A One-Day Baby's Room

So what does a couple do once they are on the adoption wait list? Well, this couple starts to put together our one-day baby's room.  Look, we know that there might not be an actual baby in this room for a long time, but why not start getting the room ready any way.  At this point, I know that there will be a day when we bring our baby home and we want the room to be completely ready.  So we have begun the first steps in turning our second bedroom into our baby's room. Here is how the room used to look (well, there wasn't always a ladder and painter's tape, but you get the idea): 

The first steps were to remove the hideous ceiling fan that has been in the room since before we moved into the house and then to paint the walls a more gender neutral and baby friendly color.  This was the result: 

We then changed the window blinds that had also been there since we moved in and were decidedly ugly. We also moved back in the bookshelf that is the only piece of furniture that will be staying in the room.  We even put in the first few books that we have for our baby's book collection! Thanks to sister and sister-in-laws for contributing to the book collection.  This is where we were after those steps:

The most exciting addition came in the mail today and was put up on the walls after only a few hours.  We decided that we wanted to add a vinyl wall decal to the room and after a bit of searching (mostly done by Carla) we found the perfect one on Etsy.  We ordered it and it was delivered today.  I can't say that it was the easiest job, but once we got the hang of it, it really wasn't that bad.  So here are the final results: 

So that's where we are at! I love the way that everything has turned out so far.  It is nice to know that whenever our baby does come home, he or she is going to have one adorable room to come home to! 

Two in One Day!

Ha! I don't think I have ever posted twice in one day before, but I just got really excited about the fantastic counter I just added to the blog.  It's over there -------> on the right hand side.  Please notice that the icon even has two women inside of the heart (thank you Lilypie for being so progressive).

I haven't yet decided if having a device that counts the days we have been waiting is a good idea or not, but I am willing to give it a go.  Besides, I find it completely adorable! Luckily, these things are as easy to take down as they are to put up. So if I decide that it was a bad idea, down it goes, and then we all pretend like it was never there in the first place.  Okay? Okay!

Clearly, summer break has left me with an excess of free time.

Online Profile is Up!

Yesterday we received another exciting email.  Our online profile went up.  It was so wonderful to be able to go onto our adoption agency's website and see our profile there with all of the other families waiting to adopt.  It was the first thing that we could see with our own eyes that proved that we were really on that wait list.

It has been a really interesting week as I have found myself mentally adjusting to the idea of being on the wait list for real.  It is a strange thing to think about and while I know that there will be many months ahead, I also know that at any moment from this point out, our profile could be shown to a birthmother.  

And now I learn to deal with the uncertainty.  There is a lot of it ahead.  There is no due date. There is no way to plan because any plan that we try to make is based on nothing more than wishful thinking.  So I will learn to sit, be patient, trust that our baby will find us when the time is right, and hope that there will soon come a day when I won't feel the need to look at our online profile fifty times a day! 

I can feel my own mind trying to wrap itself around what this all means.  I can feel my emotions trying to settle themselves down.  I can feel myself trying to temper my excitement because I know how long we still have to go.  I think for now, I just have to let myself feel whatever comes and not worry about how I am supposed to be feeling.  It seems like a good plan for now.  

Our giant binder of paperwork that no longer sits on our kitchen counter!

Yesterday evening, I happily put our giant binder of paper work away in the closet.  It is so nice to know that we are done with it for now.  It continues to feel wonderful to know that we don't have steps to take right now.  We just learn to sit back and wait.  

I imagine that from here on out, these blog posts will be a whole lot less exciting.  I imagine there won't be much to report, but I am sure that I will think of something.  It's been so wonderful to be able to share our journey thus far with so many people.  It has been wonderful to feel the support when I needed it and to have people to amplify our excitement when I have needed that instead.  I like to think about the day when I will get to tell everyone that this is it, we did it.  But until then, I will rejoice instead in describing to you all of the inane things that I come up with to worry about.  

No Longer Waiting to Wait

This morning we got this email...

This is the email I received first thing this morning from our adoption counselor!

For the past few days I have been checking my phone first thing every morning to see if we received this exact email.  We had not heard anything last week, so yesterday we sent an email just checking to see where we were in the process and then this morning I found this lovely email waiting for me on my phone.

