Ducks in a Row

It is amazing how well this seems to be flowing now. Our social worker is submitting our home study tomorrow. Yeah!!! That has only taken almost 11 months! She said they will do what they can to get that approved and then the baby's social worker will have to get the state to expedite the foster care certification. Once that is done we just wait.

We are continuing to per sue adopting an older child. But this just seems to be right. So we will see. I am looking forward to meeting the baby's grand parents on Wednesday. I wonder what they will want to be called. I guess we will work out all those details as we go.

So many people have been supportive of us on our journey. I can't help but feel so touched by this.

Hopefully I have more to update real soon!

More Than My Heart Could Have Wished For.

If you ever talk to anyone who has adopted, they will tell you how much of a roller coaster ride it is. It takes you to the lowest of lows to the highest of highs. This weekend was one of those highs!
Through a good friend of mine we were connected with a family that is looking for a family for their granddaughter. We have exchanged emails and a phone calls. We are going to meet them Wednesday in person. It would be a partially open adoption. With no ties to the birth mother but there would be contact with the grand parents and the baby's sister.
This is very exciting. The most exciting part is the baby girl is not quite 6 months old yet.
I know this what not what we had planned...but it just might be what is meant to be! I cannot share the details, but this may move along quite quickly so we have a lot to get together pretty quickly!
We are very excited to build a relationship with the baby's grandparents and sister. My heart is so happy I could just explode. I imagine this is what a woman feels like when she finds out she is pregnant. Without the morning sickness.
Maybe, just maybe all of the waiting and issues with our paperwork have been for a reason and this baby girl could be it.
I cannot share details just yet, just know Cris and I could not be more elated than we are. We are finally a step closer to having a family!

Just What I Needed To Hear

I know I have been super inpatient lately, but those who know me well can tell you that is how I have always been. I get an idea in my head and I have to make it happen. That is not a good trait to have when being on the adoption journey. But I am dealing with it. Lord knows, I have my bad days. But most of the time I am keeping my head above water and keeping busy. I have joined a group called SPAFA (Southern Piedmont Adoptive Families Association and I have signed up to do some volunteering for Children's Home Society.

Cris and I went to a meeting for SPAFA today. My friend Kim is on the board and she has been encouraging me to come for a while. So today we went and I am so glad we did. It was a mixed group of people who have adopted in the past, those in the process and those just starting. The thing that came out of this was when one of the dads was talking about their journey and was talking about how he has never met anyone who has started this process that has not ended up adopting a child. So it is not a matter of If  but When it will happen.  The moment he said that it clicked. 

When I got home I had another email from my social worker stating she wanted to set another home visit to go over our final paper work after it has been reviewed by her supervisor.

I know in the past I have talked about wanting to volunteer with CHS and I have gotten through the paperwork and have signed up for my first two things. The first is easy and it is collecting non-perishable item, frozen turkeys and grocery gift cards to give to 25 families that are participating in CHS's Family Support and Self Sufficiency program .  The second is working a holiday event for the same program.
Children's Home Society has many programs, not just adoption.

I have been working on an adoption soundtrack on my Itunes and it has evolved into a nice little collection.
I have been listening to it non stop in my car for a couple weeks. I made a couple of copies for some adoptive parents that I am friends with. So far it has been a hit. Here is the play list...

 1. So Far to Find You- Casting Crowns
2. When Love Takes You In- Steven Curtis Chapman
3. Smile-Chris Rice
4. You'll Be In My Heart- Phil Collins
5. This Is Home- Switchfoot
6. Little Wonders- Rob Thomas
7. Until- Sting
 8. The Promise- Tracy Chapman
9. The Red Thread- Lucy Laplansky
10. Give Yourself to Love- Kate Wolf
11. Somewhere- Glee Cast
12. Perfect Peace- Laura Story
13. Make You Feel My Love-Adele
 14. You Found Me- Kelly Clarkson
15.Hope Now- Addison Road
16. Fix You- Coldplay
17. Good Life- One Republic

It represents all different stages of adoption from the waiting to the meeting to the becoming a family.

I sit here this afternoon and I feel blessed to have a family and friends to support us in this journey. I also very grateful to everyone that has been there for us. I can not imagine this journey with out you all.

1 week follow up

It's November 1st...the beginning of National Adoption Awareness Month. Today was the day that my friend Amy became a forever family to Hope. Their Adoption was made formal at 2:00pm today.
Our hope for the month is to just be approved to adopt.

