Our Plus One

On July 18th a little girl was born. She was placed in our arms the following day. We walked through our front door with our long awaited daughter, Luella Mae, when she was just 48 hours old.

It's as though she's been with us forever.

January thru May Update

Hmmm...maybe I'm moving to quarterly updates? Things are that slow around here...

Honestly, our adoption journey has been rough so far this year and I haven't wanted to share too much. We are at the point that things have taken so long that I've read a number of blogs where families have been blessed by adoption twice during the same timeframe that we've been waiting. I know this isn't something to be making comparisons on, but I can't help see what feels like our standing in place. We're stuck.

We have had some situations come up over the past several months that seemed very promising, but nothing has panned out. Two situations in particular have pulled most at our heart strings and have left us wondering how much longer we can keep getting our hopes up and then have it not work out.

We picked up and left town on a road trip (with very little notice) to meet birthparents in March. We were absolutely enamored by the couple and thought our meeting had went well. They met with two other couples as well and picked one of them instead of us.

The most recent situation has been the hardest. A baby boy was brought to our attention about a month ago. An agency that doesn't typically network with ours was seeking any couples open to a rather complicated situation. We initially passed on the situation, but after much prayer and a series of events we emailed our agency back and asked if our profile could still be shown to the mother. It turns out that there wasn't exactly a long line for this little guy. You see, it was expected that he was going to be medically fragile. It turns out he was so fragile that after crying upon his arrival he was almost immediately ventilated and his little life lasted no longer than a couple of days. We had little control over the situation and kept wanting to know more about what was going on. What we did have control over was our prayer. I don't know why God brought this baby boy to our attention, but I am certain He did it for a reason. As a case worker from our agency said we "gave that birthmom hope that her baby would be loved regardless." I hope this is true. I know there were many prayers said for baby boy and have a sneaky suspicion that he has a couple uncles of sorts showing him the ropes in Heaven.

I remember reading an interview that Mariska Hargitay had given after she birthed one and adopted two children. She shared the sentiment that adoption is not for the faint of heart. She shared this after her and her husband parented for 3 days before the birthmother changed her mind and chose to parent herself. I seem to agree and understand more and more...adoption is not for the faint of heart...I know there are much tougher situations that people go through everyday, but my heart is becoming quite tender and hope the road isn't too much longer (or any more rough).

The Ol' Ball and Chain

We did something extremely liberating the other day.

We had no idea it would feel so good.

We spent money.

When you are in the process of adopting your bank account becomes uber important. For me it had become something I didn't realize I was so fixated on. Constant running and rerunning of numbers. Strategizing a gazillion different ways how to budget our money. How much to save vs. how much to pay on debt vs. how  much to spend on groceries.

From what I hear this is just part of adoption. The money focus starts almost immediately after your first introduction and orientation into adoption. When you add all the fees, (which are rarely published for the general public, you have to call and seriously inquire into adoption to learn about the fees) potential travel expenses, unpaid maternity leave, actual baby expenses, you begin to realize that it all adds up to a LOT.

We are not perfect with our money, but we do budget and try to be reasonable. Money is always a balance. I remember going to high school with a daughter of an eye doctor who talked about it being irresponsible to buy something if you have to finance it. She felt that you should save up for everything before making a purchase. We were talking about cars specifically. All I could think was how long it would take me to save up to buy a car. Even a cheap car. My family's income was probably a quarter of what her family's was and our discretionary income was probably far less than that. I think there is a lot of wisdom in paying cash for things, but I also don't think it is always practical. Sure, buy a $5,000 car instead of a $20,000 car, but the ability to save up for the lower priced car when you have a lower income can get in the way of so much...like enjoying life. With that being said, I don't think that the definition of living within your means equates to being able to make the minimum payment on all the keeping-up-with-the-Jones'-nonessential things (boats, luxury cars, vacations). It's somewhere in between.