Carla was already downstairs and so I jumped out of bed and literally ran down the stairs.  Those of you who know me well know that I don't really ever run.  So Carla knew something was going on.  I was so happy to be able to say, "We did it! We are on the wait list!"  It was such an incredible feeling.  To know that we no longer have to fill out any forms, we no longer have to wait for any more feedback on our profile, we no longer have to wait for approval.  It was truly a moment of pure joy.

Luckily, Carla had the day off today so we have been able to spend the day being excited together.  We started off with a trip to our old neighborhood for breakfast.  I got to call my family on the way to breakfast and share the good news with all of them as well.  They couldn't have been more excited.  It is such a wonderful thing to be able to share with people.

After breakfast, we headed to our favorite bookstore.  A while ago, Carla came up with a fantastic plan to make our long wait a little bit more bearable.  She suggested that once we were on the wait list, we would each get to pick out one book each month for the baby.  That way, every month we had to wait would bring us closer to having the children's library of our dreams.  Since today was our first official day on the wait list, it seemed like the perfect day to visit Women and Children First Bookstore and begin our collection.

This book store is a little piece of heaven for me.  It's one of those places where you feel like the people who work there have actually read a vast quantity of the books that they sell there.  The selection is delightful and there are handwritten book reviews posted throughout the store.  It is also the first place where we went to purchase books about adoption.  As soon as we walked in to the store today, we headed to the back of the store where they keep the children's books.  Standing there was one of the owners of the store who happens to be the same woman who helped us in August of last year to find the adoption books that we needed.  I stopped to tell her that she had helped us many months ago and that we were now back because we were officially put on the wait list today.  She was wonderfully excited and flitted around the store pointing out books that we should buy.  We told her about our plan to each buy one book for every month that we were waiting.  She loved it!

And then we spent time looking through many books to find the perfect ones.  I pretty much knew that my first book was going to be a Todd Parr book.  Todd Parr is a wonderful author of children's books.  Each of his books aims to make children feel good about who they are.  I often buy his books for friends who have just had babies.  They are nice and short and are filled with brightly colored pictures. They also each carry an incredible message of self-acceptance.  Coincidently, one of his books The Family Book was recently banned from a school district in Erie, Il because it contained the offenseive sentence, "Some families have two moms or two dads."  So, what book did I buy?  That's right.  My first choice of books was, The Family Book by Todd Parr.  So it turned out that we each actually chose two books today!  We were too excited to settle on just one.  So here are my picks:

The Family Book and The Okay Book both by Todd Parr

And here are Carla's picks:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse

The store owner laughed at us as we stood there with four books instead of two, but we left happy!

We then headed over to one of our favorite places to shop for things for our house and we picked out the first piece of art for the one day baby's room.  Here it is:

I absolutely adore it and can't wait for it to one day find itself on the walls of our baby's room.

Speaking of walls, as I type this post, Carla is upstairs starting to work on the job of painting our second bedroom.  It will be the first official step towards turning it into a nursery.  We figured that painting the walls was a good step.  One that wouldn't make us sad that there wasn't a baby there yet, but one that would also help us feel prepared for the day when there will be a baby.  So our blue walls are turning into beautiful yellow walls as I speak/type.

So it's been a big day over here.  Trust me, I know that there is along way to go in this process.  I know that in some ways, the months ahead are going to be much more difficult than the months that have just passed.  But I also know that we must rejoice in each small step toward becoming a family of three.  We began this process many months ago and it feels incredible to be officially done with the first phase.  I do not know what the future is going to bring us.  I do not know what else we will go through, but I know that I feel a wonderful sense of relief that we are no longer waiting to wait, we are instead just waiting.

I also want to thank all of you who have provided some much needed comfort over the past few months.  My frustrations hit an all time high and I felt so lucky to have such incredible people around me to vent to.  It also makes me feel so confident that I will be able to make it through whatever comes next because of the people that I am fortunate enough to have in my life.  So thank you all for giving me that confidence.

And now we wait.

Home Visit #2

I have not felt this relieved in many months.

We had our second home visit this morning.  I woke up anxious and nervous.  I was worried, not about what our adoption counselor would say about our house, but rather what she would have to say about where we are in the process and what comes next for us.  I was nervous to show her our finished books and to hand her all of the remaining items that we had ready for her.  I was nervous she would have a problem with something or that she would make just one last suggestion.

