Hurry Up And Wait

MAPP classes are done, 101 pages of essay questions done, CPR done, home study done,fire inspection done, 2 sets of finger prints done, background checks done, photo profile done...just getting the last of our references together. They get turned in Tuesday and Friday my social worker sits down with the head of CHS to get everything finalized. Once that is done, everything comes back for us to sign and then gets sent up for approval to the state.
After the approval we can start getting bios and go to match events. I am praying we are good to go for the match event on June 11th.
I am feeling pretty good about how quickly our process has gone. So many in our class had started back in the fall and still haven't gotten as far as we have. And there are others who have not even been assigned a social worker. Alot of the process depends on how quickly and thoroughly we complete our parts.
Cris & I have been on top of everything. The family that came in to talk to us took 2 years to complete the process, but they were slow with getting things back and also they wanted a young child, they ended up with 2 young children.

I am glad to have my Saturdays back, but I will miss getting to see Leigh Ann, Jerel, Michelle & Mark. OK, not too much since we are getting together Friday for dinner. It will be interesting to see how all of our searches go. Both couples are interested in out of state adoption. We are not. It will be hard enough on the child to start with move to a new family and school. There is a good chance that the child will have siblings and I would really like to maintain a relationship between our child and any siblings as best we can.
I know it is healthier for the child that way.

Cris was talking to someone at a wedding last night and told them that we would be adopting 1 or 2 children. That is cool to know he is open to a second child down the road.Cris says the next year or two. Sometimes of the biological family has another child that gets relinquished to Foster Care they will try to get the adoptive family of the one sibling to adopt the second child. That would be great too!

Well, I probably won't have much to write for a little bit...but then things will be popping!!!!

M.A.P.P. Class One

So our first class was today and amazingly we made it on time! Those of you who know my lovely husband in person know that Cris is on "Ecuadorian" time...which means always late. He has been so great through out everything so far! We are in a class with about 28 other people. Class was interesting and very interactive. And the participants definitely took part. Which is nice!

Class started with a 5 minute presentation of Foster Care and Adoption through the eyes of a child ... it made me cry. I am such a sap. Today's discussion was mostly about how children end up in Foster Care.
The class is filed with people from all walks of life and some are there to be Foster Parents and some for Adoption. I know I could never just be a foster parent, I would not be able to keep unattached enough to not be broken hearted when a child goes back to their family. Most  of the people seem cool, I was surprised at how many people were much older, many were grandparents. Those people were there to do Foster care. There were a few couples that want to adopt. I meet some cool people which I can see becoming good support for each other through out the process and after, once we are all thrown into being families. Cris and I clicked with one couple in particular... Leigh Anne and Jerel. And I also liked this other couple Mary Elizabeth and her husband Roger...they are adopting for the 4th time. Mary Elizabeth grew up about 30 minutes away from where I did. Leigh Ann and Jerel seem to be the most like us . They are dog people like us :o)
Most people seemed to be looking for children around 6. They told us that 93% of the children in the system right now are African American with an average age of 11. And that they also work cases for the older children first. Since we have a range of 6-12 I am hoping we will get good placement in line.

I am glad we finished our million question profiles because we received homework... another 23 essay questions.

I have a little editing to do on my scrapbook, but overall I am very happy with it!
Waiting to hear back on our fingerprints and then we can have our home study.

Cris is still interested in pursuing the surrogate route using his sperm and a donor egg in Ecuador but is going to hold off for a couple years yet. We are going to concentrate on this now and then eventually look at expanding our family either by surrogate or adoption again. I get nervous about the surrogate route because we would have to deal with Immigration again, and that was nerve wrecking getting Cris his permanent status. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Cris had to go into work for a bit, so I think I will work on editing the scrapbook :)

M.A.P.P. Starts tomorrow :)

Yea, we start our M.A.P.P. training tomorrow. I am super excited to start with that!
It will be nice to be around others that are going through the same thing we are too!
I hope that there are some fun people there.

As far as the mural goes, Alex has still been working on the sketches for me. And she has them ready to go over with me. So far she has a cherry blossom tree and a schnauzer. I can;t wait to meet up with her and see what she has. I think that those things will be generic enough that it won't matter if "she" is a 6 year old or a 12 year old. We can change the look of the room with the furniture we choose and bedding and accessories.
I am getting so excited!

So we are waiting to hear back on our FBI and SBI fingerprint checks, but I am sure they are fine. 

I am just so please at how easy things have gone with everything. I know that God already has our daughter picked out for us! :)

Questions, Questions and more questions

We received our next stack of paperwork. This is the everything there is to know about us packet. 35 pages of essay style questions for each of us. Questioning everything from our childhoods, to our plans for daycare, to how we plan on dealing with nudity. Now there is something I never thought of.

We were also asked to start working on our Adoption Profile Scrapbook. So I am going through my thousands of pictures trying to find the ones that best represent us, our family & friends. I love this part.
I like the idea behind it to. Unlike private adoption where this is used for the birth mother to pick the family she wants the child to go to; they use it for the foster child to get to know their new family. Even if they can't read they can look at the pictures and the foster parents can read it to them. From the research I have done, this book becomes something that they continue to look at once they come to live with the adoptive parent.
Since I enjoy scrap booking so much this will be very enjoyable for me to do.

