We have been hesitant about restarting the adoption process after the utter disaster we had in Miami.
This week, I am in Boynton Beach for my new job. I’ve been staying in an Airbnb alone with hubby at home with Lola and all the packing. All day yesterday I was thinking about Friday’s for dinner. All. Freakin. Day.
Well on a whim, I went to Alehouse instead where I happened to hear a couple across the restaurant mention that they’re adopting. I so so badly want to go over and drill them about how, their timeline, and which agency. I felt like a total creeper, but I did it anyway. Hey, at least I waited until after they paid their check and were leaving.
Thank you: https://favim.com/hopeful/
I approached them outside and she was apprehensive when a total stranger said “I happened to overhear, but are you guys adopting?” So I quickly added that we’d been trying in Miami for several years with no luck and are moving here next week. They both opened up pretty quickly afterwards. And showed me a photo of their future daughter plus gave me names of a handful of other children they’d met along the way.
It took them under a year from their classes, 2 weeks to complete their home study, and their overnight visits start next weekend. They are straight adoption as well and have had ZERO problems and are not required to have a foster license. (Miami agencies refused to consider us for adoption unless we got our foster license.) She said they do a ton of mixers up here to be able to meet the adoptable kids (which we kept asking for in Miami!) and positively raved over the woman I’ve already been in touch with at ChildNet. Their future little one is 4 years old and they’re accelerating the visitation schedule due to her age. She will be living with them within a few weeks. We exchanged info and they said to contact them anytime with questions.
THEY GAVE ME SO MUCH HOPE YOU GUYS!! I called husband to tell him what happened and even he was getting a little bit excited. We so badly want to parent and this may be the solution! Pregnancy may not happen with all the medical issues I’ve been having, but it’s also not being ruled out.
Thank you: https://orlandoespinosa.wordpress.com
Hello!
Thought I’d pop back in and share an updated photo. I’ve now lost over 165lbs. Also, this handsome little nugget is my amazing 16 month old nephew. The photo on the right was taken at his mama’s baby shower for baby brother due in 2 months.
Also ready for a crazy life update… Ready?
* I ran my first 10K in Disney World for the Princess Weekend. It was amazingly fun except that I got violently ill and spent 2 days seemingly on death’s door..
* We ran the Star Wars 10K also in Disney World for my 2nd 10K and his 1st. I shaved 10 minutes off my time from Princess and he finished about 40 minutes before me.
* We are moving! Getting out of Miami and heading about 80 miles north to Boynton Beach as I have accepted a position in Boca Raton.
* We have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get pregnant for a few months now since my body seems to be working for the first time in.. ever? This was definitely a result of my losing so much weight. Apparently my RE knew what he was talking about with weight and PCOS.
* There’s a lot more, but at this point, does it matter?
* As an offshoot of our moving away from Miami, we will be attempting to adopt again. We are both hoping that Palm Beach County has their shit together unlike Miami.
*Tonight I contacted the lead agency in Palm Beach and started looking again at the available children on AdoptFlorida.org. I am beyond disgusted that I recognized several children with updated photos from 3-4 years ago still listed and still looking for families. Children that we requested information about.
I’m not entirely certain if we are ready for this heartbreak again, but we want a family. We want a child or 2. We don’t know if I will be able to get pregnant and don’t want to miss out on being parents. We agree we’d love any child we bring into our family by any means. I always said if we didn’t get pregnant in X years, we would revisit adoption. Apparently it was more of, “if we get out of Miami, we will revisit adoption.”
So here we go again… adoption.
My life has taken a major change and blogging is the last thing on my mind. I don’t foresee many more posts on here, but please keep me in your feeds bc you never know when I’ll feel like writing. =)
I am on a major health journey and have lost 80lbs since February and feel like a whole new person! I have more to lose, but am thoroughly enjoying how I feel these days. A huge plus to losing so much weight is the possibility of getting pregnant without drugs. So we’ll see how that works out. I bought running shoes and an awesome bike and signed up for 2 Disney 10K races in February and April plus some local 5K races. I may have an obsession with virtual races and complete all my miles on the treadmill at the gym.
My handsome nephew is now 7 months old. I don’t get to see him very much, but cherish every moment when I do and love all the photos I get of him. He is such a sweet baby!
We (yes, collectively) have given up on the foster system in Miami. I have zero faith in it and have quit the Board of the association effective September 30th. We aren’t even getting into this anymore. I’m so fed up. Just am thankful for the amazing handful of friends we met along our 3+ year journey with nothing to show for it.
We spent a week in San Diego for Comic Con and it was the single greatest week I’ve had in a long time. Our wedding week in Vegas is the only thing to compete.
I got a new job! And I freakin love it. I still work on Miami Beach, but in a position of considerable power in an organization that will help me with my future political career.
Still in MPA classes – 4th semester. Graduation is next summer. I will then be able to rule the world.
My 40th birthday is on Friday.
So I had this great post lined up talking about my new nephew, WEB. He is beautiful and perfect and I couldn’t wait to hold and snuggle him. But for various reasons, this is a different kind of post.
Now, this will just be a normal update.
For starters, we – husband and I – are ridiculously fortunate to have scored badges to San Diego Comic Con this year!!!! (Every single type of badge sold out in under 60 minutes…) Y’all know just how much we love our cons as we’ve been attending Megacon and Supercon for the last 5 years and this year we attended Magic City for the first time. Seeing as SDCC is clear across the country, we are making a vacation out of it and spending a few days before and after to really soak everything in. The OMG feeling still hasn’t disappeared 3 days later.