So, I guess my point in sharing my money views, is that we've been working hard to save up for our adoption and don't want to finance all of it if we don't have to. We bit off a lot this year by moving, buying a second house that needed work, and planning on our adoption. It freaks me out when I add it all up. We've both had moments where we felt that we've been giving up a few things and not knowing if we had the right balance. Still not really knowing whether we are striking the right balance or not, we decided to buy living room furniture. And it feels great. We've not done and bought so much for the purpose of preserving every extra penny for our adoption that it was down right liberating. I can't really explain it. I can't really explain why I decided to blog about it either, but it's part of the adoption journey I guess. Heck, furniture is practically an adoption-must since we will have so many friends and family over visiting. Now they'll have somewhere to sit. :o)

November

I've spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to blog about for my monthly adoption update post. The update is there is no update. Technically there is one more day left, but we are pretty sure we broke our streak of one situation each month.

In other news, all things not related to adoption have been pretty eventful this November.

• Jake went from working in Seattle to working in Bend. We think it'll only be a few more weeks before he is back to working in the Willamette Valley and home every night. This will be wonderful...even if I do have to start cooking again during the week.

• I'm changing jobs and will be working in Salem full time. 

• I've been kind of sick for the past 3 or 4 months and was relieved to have negative results eliminating a serious condition as being the culprit. I'm so thankful for diagnostic testing and procedures. I was very relieved when my doctor said "good news, it's not cancer and its not ______" (a scary disease process).

• We hosted Thanksgiving this year and LOVED having everyone over. One of my sisters and I both can't have milk products so I made a completely lactose free meal. It really wasn't hard and nobody probably would have known if it wasn't mentioned. Best part about having a loud and busy house full of family was having a "kid space" in the house. With the nursery having a few things in it, including some stuffed animals now, my nieces had their very own place to play. This was the first time they got to have designated-kid space. It was awesome...and they made us laugh. A lot. At one point we were so busy laughing when they came running out of the bedroom "riding" stuffed animals none of us thought to pull out a phone or camera to take a picture.

• We got to go to the Civil War game and cheer on the Beavers. Although they didn't win, it was a ton of fun to go. I forget how close and easy it is to pop over to Corvallis and catch a game. I love going to sporting events.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of other things, but those are the highlights!

A Glimpse

I work with a wonderful girl on a committee at work that brings us into the same conference room about once a month. I see her at events in between meetings typically, but our paths hadn't crossed for about 6 weeks. The moment I walked into the conference room and we locked eyes I knew. She had become an aunt. Her sister and brother-in-law are in Texas with their new baby boy waiting for their paperwork to go through so they can come home. It took everything in me to not have a complete breakdown over her wonderful news. There was so much running through my head as I looked at pictures of the newly formed family and as I listened to their amazing story. I did feel a twinge of jealously, (that I'm not proud of) but more than anything I felt such joy and excitement. Adoption is just so amazing. I was vividly reminded of what a magical and exciting time we are at in our lives awaiting our first child while getting this glimpse into another family's story. So, so, so exciting.

National Adoption Month

This is the third year that this month being dedicated to adoption awareness has been on my radar. Each year I learn so much more about adoption. I love how so many of the blogs I like to read post more often throughout the month. Reading other's stories and experiences is heartwarming and reassuring.

Although we've been on our adoption journey for 18 months we still know nothing about adoption, or so it seems. Because it is such a personal thing to talk about I get how I had exposure to adoption, but had little idea of the intricacies of the process. Also, there are so many different ways to go about adoption that I only know about the process we are going through.

For us, we are adopting domestically. We work with an agency in Idaho that also does work in Oregon. Our agency networks us (shares our profile) with other agencies that they regularly work with. Adoption agencies all work a little bit differently and its important that the agency itself and their caseworkers are a good fit for you. Adoption is extremely personal and emotional yet requires competent professionals to navigate the ethical and legal territory. Our agency networks us primarily with one agency that we've chosen in Louisiana. However, only 2 of the 4 situations that we've been considered for have been from the agency in Louisiana. The other two came from agencies in Oregon and Idaho that reached out to our agency looking for more couples to find a better match for their situation.

