Week 1

We made it through week one. The initial excitment has died down from first becoming an active family in the agency and now we are more calm and accepting of what is to be. At this point, only God knows what the timeline is for us to welcome our baby into our family. It's not easy, but I'm trying not to think about it too much.

I have too much to do! That is what I keep telling myself anyway. I have too much to get done on my To-Do list before a baby comes!! I have been working hard at the spare bedroom. I can say that 40% of the magazines are gone and in the recycle bin.

The newest fabric that I bought for my upcoming projects is washed and dried. Since I am using different fabrics on each side, I thought it would not be good for one side to shrink up more than the other. Now they are pre-shrunk and ready to go! I need to finish Jon's slipcover project first. I'm half done and I told him I would have them finished the next time he sees us. I am going to get out my bin of extra fabric and see if I can use any of that in these projects too. The rocking chair needs some slipcovers, at least on the foot stool.

I have been doing well at keeping up with the journal that I purchased for Little Roo. It has been very helpful too look up specific dates for certain milestones. Bill ordered me a book from Amazon about creating adoption lifebooks and reading through that, it looks like I have a head start in that arena! The other book that came is "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew" by Sherrie Eldridge.

An email showed up today from the NRDC about cloth diapers! How funny since I was writing about that yesterday!! If anyone wants it, I will forward it to you.

Cloth Diapering

Cloth Diapers - yep, we're thinking about doing it. We're both willing to do the work and we feel it is the best choice, at least for when we are at home. Most daycares won't deal with anything other than disposables and that's fine. I'm really hoping to find someone that already has some young children and wants to stay home and will take a few more kids to supplement their income. Especially with a young infant, I think this is a better option. Maybe they will be willing to deal with cloth diapers... I'm still researching this whole arena.

My brother and myself were both cloth diapered. Diapers have come a long way in the last 30 years! Pins have been replaced by snaps, stretchy tabs, and velcro. No more loud plastic pants, they have been replaced with customized embroidered covers and print fabrics! I might even be adventurous to try sewing some of my own! No longer is a "wet pail" recommended, especially if you have a method to pre-wash the diapers. Using a pail liner or wet bag, you can pretty much get all the dirty diapers in the wash without smelling or touching. This I can do!

Here's the front runner so far - bumGenius 2.0 One-Size Cloth Diaper

They are one size, so no buying an assortment of sizes. There is a snap-down rise to fit on smaller babies. I love the colors! They are really pocket diapers, so you can stuff the diaper with different liners depending on the absorbancy needed. I also really like the wipes they make out of bamboo fiber.

This is a pretty cool concept as well - The Potty Pail for pre-washing diapers.

Here are some of my favorite cloth diapering links right now:
Cotton Babies
PinStripes and PolkaDots
Diaper Pin

Bill and I are becoming more conscious about our footprint on the planet. We try to think about what our impact is. While we are not the most "granola crunchy" people you will ever meet, we believe that our efforts, no matter how small, do make a difference. I already use Lunapads so why would I not use cloth diapers?? This is not a foreign concept. More work - possibly. Better for our baby - absolutely.

Jon bought slipcovers for his sofa and loveseat. He asked me to make covers for the pillows and of course, I said yes! We picked some fleece to make what our family calls "Magic Pillows" (because you tend to fall asleep!) that matched the colors of the slipcovers. So far I have finished 4 tonight and I have 4 more left to go. I think they are turning out very well. We ended up buying more fleece than we needed but I will probably finish the project by making a blanket for Jon to use while watching TV.

Being in a fabric store, I couldn't resist looking at the fabric and of course I HAD to buy some great baby prints that I found! Once I get the pillows done for Jon, I'll start making some burp pads and lap pads with the fabrics I bought. I couldn't buy just one print.... this is exactly why I have so much craft stuff. BUT I know exactly what I am going to do with it and I'm using it instead of storing it. I can't wait to start! I have some new flannel, micro fleece, and terry cloth. I'll certainly post pictures of my masterpieces when I'm done!

I'm curling up to watch the Oscars tonight! Have I said how much I LOVE movies? This weekend we saw "Ghost Rider" and "Reno 911". Both were great! Once the baby comes, we'll be firing up the Netflix subscription...

Thursday

Nothing new.... nothing exciting....

The agency sent us a notarized copy of our homestudy and a printed copy of our family profile. Got some more cleaning done last night. Slowly but surely I will conquer the room! I think it is official that I have too much craft stuff. Who do I think I am - Martha Stewart??

Can I have some of this please???

The Big Cleanout

The official cleanout has begun!