Anyway, she arrived and sat down with us in the living room.  She went through why she was there and then basically asked us if we had any questions.  I decided that this would be a good time to tell her that we had everything ready to be done with the process.  I had conveniently placed a pile of things on our dining room table.  It was everything that we needed to hand her.  I brought over the five copies of our long profile books, an envelope containing the thirteen copies of our short letters, the last check that we need to give in order to be put on the wait list, and an envelope with the things that are needed for our online profile.  I brought everything over to her and I think it made a big impact.  As soon as I gave it all to her, she told us that when she brought the finished home study report to her supervisor TODAY, she would tell her that while she had not been ready in time, we were completely ready to go.  She then said that we would be on the wait list as soon as the end of this week!  Now, to me that means that perhaps in two weeks we will be on the wait list, but either way, I am beyond excited.

The best part is that she asked if she could look through our book and letter and SHE LOVED THEM!!! She said that the long profile book was fantastic and she was thrilled with the way everything turned out.  I was so happy that we decided not to wait any longer for her approval.  We knew that we had a good profile and I was so glad that we trusted our guts and just went ahead and got everything finished.

After that, she wanted to take a quick walk around the house and that is exactly what she did.  She didn't ask about anything, didn't even make us test the smoke detectors this time.  And then she left.  For this first time, I felt really good after meeting with her.  I felt hopeful that this phase of the process was coming to an end.  I felt excited at the thought that we would soon be on the wait list.

So now we wait. Hopefully, just a little bit longer.  She is supposed to send us a draft of the finished report tonight and then we just have to approve it and we will be one step closer.  I hope to have the good news soon that we are on the wait list.  The best feeling right now is that there is nothing else that we have to get done.  There are no items left on the checklist. Nothing left to finish.  So please keep your fingers crossed and hope that soon this phase of our adoption journey will come to a close.

One More Time...

And so the saga continues...

Today Carla had knee surgery. I was sitting in the waiting room and my cell phone rang. I let it go through to voicemail as I wasn't too keen on dealing with anything until Carla was out of surgery. However, as soon as I listened to the voicemail and heard that it was from our adoption counselor, I knew I had to call her immediately. I felt like if I didn't call soon, who knows when I would next be able to get a hold of her.

So I went outside and called her back. I should have known to expect something, but this (on top of the fact that I was in the middle of waiting for Carla to finish surgery) almost pushed me over the edge. Our counselor went on to tell me that she still was not finished with our home study report and because she had not finished it within thirty days of the home visit, she was going to have to do ANOTHER home visit. No apology. No real taking of responsibility. She just told me that she would have to come back to the house, because she didn't finish the home study report in time.

Then, to top it off, she told me that since we still weren't done with our profile, this would be a good time to sit down and go over it. So clearly, she had NOT read the email that I sent her which explained that we were indeed finished. So, I explained to her that we were, in fact, done with our profile and that our books would be arriving today (which they did!). I was so happy that we had made the decision to just be done, because I truly believe that at this point, she is just using our unfinished letter to make it okay that she hasn't finished her stuff yet. I couldn't imagine now waiting for her to give us even more feedback and then making more changes.

So, we now have another home visit scheduled for early Monday morning. Now as Carla recovers from knee surgery, we have to worry about getting the house ready for another visit. Now that we are so ready to be finished with all of this, we have to wait for another home visit. It is getting harder to accept this as just part of the process. But we feel so stuck because we don't want to say anything that will make her think poorly of us and we don't want to do anything that will make this process take any longer.

I managed to sound upbeat on the phone and I believe that I was able to hide much of my frustration from her. Part of me wants her to know how frustrated I am, but the other part of me just wants to be done and I feel like if I can just keep us moving, that will be the fastest way to get done with this part of the process. I then walked back into the waiting room, texted my sister, and sat alone stewing over the conversation.

I told myself that I couldn't bother Carla with this right away. She was coming out of surgery and anesthetic after all. But, in typical Jess fashion, as soon as they let me back to see her and I saw that she was still in one piece, I tried to tell her about the conversation I had with our counselor. There she is, under heavy medication, with an IV still in her arm, and I am trying to explain to her my newest frustration. After listening the best she could and trying to tell me it would be okay, she said, "Jess, they are monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure, I don't think I can talk about this anymore." Point well taken.

So we are now back home. Carla is doing well. I am a bit calmer. Our new home visit is scheduled. My plan is to have EVERYTHING ready to give to our counselor when we see her on Monday. I will have our final check ready, the books with our long profile, the shorter letters, and all the stuff for the online profile. I will hand it all to her and hopefully, hopefully, soon we will be on the wait list.

