adoption

Dec162013

I’m still here…

I know it’s been well over a month since my last entry, but there is literally nothing to report. We are completely stalled and haven’t had a response to the many emails I have sent to our case worker. It would appear that we are not unique in this either. Of the other classmates from our PRIDE class, only 1 couple has a completed home study and only bc they had extenuating circumstances and already had a child identified. All the others, from the informal survey myself and another classmate completed, no one else is even close. Not even the potential foster parents which surprised me.

We graduated on September 10th and were told they had to be completed by December 10th. Hi, it’s December 16th. We haven’t heard a peep since November 20th when I received an email about an adoption picnic event. From the get go, it’s been very difficult to get in contact with almost anyone from our agency. We’ve actually looked into switching agencies in the hopes of completing our home study faster, but it seems like they are all pretty slow. Joining and attending the association meeting is pretty eye opening. We’ve learned a lot about the process talking to other families.

I’ve had so much more luck talking to my friends at Our Kids than hearing a peep from our own agency. No, I take that back. I was called a couple weeks back by one of our awesome PRIDE instructors asking about placing a child with us. Unfortunately, he was way far out of our criteria and also not having a home study, we couldn’t have accepted him no matter what.

This whole process is just extremely frustrating and painful. I know that one day we will have our little one in our family. But until then, I am struggling. And with every new post about my friend’s pregnancies, my heart breaks a little bit more. Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond excited for every single one of them, but it still breaks my heart that they will all likely have their babes before ~~I have mine~~ we have ours. Even the ones that just announced in the past week.

Having an inordinate amount of stress at work isn’t helping either. I am currently wrapping up the largest event of the year that we’ve been working on for months. And come January, I am taking a new job. In being fair, I’ve given my boss the opportunity to meet the salary of my new job, but it has an expiration date on it.

Plus, we were really really hoping to have a child in our home – or at least going through the visits – by Christmas/ New Year’s.

To the person/people that read every single post in my blog on December 5-6, I am in awe. There is so much that I’ve written over the years that I’ve even forgotten most of it. Hope you enjoyed it!

Nov082013

Can’t Wait for Carseats

I might be totally strange, but I cannot wait to have a carseat in the back of my car.

When I purchased my Luna nearly 4 years ago, I intentionally purchased a car large enough for rear facing car seats and lots of cargo space for when my kids grow up and have lots of sporting equipment to haul around. Apparently I was expecting hockey/football playing boys or whatever sports girls typically play that involves large equipment.. I traded in a car I still very much miss, but just plain wasn’t large enough for the gaggle of babies I pictured in the backseat.

Well, not gaggle. Just 2 or 3.

Little did I know that I could have kept my beautiful sparkly red Moxie as there will never be rear facing carseats in my car.

During our process of furniture shopping for the Fletchling (a name Steve really doesn’t like!) I have also been looking at booster seats thinking we’d pre-purchase them so we’d be prepared. We haven’t bought anything except for furniture at this point.

Image Source: TheCarSeatLady on Facebook

And then, I saw the above graphic on a friend’s Facebook page and learned something. The maturity component is a new one to me. I always thought age and weight was the only thing determining when to go from 5 point harness to booster seat. Since we don’t know what age child we’ll be adopting, we certainly don’t know his/her height, weight or maturity level. We will definitely be waiting until we meet and are matched to purchase car seats for our cars.

In very fun news… I am participating in a blog crawl for National Adoption Month. Check out all the possible entry avenues below. There is a wealth of information on the entire adoption process from all angles.. and not just foster care adoption like we’re doing

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Nov012013

Short Update

Hiya,

Things are better than the last adoption post. I was overreacting and am well aware. We ended up meeting with our ACW* last Saturday and went over a few more questions. She was at the house for just shy of 2 hours which included walking around the house and seeing all the changes we’ve made. We’ve fully furnished Stormie‘s bedroom and moved Steve’s desk into our bedroom. Thank goodness the rooms are so large bc otherwise, all this furniture wouldn’t fit.

At the foot of the bed are 2 3-shelf bookshelves that he can use as a side table from the bed itself. They fit perfectly under the curve of the footboard.

I hung a shelf in the laundry room for the chemicals and cleaners.

We are going back in today for more questions. Honestly, I don’t know why they’re not all done at once like a couple from our PRIDE training, but c’est la vie. Maybe she’s required to see us a certain number of times. Whatever the case, I’m not sure.

* She made sure we realized that she is not our case worker and merely the person performing our home study. Once she finishes, we won’t be interacting with her again unless she happens to be the CW for our matched child.