First I have been cleaning my office. Ugh! At times, you would think a bomb has gone off in there. When I work from home, I have to get it straighted out or I'd go nuts! I haven't been very good at keeping up with filing old bills and such. I had to create new folders for all our adoption paperwork and 2006 taxes. Yep - it's tax time. I can't complain as we owe very little money this year once I started itemizing our deductions. Hopefully we will have a new dependent to claim! Usually I am very quick to start filing, but since we owe money this year, I will probably let it sit a little longer.

I also started rearranging the books on the library shelves to make room for some of my scrapbook materials. It is all contained very well, it just happens to be in the baby's room closet with all my craft things. I really don't have anywhere else to put it. On the shelves, it doesn't look too bad and since I can get to all the paper and stickers easily, I might actually use all this stuff more. For the rest of my craft stuff and sewing machine, I think it's going to stay in the baby's closet. Actually we have an empty closet in the work out room but Harley's box is in there so it's not like we can put other stuff in there.

I put away the washed and folded baby clothes that we have ready to go in the dresser. This felt like a huge accomplishment to me. I liked them sitting out on the bed so I could look at them but I don't want Harley laying on it either. I'm also gathering the other items we have and they will go in the dresser too once the last drawer is cleaned out. I'm dreading looking underneath the guest bed. I'm going to have to - the bed has to be moved over to make room for the crib. I know for sure my wedding dress and 2 violins are under there. Who knows what else I will find, including stray dog toys that have rolled under there that Biscuit couldn't reach. I don't want to go through the stack of magazines that I have in there either. Why in the world do I keep them? More importantly, why can I not throw them in the recycle bin??

I'm going to have to get serious about cleaning out that room and keeping the stuff we really want. I'm going to have to do it, but it's going to take a while.There is no reason why 2 people can't live with all their stuff in a 4 bedroom house. I saw Oprah yesterday on designing for small spaces. If they can do it, so can I. Maybe I have too much junk.... It's much more important to me that our child has a safe and inviting space to call their own. We cannot use that room as a catch-all for stuff anymore!

Oh - I remembered what is under the bed! All the stuff that I had up on my walls as a girl! It will be fun to go through that and hang up some of those for the baby. I have a lot of "J" items.... maybe I should think of "J" names so it all still applies!?

We're Official!

I got an email from "S" this morning!

I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know we received your activation agreement. You are now officially active and I am so excited for you! Being set active means that your profile is now being sent out to potential birth parents.

Now that you are active, it may sometimes feel like you are simply waiting and do not know what is happening. This is a normal part of the process and I am glad to review with you what to expect now that you are active.

I look forward to helping you throughout your adoption journey! Congratulations on this first big hurdle!

"S" also told me that our profile has been sent off to the available birthmom situation. We probably won't hear any more about that unless she picks us or wants to meet before making a decision. This is probably going to be the hardest part... the waiting! I pray that I have the patience for all this.

Little Roo - where are you?!

OK, Maybe Tuesday!

I think we have been caught up with the President's Day holiday! No word from the agency yet about us being active today.

We sent the contracts with FedEx and we can see that they were delivered this morning at 9am. We should be getting some kind of email once we are active in the system.... at this point, we're not sweating it! Sometimes you just have to laugh and just say "oh well, we tried!" At least I didn't pay for the fastest delivery as it would have gotten there the same time anyway!! I'm smart about some things...

We'll Be Active On Monday!

We received the contracts for activation yesterday and had them notarized last night. The contract wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It protects everyone involved. We can't turn down a match that fits with our preferences because we meet the birthparents and decide that they aren't "good" enough for us. We can't try to find out more information about the birthparents by hiring a private investigator or anything of that nature. We can turn down a match if information arises that changes the situation and we do not feel comfortable moving forward. If we get pregnant, we have to notify them within 30 days. All pretty standard stuff and nothing that concerns me.

This morning, Bill dropped them off in the FedEx envelope so they are on their way! We aren't sure anyone will be in the office tomorrow to sign for the package, so it getting there on Monday is all fine and good. If we "missing" out on any situations, it wasn't meant to be anyway.

Speaking of which, I don't have any clue whether we have been shown yet or not to the birthmom discussed earlier this week. I'm actually guessing not since we technically were not activated yet in the system and the mom is not currently in a distressing situation where she has to have a family today! She is still listed in the available situations. We'll have to see what transpires on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Now the real "Big Wait" really begins so I really can't get ahead of myself. I pray I have the patience for this.

Our Profile is Done!

