Our Family Blog

Wow… Jess and I watched another movie on the Lifetime channel tonight while I did some writing. The movie was about two 15 year old kids who got pregnant and their parents thought it best that they put the baby up for a closed adoption. I watched as this 15 year old boy struggled so much as each day grew closer to the birth. He didn’t want to give up his flesh and blood. In the end, even though adoptive parents were chosen and the rights were signed over, the birth father (15 year old kid) took back his rights. This is called a “disappointment”. He and his family were going to raise the baby. I was able to get a good look at how the birth parents might struggle with the decision to make an adoption plan. Pretty powerful stuff, and I am sure that it doesn’t get easier from 15 or 25.
I’ve decided I’d start to pray for the people who might one day become the people Jess and I will refer to as our child’s birth parents. Not pray that they make the adoption plan, but pray that they are OK and are able to make the right decisions for them.

Thursday was our education course at AFTH. Quite a day. Lot’s of things I hadnt considered before were talked about between us and the two other couples that were there. Some family asked me while I was telling them about the emotions that were conjured up if I was having second thoughts as a result of the feelings… quite the contrary. Feelings don’t stop a desire to adopt a baby, they get me in touch with what is actually happening rather than just going through the motions. Thank God for feelings.
Next steps… I’m getting finger printed Wednesday, Jess gets them done a few weeks later. We went right to the Beachwood Police station straight from the education course in order to get a letter that says we are good Beachwood residents. The clerk agreed to furnish the letter in exchange for us bringing baby x for a visit. It’s amazing how excited people get when we tell them we are adopting a baby. We have to fill out our post-education-course questionaire’s, of course Jess had hers done within a day or so and was ready to mail it out, but she had to wait for me. I’ll be done tonight. Then we go for the home study courses, two wednesdays in a row. Each step we take to get closer gets us more and more excited.
Tonight there was a movie on the Lifetime Channel, I wasnt watching it, it’s a womens chanel. It was called “Baby for Sale”. Pretty sick reality. What I took from it though was at the end, when of course there was a happy ending was this quote…

Childbirth is an act of nature, adoption is an act of God.

That’s how I’m feeling about it… Jess and I are doing all the footwork we can and understand theat the results are completely up to God. Where our baby comes from, how it looks, boy or girl, when we get one, shit even if we get one… is all completely and totally out of our hands. Man it feels good to truely believe that, it makes things so much lighter.
I also want to say how awesome our families are being. So much love and support. It feels really great to know that we are supported in all we do.
OK, back to my homework assignment.

Steve and I had our Educational Course yesterday. We were in the course with two other couples and it was all very exciting. We learned a lot more about open adoption and the gains and losses for both us, the birthparents, and the child. It was pretty intense at certain points and it made you think of things you had not thought of before. Overall, it made us even more excited about the process than we already were!

We received some of the homestudy paperwork yesterday and if your reading this and you know me, then you know it was completed last night and mailed back to the agency today! We are not messing around.

We have two homestudy classes in February, back to back, and then we will have our final homestudy visit. From there, we get put in the books. At this point, with things moving along as they are, we are looking at being in the books by late March, early April.

I had my first baby dream last night. It was very real. I dreamed that we got a call from our social worker saying that we were shown to a birthmother and she chose us! When I woke up I had to really check myself because it seemed like it really happened!

Over this snowy weekend I have a lot of reading to do and I am excited to do it!

Stay tuned.

So I went to Linens and Things today because I needed to buy new tupperware. When I got home and was going through the old tupperware from the past seven years and putting this new tupperware in my cabinet, I became joyously aware that one day, very soon, I will have lots of fun baby items in my cabinets also. I can’t wait. We start our homestudy this week. I am also very excited for this process. It has only been about 3 weeks since we have signed up for it, however, it has seemed like a really long 3 weeks!

Where we are at now……..We emptied out the guest room because we wanted the baby to have the bigger of the 3 other rooms. I made one of the other rooms the guest room. It looks very cozy. The baby’s room is almost empty. This is a very cool process. I can’t wait to fill it up! I think around February we are going to paint the room. Last weekend we finally found the most beautiul adoption baby book. We spent Saturday evening filling it with pictures and stories about Steve and I and our families. Now we are just waiting for pictures of the baby! Cousin Sherri also bought us a little fleece blanket and 3 pack of the one z outfits. They are so cute. I have to admit that is was weird opening a baby present. When we came home, I put a one z on a teddy bear and wrapped it in a blanket. Steve and I are training Bosco about the baby, so we walk around with it and have him smell it and be gentle with it. He is getting used to the idea. He doesn’t like it, but is being very respectful.