It's been a week since our social worker was here. It has been an emotional one for me. I was glad to have Halloween to distract me. We had a fabulous Halloween party and then Halloween around here is spectacular. I think we had about 150 kids trick-or-treating. It was bitter sweet. I loved all the kids coming in the costumes and them really enjoying all of our decorations. But it made me sad that it was yet another Halloween without kids. Bummer!

I followed up with my social worker today, since I had not heard from her or from her supervisor.
She emailed back that she is waiting to get our educational information from the office in Raleigh and some other info  ( Lord only knows what that is). Her supervisor got my email and said if I wanted to meet we could. My response was I don;t need another meeting, I just want to know that everything that needs to be done is getting done.
My social worker ( bless her) stated that several of the families she is working with are all frustrated and she is doing her best to try to help us all. I feel for her, but I am also feel for me.

Cris and I have made a pretty serious decision. We are giving it until Christmas to get approved. If we are not than we know this is not meant for us. And we have to look at alternative plans. That gives us 2 more months. All we need is to be approved, I know placement will not be possible. We just need to have some sense of moving forward. Our life has been on hold for almost 10 months. So, it is in Gods hands. If this is what we are meant to do, it will work out.

Grateful for Friends

I think I have finally accepted the fact that no matter how hard I push things are not going to go any quicker.
I am just going to relax and believe that when it is time to have our family we will have it.
I had another wonderful evening with my friend Kim from SPAFA (Southern Piedmont Adoptive
Families of America). I always feel so refreshed after spending time with her. Last evening she brought someone to meet me, Antoinette is also adopting an older child from foster care through the same agency. We have the same social worker and she is about 5 months behind where I am. She is very sweet and very smart in her questioning. And a very giving person. I liked her.
Kim shared something that really made me at peace. That herself and everyone she knows that has adopted feels like their children where meant to be in their families...as if it were destiny. She shared the tale of the invisible red thread, which is from an ancient Chinese Proverb.
"An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break." 
I feel so blessed to have met Kim, she is one of those people I just clicked with. I have been so fortunate that since we started our process I have met such wonderful people that I know I will have life long friendships with.

The Mommies Network blog is about ready to start rolling out. We are tweaking the website and doing practice post...so it should be soon that I go national.
I am working on a list of adoption resources for the site. Luckily Kim had given me pages of resources. Now I am working on getting them all typed out so I get get them up on the site.

We meet again with our social worker next Tuesday, We are suppose to be finalizing our Foster Care Application and our Home Study then...but we will see.  So for now I am reading more books and researching online and waiting.

Lyrics for the video- When Love Takes You In
I know you’ve heard the stories
But they all sound too good to be true
You’ve heard about a place called home
But there doesn’t seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream

Where love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in

And somewhere while you’re sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been is lost in what will be

When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart

And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever cause this love to lose its hold

When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in it takes you in for good
When love takes you in

I am so excited I could pee

So the later part of this afternoon I got a call from my social worker Monica...I look down, see her number and automatically I think...Oh man, what now? Surprisingly when I picked up Monica was really excited saying she has been contacted by another social worker with a sibling group for us... but it is 3 boys.
She knows we want a girl and preferably 2 kids, but she was asked to call us. The reason is she was contacted by Ondra, our instructor from our MAPP classes. She remembered us and was thought we would be great parents for these kids because they are bilingual but Spanish is their first language. I asked Monica how this would work since we were not approved yet... she said it wouldn't be a problem, because everything is almost done. She said that she had no worries about us being approved and that they would make it work out if there is a sibling group that we would match up with.
I told her I would discuss this with Cris, but we really want a girl in the mix. She says she has a couple more sibling groups she will send me bios on tomorrow.
This is the most excited I have been in a long time!
Cris and I discussed it this evening and we agree that we want either 2 girls or a girl and a boy. Possibly even 2 girls and a boy if the situation is right.

Could it be...Progress?

I am so confused and aggrevated, but I can also see progress.
I have another form to fill out and I am waiting to get that in my email. And we are scheduled on October 25th to finalize our paperwork. The bad thing is that is when it gets sent to the state and it will be at least 50 days for approval. With that being said, there is very little to no chance of us getting our family together by Christmas. That will be rough. Another set of  holidays without a family to celebrate with.
What I am confused about is that I was told that we had to be approved to get children's bios.
We received bios on one sibling group, so I am not sure if we were approved or if we got it in error.
Either way, we got one...so I am not going to ask...I don't want to bring attention to the fact that they probably shouldn't have sent them to me.