Yahoo!!!! Our profile is completed! It was sent to us last night and the graphics company said they think it looks "terrific". I have to agree, it represents us really well. When I checked my mail last night, I was so happy to see it. It was a nice surprise as I really didn't think it would be done in a day.

I sent a note back to the agency to let them know that we finalized our profile and that "S" should have a copy of it. I haven't heard anything back yet, but unless they need additional info from me, I probably won't.

We should be getting our activation contracts shortly to be notarized and overnighted back to the agency. Hopefully we will be officially "active" on Friday!

Hurry Up Already!

As you know, we turned in our final changes to the graphics company so they can finalize our family profile. I'm not surprised that I don't have it back yet but I'm so darn impatient!

Our agency has a list of current situations that they need families for now - either because no active families currently match or the birth parents are wanting something more than what has been presented to them already. I cruise that info once a week because it comes out in an email on Fridays. One of the situations appears on first glance to be promising and something is drawing us to think about this situation a lot. I've seen it listed for a few weeks now.

On a whim, I checked the list again today, and it is still there. They requested that only families with current, completed homestudies contact them about the situations listed. We aren't active with the agency yet, so we know we would not have been presented to her yet. One of the weekly articles that answers questions from adoptive families convinced me to at least inquire about the situation. We have nothing to lose.

I emailed the coordinator and said that we had a homestudy and APQ on file as of February 5th. If any more information about the situation were available, we'd certainly like to find out more. I had a reply from the agency literally within 3 minutes! Our adoption specialist "S" had already told the coordinator about us. She said that we are waiting for our final profile to be completed and they could present us to her!! Wow - she's one step ahead of me!

So we will have to be patient and see how things pan out in the future. We are not getting our hopes up. If it is meant to be, it will happen as God planned. But please send back our completed profile already!!!

Profile Woes

Putting together the family profile has by far been the hardest part of this journey. It's so important because it is the first impression of us. I can see why people stop here and decide not to go any further. There is a lot of pressure on this. You are literally selling yourself on 4 pieces of paper or less.

I'm sure that I'm putting more pressure on myself than I need to. I know I can be overly critical, especially when it comes to me. How can you not be? Luckily the book that I bought about creating the "Dear Birthparent" letter keeps reminding me that ultimately we will be matched with the situation that is meant to be. A mom will pick us for US. This is what I need to remember, but I am getting very bent out of shape about this whole profile business. It bothered me all weekend and it ticked me off even more to know that it was bothering me so much.

Do we look fun enough? Are we "pretty" enough, responsible enough, interesting enough?? Do we look like parent material?

These are the questions running through my head constantly. This whole process is playing on all my insecurities. I'm getting that sick feeling in my stomach that this isn't something I'm going to be able to fix.

Jon was over yesterday and he could tell how distressed I was about the whole situation. The cruise pictures that I had were turning out very noisy when I scanned them. Nothing I was trying was working. Jon offered to take a "family" picture of us along with Biscuit. We think she's our deal maker!! Who could resist a cute dog?? The resulting picture we are going to use on the last page of the profile, which is the actual "Dear Birthparents" page. Jon took the other cruise pictures back home with him and worked on them with his equipment. He sent them back last night in a format that we could submit to the graphics company. He is an amazing brother and I am so thankful that he is willing to go out of his way to help me when I'm in a hole.

I had several conversations with "S" today about what was returned to us. She reiterated several times that she loves our text and I should be very pleased that I don't any major rewrites there, but we have to make sure that someone stops to read the text. First impressions are key and people are very visual. I sent her the new pictures that we were thinking about adding to get her opinion before I they were submitted. She liked them a lot. Her biggest concern is that Bill doesn't have a big toothy grin when he is getting his picture taken. If she only knew the challenge of making sure his eyes are open for photos!! Thank goodness for digital photography or who knows what we would have to send! I look at the pictures and can tell that he is smiling. For "S", she does not get the same impression. Ugh... this stinks!

Well, the final agreement is to change the first and last photo with the new ones along with the few text changes and submit the changes back to the graphics company. This is the best we have at this point, and if we ever want to become active with the agency, this is it. We'll be conscious to take more pictures over the next few months and if our profile isn't getting a lot of exposure, we'll pay to have some new photos put in. I can live with this and I have to have faith that someone will like us for us. Getting Bill to smile like a goofy person is going to make him look unnatural and that will cause a whole new set of comments.

Hopefully they will be a little more speedy with these changes than with the first proof. Once the profile is marked complete in the system, we'll have our contracts for activation. We are so close... yet I feel so discouraged. I know I'm driving everyone around me crazy as well... I'm sorry!