All of the situations that have been brought to our attention have changed me. They've changed my understanding of the process, how I look at these various situations and feel about the details i.e. the birthmother's life information, the health of the baby, etc., and they've changed my heart. At the end of the day I'll never know who these women and babies are, but they've had a great impact on my life and I've learned from them.

The entire month of November has also become the month of thankfulness. My facebook feed is full of 'today I am thankful for' posts. I'm thankful that more and more people are learning about adoption this month. Adoption in the United States has greatly evolved in the past 60 years and so many of the things that weren't great about it have been remedied. There are many myths and questions surrounding adoption, but it is no longer taboo...or at least that is the direction it is headed. For this I am thankful.

For anyone wondering about adoption in general or about our experience please don't hesitate to ask. Adoption is one of my favorite things to talk about. Even on the days that I'm a bit frustrated with the duration of our wait, talking about it lightens my frustration. I'm thankful for this as well.

Like Clock Work

I seem to only provide monthly updates anymore. Won't it be fun when I have more to say? :o)

Like clock work another month has gone by and with that another situation...that we were not chosen for. That makes four. This one was completely different than the others and we could feel the difference. Not sure if what we were/are feeling is because the baby was already born or something else. Jake and I both have a growing longing to bring baby home. I think a big part of that is simply because it feels like we've been waiting f-o-r-e-v-e-r (picture that being a Sandlot forever).

a baby room

We decided to go ahead and start putting the baby room together. It's far from finished, but it was driving me nuts having a crib and mattress sitting in boxes and having the closet not organized.

 

We were mildly worried that the crib would be a nightmare to put together so we kind of joked about needing to grab a beer and glass of wine before we got started. We opened up the box, grabbed the directions out, and saw that there were only 5 steps. Could it really be that easy? Yes. It took us longer to unpack and wipe the crib pieces down that it took us to put it together...and we love it!

 

 

I looked at hundreds of cribs. I finally found this one online and read about the company finding out they are hand made by a small company in Wisconsin; just a few hours away from where my parents grew up. 

 

It really was easy to put together. Side note - Jake cracks me up. When I started taking pictures he said something like, 'Wait, you are taking pictures? If I knew you were going to do that I would have changed my clothes.' Apparently he felt his outfit was dorky and thought his future children would look at the pictures and laugh at it. He should have known better. I always take pictures.



 

 The baby room is the second largest bedroom in the house (being just one foot narrower than the master). It's a great room, but we realized not so great for crib placement. There is only one wall that doesn't have windows, heating vents, or doors. So, the crib ended up under a window. We plan to replace all the windows in the house in the next year or so and hopefully that will help with any drafts.

 





There is still tons to do in the baby room, but it is at least started and there are more projects for it in the works!

Back to Normal :)

I'm thankfully back to being my normal self. Talk about being in a funk. However, my momentary loss of optimism is behind me. I still think adoption can be hard. I still think it is hard to maintain perspective while going through this adoption journey, but it sure is nice when that perspective gets back in check. It's against my nature to not be in control of things, have things organized, or have a deadline. I have none of these things in this process and it kind of drives me nuts.

So, what does someone do when they're a control freak with no control?

Organize.

Make lists.

Clean.

Prepare.

Shop.

Okay, maybe the last one is unrelated.

Some pending-parenthood realizations I've had over the past few weeks:

1. How much control do I have really? And what little I might have will be gone anyway as baby becomes the controller of all. And I'm excited about that.

2. Moby wraps are flipping huge! Seriously. How long are they anyway? My guess is 16 feet. Or maybe only half that, but it is a serious strip of fabric (I'd measure it, but it is neatly packed in baby's go bag). Maybe Jake and I can both be strapped to baby at the same time. I'm pretty sure we'd both fit. It would be a relationship building exercise, much like riding a tandem bike.

3. I hope I like pampers. I stocked up on a few. I got a great deal on them and couldn't pass up getting some. Not such a great deal if I end up not liking them...

