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!
Monday, February 12, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
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.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, February 3, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, February 2, 2007
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!!
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!!
Thursday, February 1, 2007
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!
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!
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!
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