Harley's New Spot

Bill put together the glider and footstool that Mert sent to us. We love it!!! And so does Harley as you can see!

It is so comfortable and moves effortlessly, we just might leave it in the kitchen! I've been sitting in it watching TV and Bill has been sitting in it to admire his aquarium.

We did receive the proof of our family profile after I called the agency and asked if they had seen it - they hadn't. They got on the case of the graphic company and we got it last night. It's funny that we had to supply around 30 photographs and the ones that they end up selecting to put in the profile (around 10) are not exactly the ones we would have selected ourselves! Our adoption specialist reviewed it and loved our text, no changes there. Suggested that we choose another photo for the front page because Bill wasn't exactly smiling. Well, first of all *WE* didn't select that picture for our first page! Then she was commented that we had two pictures where Bill was wearing the same shirt. Oh geez... fine. Luckily we have some new pictures from our cruise that we might be able to substitute instead. I'm going to have my brother review it when he is over tomorrow.

None of these things I think are a deal breaker but I got pretty upset about it. I don't know exactly why. Maybe because I had to pay these people $350 to put the profile together. All they did was put in the same template as all the other ones. Some of our captions they changed on their own accord. The strangest being our picture in front of the Everest ride in Animal Kingdom. My caption was "Fun at Animal Kingdom" and these people changed it to "Our Mountain Vacation". What??!! We have t-shirts on.... doesn't that seem strange? One of my wildcards was my dream job. I said "Make-Up Artist for Bare Escentuals". They changed it to "Make-Up Artist for Bare Essentials". Dudes... I'm not an idiot. I'm sure their spell checker found this, but it's not like I closely misspelled "essentials" but they changed it anyway.

I should not stress out about this.... this is such a trivial issue and easily changed to make it better. I'm annoyed that this is getting to me.

No Family Profile Proof

Ugh! I was hoping they would be a little quicker with this!! The deadline to have this back to us is tomorrow as they wanted 14 business days. I guess we continue to wait.... This is the last hurdle to us becoming active with the agency! This is why I'm getting a little antsy. I also hope that it doesn't say anything under suggestions such as "We believe you need to start over!"

On a good note, I confirmed with our adoption specialist that they received our home study report and file on the 5th - so that is officially done! I was worried about it getting lost in the mail. We should be getting a hard copy of the report that is notarized from our social worker shortly.

Mr. Brown Shorts paid us a visit yesterday to deliver the glider and footstool that Bill's grandmother ordered for us. The box is VERY heavy and Bill has some construction work ahead of him to put it together. He might start on that tonight - or maybe this weekend. I'll be sure to post pictures when it is ready to show off!

More Baby Stuff

It's here! The car seat and stroller!

I put it all together myself, so if the wheels fall off, it's completely my fault. The base fits in my truck without having to use any pool noodles or rolled towels to get it at the right angle. I haven't checked the clearance with the front seats while the seat is installed on the base. Maybe I will do that later today. I'm glad we have some time to air this out... it has that new chemical smell to it.

Baby Stuff

First of all, if this is what I'm going to be doing while we are waiting for the phone call, I'm in some serious trouble!

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the baby stuff that we have so far. Well, to be perfectly fair, it's not everything that we have collected so far, but this is the majority of it. We've always held on to books and toys that people have given us. I have a light up broccoli from Veggie Tales that lights up and sings a song when you hug him. Years ago, I purchased a play Tupperware set that looks just like "Mommy's". The spare bathroom also has a Tiger toy that you put bubble bath in and he blows bubbles. I think that was a present to me from one of my friends when I was in high school!!

Anyway, on with the show. As you know, I had a whole list of pictures that we needed for our family profile. One we took of our current guest room/future nursery. I'll post that one first.

This is my antique bed that my parents bought for me when I was 2 or 3 years old. Someday my own children will sleep in this bed. It is staying in the room. The bookshelf is going to be moved to make room for the crib. I also have a dresser in this room that I should clean out and put the baby clothes in. The room is already painted a soft blue and our "Under The Sea" crib bedding will be perfect in here. We are going to start working on this room this weekend.



I think Paula has been secretly buying baby items since the time we were married. Since we told everyone that we were starting our adoption journey right after Thanksgiving, here's some of the goodies that we got for Christmas from Bill's parents. Paula found this Vera Bradley diaper bag during one of her trips up to Indiana. I'm not so sure Bill is going to want to carry around a flowered bag, especially if we have a boy. We'll have to see how that works out! I love the pewter duck bowl.... I think it started the trend of all the clothes to come!