Oct162013

Furniture and Frustrations Galore

Not much is happening on our end..

The new furniture was delivered and it is awesome! I finally feel like we live in a grown ups home. The rug and couches make everything look so much better. The dresser is just amazing and so pretty that even if this adoption doesn’t happen*, we’re moving it into our bedroom. We’ve removed all the cartoon, superhero and Doctor Who artwork from all the walls and are going to hang it in the kids room. Yeah that sucked. I was so used to seeing the Andy Warhol-esque Darth Vader, psychedelic 4th Doctor, the Avengers arm wrestling and tribute to Jim Henson art in the bedroom. (What do you mean we have weird taste in art?? lol) Not to mention all the other art in the living room and kitchen.

Going along with the grown up theme, we took down everything and need to re-frame them all with black frames. Black couch, black frames, yellow walls (not our choice), and a multi-colored rug to tie everything together.

Steve has to re-do his fingerprints for some unknown-to-us reason so he’s going in Friday for that and to meet with our ACW. She wanted me to come down as well but I’m running a 600+ person event Friday at work so that’s not happening. ~~Besides, she’s coming to our house on Saturday for home visit #2.~~

No, no she’s not. She just emailed to cancel.

I feel like a rock that was rolling along so nicely and gathering momentum that just smashed into a wall with a gap slightly smaller than the width of the rock. Like we have to fight to push through to get this done. Just letting the process work seems to not be working for us. In fact, it is frustrating both of us and normally Steve is pretty unflappable. He’s my rock and even he’s having issues with this whole process.

I know in the end we will have a child and be parents, but… when?

We set our 2nd home visit appointment nearly 3 weeks ago and she just said she had to reschedule due to “an unexpected conflict.” I’m sorry, but that’s not really our problem, is it? If I had a personal issue but had a work thing that was super important, I would have to alter my personal issue or find coverage for the work or personal thing. In fact, I had to email my boss to see if I could leave work early next Tuesday to go deal with this stuff.

This just makes me feel like she’s talking down to us: “Please remember even if the interviews are done in my office, that doesn’t replace that fact that I still need to do a walk thru in your apartment.” Am I over-reacting? Probably. It’s OK, I know this whole process is making me freak out over every little thing.

I really hope my next post has good news in it!

* …anytime soon. We’re getting pretty frustrated with the process, but not nearly as much as my friends M&E in Orlando!

Oct012013

Moving Right Along..

Why yes, I do plan on using this for all my progress posts

More updates from the list of requirements –

~~Drivers license’s~~ DONE
~~Social security cards~~ DONE
~~Marriage license~~ DONE
~~Current lease~~ DONE
Paystubs to show we’re gainfully employed – Mine are DONE, we either need to print his or note it in his bank statement
Tax returns for the last few years – just need to make the copies
Bank statements for all our accounts – Have for mine and our joint account
Lola and Phoenix vaccine records – need to make appointment for his annual then get printouts for both
Steve’s divorce decree
Physical’s for us both – need to make appointments
Employment verification for us both – mine is DONE and faxed back already. I emailed our ACW to let her know.
~~A voided check~~ DONE
and a few others, plus all the forms and signatures required in the inch thick packet.

Also, I emailed one of my closest friends about the reference and need to mail her the form. Also, Steve’s mom will fill one out so I need to mail it to her as well. My aunt will probably do one as well. Now to contact the others and mail those off as well!

Sep302013

First of Three ACW Visits

We had our first home visit with our ACW on Saturday!

When I spoke to her last Friday, we set up our appointment for yesterday afternoon and getting our fingerprints done Friday.

One thing she mentioned which we both – actually a few classmates too – questioned was the need to get things done within 90 days and if not, we’ll have to have stuff run again (abuse reports, domestic violence reports and fingerprinting). The reason not being that we won’t have new fingerprints or anything like that, but rather so they can ensure that nothing has changed in our background – criminal or otherwise. OK, explained that way it makes a whole lot more sense!

We sat and answered her questions and she answered ours for about 90 minutes. After that we gave her the tour of our home and yard. I had to hold Phoenix so he wouldn’t bolt out of the middle bathroom so she could take a look at it. She was amazed at how large the child’s bedroom is and that it has a private bathroom and massive closet. We pointed out where the furniture was going and how we were moving the desk currently in there into our bedroom. We then selected the next date she’d come out to ask us more questions and show her the hopefully furnished bedroom.