4. I want travel and exploration to be important to my kids. I wonder how they'll do when they are little? This has been a VERY interesting subject. We've been putting off a vacation (a much needed vacation) while waiting for baby. I want to take a vacation sooner rather than later i.e. I hope to take a family vacation before baby turns one. I'm talking warm weather, sandy beach vacation. As I've talked about this with friends there has been such a wide range of opinions. Some say leave them with grandma. Some say take them with. Some say don't take a trip and stay close to home instead. So, what's the realization here? I'm going to remain naive and leave the sugar coating on my future children. They will be perfect. They will sleep on airplanes. They will love going everywhere we go and we'll still be able to make  it to places on time. See...denial sugar coating...very healthy for all pending-parents.

three months

Three down, who knows how many more to go! October 1st marked three months of being on the wait list for us. Time seems to go by so quickly I don't really know how to feel about this waiting. On one hand I can't believe it has been three months already, and on the other it's been ages!!!

This last month, more than any other to-date, has been the hardest. Hands down, no contest, the hardest. Adoption is hard.

We spent a good portion of September thinking we might be parents soon. We made the prayerful decision to be considered for a baby with an October 8th due date. We were asked questions by the birthmom through our caseworker and up until the week before the due date we were being considered. Then we weren't. The birthmother chose a different couple.

It is such a conundrum to be considered by a birthmom. Most expectant parents get excited thinking about the prospect of their baby. We did. But there in lies the conundrum...we aren't technically expecting. We got to such a point of anticipation that it felt irresponsible to not prepare to some extent. We have what is necessary to bring a baby home, but as I walk through my home it seems somewhat pathetic to have a mostly empty room set aside in anticipation of a baby. I want to be hopeful, optimistic, positive, and graceful in this wait for our family to grow. For the most part I am. However, this week, I don't want to pretend that doing so is easy.

unexpected lessons

We knew when we signed up for adoption to be part of our family that we would be forever changed. What we didn't know was how. We've been made aware of three situations, or potential matches, over the past couple of months. I had no idea how much each of these individual situations would touch me in the deepest and most visceral way. Especially the situation we learned about today.

I've been on the brink of tears all afternoon...and openly cried when I finally talked to someone about it.

There is a mom out there with a baby in her belly that has a congenital heart defect. An anomaly that statistics show will require up to three heart surgeries and a significantly reduced lifespan. This mother is considering placing her child. We decided to show our profile to her.

Today I don't have words, I have tears. This woman and child may be two people we never actually meet, yet today I cry for them. I pray for them. I pray for this mother to have comfort and feel strength in her decision. I pray for God's will for this unborn child to be carried out in the meaningful and fulfilling way that He intends. I pray for grace. I just...pray...and I am humbled.

two months

As of September 1st we've been on our adoption agency's transracial adoption program wait list for two months. Doesn't seem like too long. Add the 14 months it took to get onto that wait list and it seems a little longer.

I'm beyond curious about when we'll hear about our baby, what it will be like trying to get ready to go to them, what it will be like meeting them for the first time, how we'll feel, will our birth mom want to meet us - is she safe from the hurricane, what will traveling with a newborn be like, what will it feel like coming home, how amazing will it be for our family meeting the newest addition...

So much to think about and anticipate.

baby room stuff

I've been searching for a dresser for baby's room for months. No joke. Months. Well, for some of those months I wasn't seriously looking. More browsing to see what's out there. When it comes to finding nursery furniture my potential finds have fallen into two categories 1) on Craigslist (but too far away, not quite right, already sold, etc) or 2) too expensive. I have a hard time spending a decent chunk of change on something I don't absolutely love and want to keep around forever. I also kind of like the idea of re-purposing and re-using. No need to buy something brand new when there are plenty of used pieces of furniture out there already. The old stuff is typically built way better as well.

Enter old, smelly, not cute dresser with potential. I wanted something that will also serve as a changing table. This should do.

 

Behind these lovely doors are what I was really looking for...

 

Drawers with cut-outs instead of drawer pulls. The doors must go. The cut-out drawers are very Anthropologie-like. Love that.