It is starting to sink in that at any point in time after the homestudy is completed that we could get a call that our new son or daughter was born last night and we can come and pick him/her up. I may have to peeled off the floor due to fainting, but I am so excited for that call. We have call forward on all of our phones so we can never miss a message or call.

This process is so very real.

I felt that we had left a large portion of the process out when I received some emails from family and friends about the adoption. So I thought I’d backtrack a little and fill in the gaps and outline the adoption we are pursuing.
Jess and I have always wanted to adopt a baby, just didn’t think we’d want to do it first. Nor did we think it really mattered when it happened. We just want a baby badly. When the doctors all said that we were able to have a natural baby and were boggled as to why we hadn’t gotten pregnant after all the trying, we figured lets just adopt now. Why wait. Plus, we’d heard so many stories of people not being able to conceive, for whatever reason, and after they adopted… voila, they got pregnant. Less stress I guess.
We first explored the state adoption program through DYFS where you can choose to foster a child or do a straight adoption. In either case, there was little choice in the health, race, and history of the baby. Plus, we have no desire to foster a child only to have it possibly removed from our lives. We also didn’t feel too comfortable with the lack of personalization through the DYFS program.
Jess and I (mostly Jess) did a ton of research into private non-profit adoption agencies. We called, wrote, and visited websites of over a dozen agencies. We looked into the different services they all provided and compared them all. We decided we wanted to pursue an open domestic adoption. We ended up choosing Adoptions from the Heart because we felt the most comfortable with them. Out of all the agencies, they were the most personal and they really took the time to explain things to us.
What is an open domestic adoption?
An open domestic adoption is through an agency, where we have chosen to adopt a baby from the United States, specifically the states that the organization works with. The term open means that we have the opportunity to meet the birth parents and possibly maintain some contact after the adoption.
Why did we want this?
We chose an open adoption because we fell more comfortable knowing where our child is coming from, what the family histories are, and just as important, what the family was like. As our child grows up and understands that it is an adopted child we need to be able to tell him/her about their birth mother and why she chose to make an adoption plan. It feels a lot more loving when so many people are making choices for the best life’s possible for the baby. We felt that there were too many uncertainties with other types of adoption.
What else?
Jess and I have the ability to explain in pretty good detail the type of child we want, the situation and health that the child should be coming to us from. Once we fill out the home study application, which starts on January 20, 2005, we are able to describe the race/ethnic background of the child and the limits of exposure to drug use that the child has had. Once the home study is completed and we are approved for the adoption, we write a letter to potential birth mothers describing ourselves and the home we are able to provide for a child. We will also make a video for them to see. When a birth mother comes to the agency to make an adoption plan (correct term for what I might have once called “give the child up”) she is able to look through family books that match her profile. Once a family, us, is chosen, we have the opportunity to meet that mother. Often though, placements are done on an emergency basis. Meaning that the mother gives birth and decides then that they want to make an adoption plan. Some of these situations happen and you can have less than a day to get ready for the baby! That is why the agency has told us that once the home study is complete, we need to get a baby car seat.
After the birth, the state of NJ has a law that makes the parent(s) wait 72 hours before being allowed to terminate parental rights. That’s the scariest part. Once this has been done, and it is also video taped, the baby is free to come home with its new family!! Six months later the finalization process occurs which is handled through the courts and basically means that we adopt the child officially.
The most tedious part of the process is the home study. It is where we learn all about being adoptive parents and how to handle issues that might come up. It is also where we have background checks done and our home reviewed. The entire process should take about 90 days from beginning to end. It mostly depends on how vigilant Jess and I are at getting all the paper work done. Good thing we don’t mess around.
So we are currently in the processing of talking to other families that have adopted, both from Adoptions from the heart, and from anywhere, we are researching and learning all that we can. We are also working to get the house refinanced to use the equity, and all along, we are trying to have fun and love each other a whole lot. One thing I am most looking forward to, besides the obvious of getting a baby, is growing closer to Jess through all of this.
So I think that is all of what I wanted to write about today. Might have left something out but if so, we’ll get it later. I am planning on making further changes to the website and I am open to any suggestions you might have. Future plans include an option to receive email updates when new posts are made, as well as a photo album (for when we have baby pictures to post).
Thanks for listening…. Steve