School is good. I met a lot of great contacts at an ASPA conference last week.
Work is work… you know how that goes.
I currently have a super mild case of strep that I caught from 1 of 2 sources, both at work.
We attended WordCamp Miami this weekend and it was fantastic! Of course it pumped me up again to incorporate and push my design business again. It happens every year, and every year I do nothing.
Adoption? Nothing really. As you know I am on the Board of SFFAPA and very involved in the foster and adoption world. Will our child come to us this way? I honestly don’t know anymore. We have begun to explore both international-ish adoption and private newborn adoption. Of course, there is an extremely high cost associated with both of these and the benefits of a foster adoption aren’t part of either option. For example, international and private adoptions don’t provide free college tuition which would suck! That was a huge thing for us as we want our children to attend some sort of college of vo-tech school.
For those wondering, WEB was born on the 9th and had initial troubles but finally went home on the 15th. He was preemie so they are under self-imposed quarantine for a few more weeks.
This morning we had our Adoption Review Committee meeting!
Husband took off Wednesday night from work since we had to be downtown in the morning. We had yummy dinner last night and relaxed watching TV and playing video games.
This morning, we woke up early and were ready to leave the house by 8:20am. The ARC was set for 10:30am. We drove to the metrorail station, parked on the roof of the garage, then got on the train heading for Government Center. We arrived so early that we found breakfast at GC and hung out taking our time eating. I wasn’t sure exactly how to get to Our Kids, so after walking outside twice, I asked a police officer to point us in the right direction. My GPS isn’t that accurate on the walking setting.
We went on our way and it was only about 3 blocks away. The walk was super easy and really nice. He talked about trying to find a job in the GC area so we could ride the train together. I see couples doing that and even taking their kids to school on the train. We found the correct building,located the gate to walk in and then I fell.
Yup – I faceplanted right outside the building. I twisted my right ankle and ripped up my left knee. By some miracle, even though I landed flat on the ground, I didn’t skin my hands, rip any clothes, break my sunglasses or my phone. I was holding my phone, texting and walking and was sure it – or at least the case – was going to break. Nope, it was perfect. But oy was I in a lot of pain. He said I cried out as I fell. In my mind I yelled the F word really loudly as I hit the ground. Note to self, texting and walking is just as bad as texting and driving when you’re a klutz like me.
I sat for a few minutes then he helped me stand. I wobbled for about a minute to catch my breath and stop shaking then started walking since we were getting close to the time we had to be there. We checked in with security and went upstairs. We had to wait for about 40 minutes, but our ACW’s supervisor came out to let us know is was going to be a little while since they were running a little bit behind schedule. Great, no problem. I sat there with my foot propped up on my laptop bag. I saw 1 person I know that I was introduced to via email and then met at several events.
When we were taken back to the conference room, we met the panel: Paula, Allyson and Becky (via phone call). Paula explained about the review process based on both our background and on the state of things these days. She asked us questions if we had any concerns. Then asked why we decided to adopt and a little bit of our background.
She said the reason we were there was 2-fold:
After we answered the questions, she told us what happens next. We don’t get the results today. (I actually knew this coming into the ARC since I asked a friend what to expect.) They will write up a report, hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, and submit it to the administration. The administration will read the report, check out our file and then give us the approval or denial. They couldn’t tell us if we were approved, but it seemed like we were. However, we’re waiting for the actual official approval before I jump for joy.
She did recommend, though not mandate, that due to our backgrounds, we look into parenting class at either FRC or one of the other agencies. It would help us to make new parenting choices and not fall back on what we grew up with.
After the meeting and we said our good-byes, husband and I were leaving when Paula came out to catch us. She said from the sound of things, her family and upbringing were a lot like mine. We chatted for about 15-20 more minutes about different things like getting firmly entrenched in the local foster/adoption community (that I am and just A-D-O-R-E!), finding friends with parenting strategies we want to emulate and asking them about it, and reading up on as much as we can to learn about foster kids problems, attachments, etc. Regardless of how prepared we think we are, we’re not. And rather than fall back on not ideal parenting strategies, we should start now forming behaviors, etc for our children.
She’s amazing. Seriously. She’s one more amazing person that I’ve met along the way in the past year.
I have got to check my search terms more in the future bc this happened in the last month:
Some of theses are pretty amusing and I’m still baffled that they led to my little blog.
By far, my most visited post is the one about Apple Butter. Even before I posted the link to Pinterest, it got several hits a day. And now, I’m breaking 100 hits a day. Oh Pinterest, I do love thee.
I can finally count the number of days until our orientation on my fingers. And not use any twice!
10 glorious days until this adoption process becomes a reality.
Every time I tell someone at work that we’re adopting, they’re so happy and excited for us. It’s amazing to see/ hear the different responses and reactions that I’m getting. Also, I love hearing the “I’m adopted” stories from friends. It’s so heartwarming to know that we aren’t alone in this journey.
I was in a different Barnes & Noble tonight buying some awesome books for our 11year old cousin and asked the sales folks where the adoption books were. They had three. I asked where the grandparents books were. They had one. Ugh. Really? I was considering getting a book and giving it to my parents at their anniversary dinner – 42! – as an opening to discuss our adoption plans. However, the lack of books postponed it yet again. Maybe I’m just not looking forward to hearing that we should just “have our own babies” again. Even if I could get pregnant, we would still be adopting.