 

 

The best part about this dresser was the $60 that it cost me. If I end up not liking it for the baby's room, or if I find something better, I'll sell it and make a little money off of it. I'm thinking I'll put a darker chocolate stain on the inside of the drawers (which are often ignored) and painting/distressing the outside. I hope it turns out!

Where did the summer go???

Am I the only one wondering what happened to summer?

I know it is still technically summer, but between back-to-school packed stores and seeing the daily doubles in the soccer and football fields I'm wondering where summer went. I feel like I spent all of July trying to squeeze in a few activities around long hours at work. Okay, I don't just feel that way that IS exactly what I did. Very busy, but fun month!

Some our July fun included:

Amelia's Birthday

4th of July BBQ

Uncle Jake helped set up the "water park" before hanging out with a great group of people and kiddos for lunch. 

 

Beach Weekend

We had such a fun trip to the coast. Jake got to go on his first ocean fishing/crabbing trip with Kyle. They had fun and we had a great dinner that night!

Dirty Dash 5K Fun Run

Seriously...never been so dirty before in my life.

Dallas Summerfest 5k Fun Run & Parade

I'm the chair of a community outreach team at work and the group coordinates our participation in a lot of local events. Parades are a big deal around here and my hospital has participated for many years. The picture above shows the float "in progress" at our house. We won Best In Show honors!

 Marci, Kyle, and the girls came down and joined Jake and I for the parade festivities after we ran (if you can call it that) our 5K. 

 We've started August off with a fun weekend as well, but our month is growing quiet as we speak. Jake started working on a school in Washington a couple of weeks ago. The part of the job getting done now will likely take around 8 to 12 weeks. Although we really appreciate Jake's company having the work, traveling is no fun. Jake only gets to be home a day and a half on the weekends and lives out of the hotel room throughout the week. Not fun, but he doesn't complain. I complain. A little. :o)

August Fun:

Olivia's Birthday

Olivia with her beautiful momma on her "6th" Birthday. This kid is a goofball and thought it was funny to say that it was her 6th birthday instead of 2nd. I'm told she has also decided that she is a "big baby" instead of a toddler now. 

 Oregon Jamboree

I didn't take a single picture of us at Jamboree, but have a picture of the girls in their Jamboree chair.

I've said it before and will keep saying it - being busy while we are waiting for baby is such a blessing! July flew by and August is already half over. Each day brings us closer to a phone call, to a birthmom, to our baby. I remember sitting at our kitchen table in Idaho with our caseworker at the time telling us the best thing we can do is keep living our lives, stay busy, and don't let the waiting take over. Of course she was right, but it is hard to constantly be wondering (or trying not to). I notice that I have had a hard time not being fixated both times we've been asked to show our  profile. With both situations as soon as I've sent the email to our coordinator the waiting has become distracting. It's like waking up every morning and not knowing if it is going to be Christmas or not. Let me tell you - it is going to be so incredibly amazing when it finally is. Can't wait!!!

Reacting

Have you ever reacted to something so out of proportion to what it is that you have to laugh at yourself?

Our profile was given to a birthmom in Louisiana yesterday.

My phone rang tonight from an Idaho number (where our agency is located).

My heart immediately started pounding as I realized the area code. My thoughts raced. It's only been a day. Why would they call at night?

I yelled to Jake in the other room that someone from Idaho was calling me.

I answered the phone.

It was the wrong number.

Seriously.

Talk about overreacting.

Jake's still laughing. But only because he thought the same thing I did.

Busy-ness

This week came with some tight deadlines, back-to-back meetings, hundreds of budget-related emails, and late nights at the office. Thankfully I really don't mind the work, but I've definitely been busy and not home long enough to do much more than sleep. Although the days were long, this week flew by. This type of work requires full attention and cognition so it really kept the day dreaming time about becoming a mommy to minimum.

What a blessing.

Another week closer to baby. That's what this busy week made me.