So things seem to be moving right along. And time is going quickly. Cris is going to Ecuador this week and then I am throwing a Bachelorette party for my good friend Nikki. The week after that I am off to Asheville to visit Krysha. The weekend after that my parents are coming. And I am hoping to start painting "Her" room. Speaking of "Her" room, we were able to find a bed fame for the mattress and box spring we already have. I am going to make a headboard out of pickets and paint a picket fence on the wall that the bed will be on. I am then going to see if my friend Alex can paint Hunter, Darling and Oakley in front of the fence.
I am going to paint the wall behind the fence Sky Blue and paint clouds and grass and some flowers.
I am going to ask Alex to help me do a big tree in the corner with birds and then a pond with lily pads and frogs under the window, with pussy willows on both sides of the window and dragon flies flying around and above the window.
I hope that it is not too much. The rest of the room I am going to leave blank and get input from "Her" on what she wants.

Back to our crazy busy schedule. We will start our M.A.P.P. training the weekend after my parents leave. 2 weeks after that ends we are going on our Honeymoon Cruise. That will be the peace before the real  fun starts :)

Excited for tomorrow!!

So we meet with our social worker tomorrow!!! Yea!
Me being my typical OCD self has been obsessing over this.
I just finished reading a great book, 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew. It was very insightful. I could see a lot of validity in it. Some things I could see in myself with feelings I had through the years about my biological mother's passing. There were many years of hurt and confusion and even years where I was just self destructive and could not pin point a reason. I was always surrounded by people who loved me and cared for me. But I could never get rid of the feeling that at any point they would reject me. The way that I felt my mother rejected me by not wanting to live. It talked a lot about the need to discover ones birth family. I too went through that. And even though I have chosen to not per sue a relationship with my mothers family it was paramount that I met them for me to finally after 20 some odd years to have true closure.
I know I wasn't adopted in a legal sense, but I was adopted by the woman who became my mom. I know that she loves me as much as her biological children. For years I did not see that and I see now how hurtful my rejection of her in my early twenties must have been. Until reading this I had never thought about how she felt, I was so consumed with my own anger and my own search for who I really was. I know she forgave me for being so awful to her, but it really makes me sad because she is and always has been a loving & wonderful mother. Her sticking by me no matter how awful I was became the foundation of our relationship now. A realtionship that I do not believe I could have ever had with my biological mother if she had not died.
She just wasn't the same type of person that my mom is.

There is so much that I can take from my own childhood losses that I can use to parent a child who is experiencing similar losses now.

I had a discussion with Cris this evening about what exactly he is looking for. Originally he said he wanted a 3 year old boy months ago. but now that the process is in motion he wants a little girl and will go up to the age of 9. I am so glad for this because that is what I would prefer.

The issue of race was brought up to me a few days ago and I had not put much thought into that. I am grateful for my friend Cara who grew up in a biracial family and she has been so open with sharing her story with me and the struggles attached to it. It has given me a lot to think about. But I appreciate her support in what ever we choose!

I have about 10 different books lined up to read, I have joined a local adoption support group and I have located a local counselor who specializes in adoption loss for the child. Even though they are gaining us as a family they are still suffering a huge loss. Wether their family has died, given them up or they have been removed due to abuse, our child will be broken in ways that we alone can not heal her. I know it will take lots of work, family, friends and God's help to help this child go from being a victim to being a survivor.
I am confident that I can help a child find who they are. I know I can love them even when they feel they don't deserve to feel love.

I am really looking forward to the journey, the high lights and the low points. The low points are where we will begin to become a family. It will be conquering those issues that will be the foundation for our family. Each issue we overcome will bring us closer together.

So, I need to start what is called a life book for our child. This will be a scrapbook of how they become part of our family. This will include their past, our past and then continue with all of us together. I love this idea!
I love to scrap book and what a beautiful way to remind that child of where she came from. I know I will always be open with this child about where she came from. I will not be afraid to share the truth with her. I think one of the biggest setbacks in my own relationships with my mom was the secrets of my biological mother. I know my father kept it a secret to protect me and maybe even himself emotionally a bit. I am in no way blaming my father for any of my own issues. I own them.  My father always did what he thought was best for me. It took a long time to see that. Growing up I took his leaving me with family as rejection, but I now know he really did do that with good intent. And I was always in a loving environment.

I also related to this book in the need to be perfect for people to love me. This is something I still do to this day. I feel like if I do everything just right I won't be abandoned again. I read in the book how it is often found that the adoptee will be an over achiever, but inside you are dying. I spent most of my high school years doing that. Being class president, Yearbook Editor, playing sports...just longing for that affection that I thought I would gain if I was great at all those things. I have done the same behavior with 2 ex husbands. Always trying to be perfect to the point that it became the issue. I will never forget the one day my ex said to me it must be so darn difficult to be so perfect all the time. Gosh, how that resonates with me now.

So, tomorrow is the official beginning of our journey. I am nervous and excited. We start our M.A.P.P training the beginning of April. That is a series of classes that will help equipped us with the skills we will need to successfully integrate a child into our home. I am very excited that the agency that we have chosen to go with (Children's Home Society) has a fabulous support for during and after the adoption process. They have lots of different classes we can take at no charge. I am going to try to get into one called Parenting with Love and Logic. The cut off date for registration was a couple weeks ago. But the speaker is my social worker who I meet tomorrow. I am going to beg her to let me take it :)
Well, I will have lots more to talk about tomorrow. This I am sure of.

:)