I have been corresponding with the team at the Mommies Network trying to get my blog set up over there.
And with just a few more views on this site and I will have 5000 views of this blog. In 3 days it will be 9 months since we started this long, long journey.
Thanks ya'll for caring to keep up with my story.I am very blessed to have amazing family and friends that love us so much.

Finishing Touches on the girl's room and started the boy's room

Boy have we been busy. Which is good it keeps my mind off things. I put an email into my social worker stating how frustrated we were. She responded quickly, like she always done. Which is great. But she really couldn't give me any answers...which is not so great. She talked about how she has so many families to help and how this is just the process. She did say as far as she could tell we had everything we need. So we just wait...

The longer I wait the more money I spend (hehe). Retail therapy is always fun! The girl's room is done with the exception of the bedding which I will let her pic out. It's turned out so cute. I have slept in there the last few night, since my parents are here.

My parents and Cris helped me with the "World Travels" project. I am so happy with it :) Here it is...

We can add pictures of places that we visit as a family. We used yarn with colored push pins to attach the photos to where the pictures were taken. It turned out exactly like I pictured it!

 We are going on 9 months since the beginning of our journey. I am so ready for us to start the next chapter. We should be starting up our blogs for The Mommies Network this month. I am planning a Halloween Party for some of our friends ans their children. That should be fun. I am planning all kinds of corny "Halloween" foods like lil smokie Mummies ( basically lil smokies wrapped in crescent rolls to look like mummies)

We will have bobbing for apples and some other games for the kids.

It should be fun! Other than that not much else going on...hoping to have some news soon :)

Seriously...sometimes I just want to say...

Ok so I can't say what I want to say, but I want to just go up to someone high up and tell them how much they are messing with people. I get it, there have to be steps to take to adopt, I get protecting children...but seriously why does it take 3 weeks for my social worker to send my therapist an address to mail my evaluation...and why has she not received it a week after my therapist mailed it?? I am still baffled that therapy was required in the first place. It's like they can't believe that someone can turn out ok after their mother dies. You would think that this would actually make me a better parent for children who have experienced loss in their lives. Personally I think it is a stall tactic. At first I took it personally, very personally. I was actually doubting that I should be a mother...maybe they saw something I didn't see. Now, after talking with several friends, all of whom have the same social worker I realize she is just overwhelmed with an enormous case load. I do believe she has good intentions, she just can't get to any of us because there are just so many of us.
I just wish they would be honest and tell us... Hey- it's gonna take a year plus just to get approved and then pretty much you are on your own to find kids. I could deal with that. But they haven't done that. They have told us all 3-6 months. Here we are me at almost 9 months of this, I have friends at the year mark and none of us are even close to meeting any children. Halloween is around the corner...another family holiday that we will not have children for. Thanksgiving and Christmas are not far behind that. I just knew with all my soul that we would have our family by the holidays. But now it looks like that is not going to happen.
The girls room with the beautiful mural sits empty and the boys room we are just taking our time with. Each project we complete where we are no closer is another dash of salt on the wound of our empty house.

On a happy note, I am going to NY to visit my family this weekend for my cousin Kimmy's wedding. IT is going to be a quick trip, but it will be nice to be home. I bet the fall foliage has already started there. That will be nice. I am also now working with The Mommies Network on the design aspects of the blog I will be doing for them. I am pretty excited about that.
Well, night ya'll I have a flight to catch!

Psychological Assessment

On the 29th of August I finsihed up the therapy they requested me to do. I am glad iI did it only for the fact that I really liked the therapist for our children. It is good to have a relationship with her already. And it is also good for her to see us before we are dealing with issues of blending our family together. The full assessment is being mailed in tomorrow. I can not imagine what else they can ask for except for DNA!
I know a big oart of our journey taking so long is the fact that our new social worker is just swamped. She has everyone that I still talk to from our MAPP classes.And I know she has other families as well.
I am trying so hard to be inderstanding of this...but it still makes me want to scream.
I am really excited that my friend Jen gave us a small tv/dvd for the nd kids room. Now both kids will have tv.dvrs. I am not going to hook the tvs up to cable. There is just too many inappriate shows on now a days.
I am really looking forward to when my parents come at the end of the month, so we can start working on that second kids room :)  And mostly looking forward to the map project. The map project that I am going to put on the wall is a large world map. I am going to take string (yarn) and attaching it to the map and then to a picture frame with a picture of something from that city. ( ie the Great Wall for China)
I am hoping that will turn out cool!

Well, it has been a super long day and I am off to bed! Good Night World!