As packed with work as this week was, adoption came up a few times. Because some days it still doesn't seem real that we are going to be parents, each instance made me smile and warmed my heart. The first time it came up the finance director I am working for was showing me the department and one of the ladies in accounts payable recognized my name and asked if I was the Melissa that she just reimbursed for adoption expenses (thank goodness I already gave the director a head's up so this wasn't the first time he heard about it). We all chatted about adoption for a few minutes and I enjoyed getting to talk about it. I also had a nurse manager catch up with me while getting lunch to ask how the process was going. This lady has always been so enthusiastic and supportive or our journey. So sweet.

Lastly, my mom sent me a story. Someone in the building she works in has been trying to get approval to adopt. I didn't have a chance to ask all the details, but apparently this guy and his wife have had quite the journey themselves. He is a cancer survivor. His cancer has been completely eradicated, but having the history of it disqualified him and his wife from adopting through a couple of agencies. They were finally approved. The below story was shared with my mom and she passed it along to me. I think it's simplicity helps demonstrate how the different journeys to parenthood feel to different people.

I guess I should add that my work week wasn't all boring serious stuffy budget work...I did manage to order two dozen stick horses from a warehouse in the South. Have any of you ever tried to order stick horses in bulk??? Seriously not a readily available item. A story for another day...

Profiles and A Situation

I put our completed profiles in the mail to our agency this morning!

So, once I sent in our profile for review the coordinator at the agency we are working with took a couple of weeks to get back to us. She reviewed our profile and made some notes for revision and also had the caseworker who did our Idaho home study review it. They had great feedback and I was able to make the revisions pretty easily. It was nice having someone who has seen hundreds of profiles look at ours and help make it what it needs to be.

What I wasn't expecting from the phone call with our coordinator was talking about a situation. In the adoption world a situation = a potential birth mom. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it a bit, but our profile wasn't even ready for print yet and we were being shown a birth mom and being asked if we wanted her to see our profile! Our profile is being overnighted to her agency so they'll have it tomorrow. There is really no way of knowing whether she will like what she sees in our book or not, and the situation isn't a perfect match to us from what we can tell based on the limited information we have, but it is close enough for us to want to know more.

I feel catapulted into the next phase of this adoption journey and it REALLY feels real now. We are adopting and bringing a baby home is imminent. Crazy.

I still can't adequately describe what it is like having information on a potential situation in my hands. I read through her profile ten different times before I caught all of the details. Seeing her name, the gender of the baby in her belly, and her due date was surreal. This situation may not even be our situation, but it is still exciting to be throwing our hat in for consideration by a birth mom.

I think this is also the perfect first situation for Jake and I to be made aware of. There are some things about it that stretch our comfort boundaries and are making us talk about what is right for us. These talks are providing more clarity and affirmation and I'm glad we are having them.

Such an exciting week!

Ready for Review

I sent our profile to our coordinator this evening. So excited to finally have it ready to be reviewed. I also will have a copy waiting at Kinkos for me on the way into the Salem campus in the morning. I hope the coordinator doesn't have too much feedback and changes for me to make because I'm feeling pretty done with it! In a good way. This week I finally felt a sense of urgency to get the profile done. This coincided with the busiest week I've had at work in 9 months.  Coincidence?

I know this is pretty light for a blog post, but not really Facebook content for me and I really wanted to tell someone! You are welcome all of my dear family for not sending you a late night text. :o)

xoxo Mel

Working 9 to 5...

Okay - I don't technically work 9 to 5, but good ol' Dolly started singing in my head as I tried to devise a clever title for this little work related blog post.

This month has brought with it a couple of changes with work. One change I'm excited about and loving and the other I'm completely on the fence about.

Change #1

I've started riding my new bike to work! I finally got a bike after not having one since junior high. It's purple. I love it. I feel cool when I ride it (haha). I'm not able to ride everyday because I have to go in to our Salem campus 15 miles away for meetings pretty frequently, but plan to ride at least 3 days a week. This was my first week wanting getting to ride in a couple of days. The first week with my bike came with some unusually cold and wet days and it made me nervous to start my bike commute in yucky conditions. My house is about 2 1/2 miles from the hospital. Getting there is a pretty easy 10 minute ride. Getting home is a little less easy and takes a few more minutes with the majority of the ride home being uphill. I enjoyed riding this week and am looking forward to doing it as much as possible.