Here's the first two things that I bought at the beginning of the year. The Pooh sleeper comes with a matching blanket. I didn't think it was too "boyish" for a little girl to wear. I like blue and I'm a girl!! I'd love to have the matching onsies for the green striped outfit from Carter's. I saw them in Babies R' Us, but they are very expensive! The embroidery on the front (the duck of course) is just so cute. Both of these I picked up at Costco for a very good price! Everytime we go back, I'm looking through the pile for something else.

Karen surprised me with a big bag of baby stuff. She gave me all her Dr. Brown's bottles and then threw in a bunch of other stuff too. She is so sweet and thoughtful! If we get a boy, she'll have lots of stuff to hand down from her two boys! I have made a few trips to Babies R' Us to buy all new nipples, vents, and brushes for the bottles. That was fun to actually purchase something there! My previous trips have just been for looking.

I found all these clothes on clearance at Target. I stocked up!! As you can see, everything is still in the packages. I could probably talk myself into washing them in the baby detergent and putting them away in the dresser this weekend. Lots of chicks, ducks, animals, and Pooh. I love the blanket - it is so soft.


Here's the baby swing we tried so hard to find! The pets are more used to it now and pretty much ignore it completely. If I turn on the music, then Biscuit is very intriqued. She likes anything that makes noise and sings songs. My brother has gone to every Target he could find and he was very relieved to hear that it had shown up! He probably hasn't spent much time in the baby aisle up until now!

Our car seat and stroller haven't been delivered yet. Come on Mr. UPS Man!!

Today's Agency Meeting

The meeting was great!

Our adoption specialist, "S", is very nice and we are going to be working with her throughout the match, placement, and to finalization of the adoption. She could tell that we already were pretty well informed of the process based on the answers we had written to some questions. Anyone that knows us well would laugh that she was expecting maybe something a little different. We are two of the most prepared people you will ever meeting. I credit the book that the agency sent to us, it was chock full of information and answered all our questions. She said everything "looks fantastic" for us on our adoption planning sheet and that we couldn't be much more open to their typical birthmom scenarios than we already are. Our budget is good too.

S will get a proof of our family profile in a few days and she will make any recommendations to us about anything that might be missing, but she didn't anticipate anything based on what she knows about us so far. She will see it before we will. I should definately have it by next Thursday, but I'm hoping for earlier!

We should be officially active with the agency within 2 weeks!! This is of course dependent on if we have any work to do on the profile. The actual file to our homestudy is currently in transit. Hopefully it is on the way to the main office in Kansas but we know the report is done and all the clearances were clear. There are some contracts for us to sign, notarize, and return with our activation fee and then we wait. We wait to be picked. I think of the first Toy Story where the aliens say "Oooooooooooooooh. You've been chosen."

S told us that she has seen situations where a family is matched with a birthmom within days of becoming active with the agency. We should expect to be within the average for placement which is between 3 and 9 months, although it could be sooner. There is a lot of birthmoms coming in all the time, so who knows!

The agency places about 2-3 sets of twins a year. In that case, S told us that it would not increase our fees. I had to laugh because it kind of sounds like a "buy one, get one free" scenario! We indicated that we would take twins, but not triplets, on our planning sheet.

We have to give S a contact phone where she can reach us at all times. If we travel, we have to tell her how she can get in touch with us. At least we don't have any more trips planned out of the country any time soon! One of my friends is getting married in the UK in October but we probably aren't going to go. If we get matched quickly, then we might change our minds, but for now we are going with the flow! We have a few quick trips planned for here and there. For the most part, I think we have tried to keep it easy this year and see how it goes. We've taken our big vacation for the year most likely! Hopefully our next big trip will be to go pick up the baby at the hospital.

The stroller and car seat are coming tomorrow! Bill got a call from his grandma and she told us a BIG package was going to arrive at our house in the next few days. She bought us a glider and footstool for the baby's room! I am tickled to death!! Don't worry - I will have lots of pictures!

Cruise Pictures!

Finally..... I went through all the pictures from last night that I had available. My cards had 580 pictures and about 375 turned out pretty good. Tif has my SD card in her camera so I don't have any pictures from Grand Cayman. I have no idea why I didn't take my big camera with me - leaving room for purchases!? Not sure what I was thinking.

I also don't have any of the underwater cameras developed so I have nothing from our cave and tubing adventure. No fish pictures either. Bill tried to take a few of me decked out in my pink snorkel gear.... yeah, we'll see if I'm brave enough to show those to anyone! I'll have to get those out this weekend.

There are a few pictures that the photographers on the ship took that I will have to scan.

Pictures are here at this link!