From the list in my last post, we still need the following items before her next visit:

~~Drivers license’s~~ DONE
~~Social security cards~~ DONE
~~Marriage license~~ DONE
~~Current lease~~ DONE
Paystubs to show we’re gainfully employed
Tax returns for the last few years
Bank statements for all our accounts
Lola and Phoenix vaccine records
Steve’s divorce decree
Physical’s for us both
Employment verification for us both
~~A voided check~~ DONE
and a few others

She left a huge packet of info for us to begin filling out and signing. There was some informational info in there as well about the process, etc. We also need 5 personal and professional references. We have 3 in mind and need to select the other 2. Oh and also ask everyone if they’d be willing to write a letter for us.

We learned that she won’t actually help us with the placement of our child. Once she completes the home study, it will be passed to her supervisor for final review and approval. If there is anything that needs further explanation, we will be referred to the Adoption Review Panel. If it gets approved, he will pass it along to Our Kids and I will make sure my contacts there have it as well. They will then work on matching us with the best possible child so we can begin the informal setting dates, day visits, and eventual sleepovers.

Aside from these visits with the ACW, there really isn’t much going on. We have to work with the process and let it work for us.

All we can do is cooperate and wait patiently and try not to look at the little munchkins on the photolisting sites.

Sep272013

Fingerprinting! And other good news..

This afternoon we are venturing to downtown Miami to get our fingerprinting done. For some odd reason – I’m sure it’s been explained but still – we have to go to our agency main office in order to have this done. So yay! We also get to finally meet our case worker as up to this point all our contact has been over the phone and via email.

I’m totally hoping we see our awesome teachers while we’re there! In fact, I emailed them last night to give them the heads up that we’re going to be there and to let them know that on Saturday…

We have our first Home Visit!! Um, with our Adoption Case Worker (ACW) as opposed to the one during our PRIDE training.

Yep, Saturday is our first home visit and she’ll be asking us eleventy billion questions from the Life Stories we turned in. When I mentioned them, she said she preferred to do it this way and then incorporate the written outlines later. Uh, OK. Glad we took the time to write them then.

We have to compile a bunch of documents, not limited to:

Our marriage license
Current lease
Paystubs to show we’re gainfully employed
Tax returns for the last few years
Bank statements for all our accounts- 3 months worth
Lola and Phoenix vaccine records
Steve’s divorce decree – the NC court website isn’t very user friendly 🙁
A voided check for the monthly stipend

This will be the first of 2-3 visits and will last about 2 hours. She said it is more of an informal meeting and to walk through our house. We don’t need to have everything child-proofed, have the office converted, or all the medication and chemicals locked up. It’s going to give us time to ask her all the questions we both have since up until now, we’ve not been able to ask an adoption person these questions. Well, not exactly. The awesome folks at Our Kids are crazy knowledgeable and we couldn’t have made it this far without their help.

By her next visit in a few weeks, we should have the bedroom furnished with “whatever [we] would buy as parents to furnish [my] child’s bedroom.”

Sep172013

Progress Report

I started writing this last week after our final class. It was amazing. We wrapped up the lessons, turned in all homework/ life stories/ online assignments, had 5 guest speakers – 2 of which I’d been put in touch with months ago via my MPC – and lots of food. So. Much. Food. During the breaks and after class we chatted with everyone, exchanged phone numbers and got even more information about the local associations. I can’t believe it was our last class!

Seriously, didn’t we just attend orientation like yesterday??

Now begins the long trek through the finger printing, references, physicals, final home visit and so much more. And then, finally, a Fletchling.

We were told we would be assigned a Case Worker within 2 weeks of class ending. Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call yesterday with our new CWs name!! Yes, it honestly was the greatest birthday gift ever. Eh. Ver.

Oh, you want actual dates? Let’s see what I can plug in…

Updated Timeline–

Classes ended last Tuesday (dear self, do not drive to class tonight!)
We were assigned to our ACW yesterday and she will do our Home Study which includes a second and maybe third home visit and all the paperwork/ fingerprinting.
Once the Home Study is completed, we are officially in “the books”
We search, they search, I use all the amazing resources I have accumulated, we get matched – ummmm, November? December? I have no idea.
From there we have several informal meetings and sleepovers with the child and then he will move in with us after an unspecified amount of time.
We keep hearing different “child in home” answers so it could be anywhere from 1 month to 6 prior to the adoption being finalized.

And somewhere in there we have to furnish the Fletchling’s bedroom and piece together a computer for homework. And I have to knit the other 75% of the blanket.

This was taken last night. It’s currently 14″ long out of way more than that…

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