What makes this bike situation even more awesome was my dad chipping in for it as my birthday present AND going shopping with me for it. Heart him.

Change #2

I'm taking on new responsibility for the summer. In Salem. In the Finance department. Working on budgets. Why all the incomplete sentences? Imagine me catching my breath between mildly dramatic sobs. A lot of people don't know the details about what I have actually done in my career. This is mostly because I work in healthcare, but I'm not a clinician. It's usually hard to describe in a short elevator pitch, and quite frankly to most, it is probably boring to hear about. Don't get me wrong, I've loved what I've done, what I do, but it isn't cool chat about the details over coffee kind of work. I've spent the majority of my summers during my 20's working crazy long hours trying to bust out over 700 department operating budgets totalling over $1B with my fellow budget-warriors. Budget seasons for healthcare organizations with a fiscal year starting in October are short, intense, and run their course from June thru September. You pretty much kiss your summer goodbye.

Regardless of the direction I've moved my career in, moving away from Finance departments and budgets, they always seem to pull me back. Analysts in healthcare are hard to come by. Well, good ones. Our Finance department is short half their analyst crew, are swamped with work around analyzing our operations due to revenue shortfalls this year, and need help. I'm a bit rusty doing this work, but I'm told it's like riding a bike (ironic choice of words this week). I do hope I'll be of some help, but this does mean more work on top of my already full schedule.

I really don't want to say goodbye to my summer, but I think it is going to happen....UNLESS....a baby comes our way sooner rather than later. Just sayin'... :o)

what a difference a year makes

Because of the duration from the time we started on our adoption journey to now, there have been a lot changes. We are just getting to the waiting part that can realistically take over a year, yet we've already been working on things for over a year. We'll be "meeting" with one of the adoption coordinators from our agency (having a phone call with) to talk about how and where we want networked. I've talked with our coordinator briefly once and she started throwing stuff out there like we'd already heard it. What I don't think she realized is how much their programs have changed since we were introduced to them. Three big changes:

1. The Agency restructured. People let go and roles changed for some who remain. For us, this has translated into us introducing ourselves over and over again.

2. The cost has gone up. Our agency's fee has increased as has the agencies they network with. Not a small change either; we are talking $4-9k. Nobody mentioned this to us, so when I requested a list of the agencies that they network with and their placement fees it is possible I fell out of my chair. At work. I guess that's what I get for checking my personal email at work. :o) Lesson learned.

3. Average waiting time....double to TRIPLED.

So, a lot has changed, right?

We really weren't prepared for any of this, but we've talked about it all and are doing our best to take it in stride. Knowing that in the grand scheme, these are minor details that we can adapt to accomodate fairly readily. Doesn't everything in life cost more and take longer?

To learn more about the other agencies that ours works with I decided to look them up online and also call them myself and ask a few questions. I had one of the most interesting conversations with an agency in Georgia. While one of the coordinators was explaining their programs and how the volume of placements have changed over the last year I was sad to hear that their wait is averaging 18-20 months. They are seeing more adoptive parents than babies. They've also seen such a shift in their program that although our agency does network with them they won't look at our profile until those parents who've been waiting over a year are placed. There were 30 couples in that category. There was one caveat to this - if we were black. The only need for adoptive parents was for black couples open to a not 100% black baby. Listening to a woman with a thick southern accent asking someone (me) on the phone with no (or northwestern?) accent whether I happened to be black made me smile.

Thinking about the statistics I posted about before made this conversation even more interesting. All of the proportions just seem off. I think to look at the race of babies who are being placed is necessary to understand how long it is taking and what races adoptive parents are "open to" or "willing" to be placed with to understand the whole dynamics of race in adoption.

It is all just so interesting to me...