought it was an odd choice too but we like it! :-)

Next up, the home visit next week!

One more week of paperwork...yeah!

All paperwork is due next Friday so we are in the home stretch now! Yeah! I've spent a good chunk of this week working on gathering pictures of us that the agency will use for our profile...154 of them actually in all...whew. Yesterday, I sent them off to be printed at CVS and now am working on writing labels for the back of each of them that says who, what and where. I've gotten all the county background checks back. Fulton county was the most difficult one. They sent it without being notarized even though I highlighted the phrase saying it was required. When I called, the lady who did it wasn't there and no one seem to be able to tell me when she'd be back and there was no one else who could do it. So frustrating! I calledt the agency to explain and they said it would be fine to not have that one notarized since we are not doing an international adoption. They will just call to verify the info themselves. Good news!

This weekend Tim and I need to finish the formal application including what physical and health impairments we will and will not accept. I'll put that piece off because it's so hard to make those decision....will we accept a blind child, missing an arm, cleft palate, food allergies, and on and one goes the list. Thankfully it's not the final decision and we'll be able to discuss things on a case by case basis as we go. We also need to write some paragraphs about ourselves and how we see each other and our relationship. Almost done though....whew...one more week of paperwork to go!

On a fun note, we will be spending the day tomorrow at our first training for the Reinaissance Faire that we are volunteering for. We are going to be part of the peasant guild this year which should be lots of fun! There is one training a month leading up to the festival the first weekend in October. Mark your calender now and come join the fun!