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive layouts and designs so you can make your book just the way you want.

Next Blog Post for It's Conceivable

Hi all!

Here is the link to my newest blog post for the website It's Conceivable.  The post goes back through what happened with our adoption counselor after the first draft and what has continued to happen since.  Let's just say that I am certainly now feeling the angst of this process, but continue to remind myself that it is all going to be worth it in the end.

Here is the link: http://itsconceivablenow.com/2012/06/12/unexpected-bumps-road-gay-adoption-challenges-arise/

How's the adoption process going?

It seems as if I have been getting lots of questions lately about how everything is going.  Maybe it's because the last thing that anyone heard was that we had the awful feedback meeting with the adoption counselor.  Maybe it's because I haven't written anything in about a month.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's because people just truly care and wonder what has been going on.

So, in short, we are still trying to wrap up the last of the paperwork.  We have turned in all of the forms that were needed to complete the home study.  Well, at least all of the forms that we know of.  It does seem that every time we think we are done with forms, there seems to be just one more form that we didn't know about.  But, hopefully they really are all in.  We are waiting for our adoption counselor to finish writing up the report of our home study and home visit.  And then finally, we have to make the finishing touches on our profile and shorter letter.

We received a second round of feedback from our counselor after we made some changes that took her initial feedback into consideration, but that still allowed us to keep the feel of our profile how we wanted it.  The second round of feedback was MUCH easier to take and there were parts of it that were even really helpful.  So, now we just have to make those final changes.  After that, we have decided that we are just going to be done.  We could do this forever.  We could make changes in what we have written until the end of time and we would still be able to find more things to change.  At some point, we just have to be done with it and we are VERY close to that point.  We are happy with it and we think it gives a good portrait of who we are.  And that is good enough for us.  So we will make some final changes, order the books, and print out the letters.  Then, as soon as we have our final approval, we will be ready to go on the waiting list.

It has started to get more and more real as we are nearing an end to the paperwork stage.  I am eagerly awaiting the day we are officially waiting.  I am happy that we will be done sometime soon after my summer break starts.  The thought of waiting doesn't seem too bad at the moment.  I know that I will feel differently as time goes by, but right now, I am anxious to be done with the checklist and done with all the things that we need to do.

I never could have imagined all that would go into this phase of the adoption.  People said that it was grueling, but I just couldn't have known.  It has been a powerful experience.  I feel closer to Carla than ever before.  I feel prepared for what lays ahead of us.  I feel as if we have thought through so many important issues.  And most of all, I feel confident that we are doing the right thing, in the right way, at the exact right time.  And that's not a bad way to feel!

Unexpected Bumps

So there has been some silence since the home visit.

Let me begin by saying that our home passed all inspection.  Frankie, miraculously, was on excellent behavior and spent most of the visit chewing happily on her treat ball.  All the things that I could have thought to worry about turned out to be not a worry at all.  Our adoption counselor loved our home and all the fire safety items that we have put into place seem to have done their jobs.

That was the good stuff.

What I didn't know to worry about was what turned out to be the most stressful part of our process thus far.  Several months ago, we sent our adoption counselor a draft of our profile/dear birthparent letter.  We never heard back from her about it and we assumed that all was good.  So we began putting the profile into a book on Shutterfly.  We spent hours arranging the text and pictures until they were exactly where we wanted them.  We shared our profile with friends and family and felt incredibly proud of what we had done.  We felt that it so very accurately reflected who we are as a couple and we happy with it.  We even ordered one copy of the book to make sure that it looked good.  In our minds, we were done.  One more thing to cross off the list.

Well, apparently we are not quite done.  When our adoption counselor arrived at our home, we all sat together at the dining room table and we went through some of our paperwork.  After going through a few forms, she took out our profile draft that we had sent her and told us that she wanted to go through it with us.  For the next thirty minutes (or so) she proceeded to tell us all of the many things that were wrong with the letter.  Seriously, she said not one positive thing about our profile, but instead went paragraph by paragraph explaining what we had done wrong.  Her overall message seemed to be that we sounded too happy.  Truly.  She actually said that our letter was too upbeat.  She suggested that we want to focus on some of the struggles we have been through and also talk about our parenting ideals.  To be honest, there were things that she said that made a lot of sense.  However, there was just too much criticism to really be that effective.  It is not that she was criticizing our writing, it was almost as if she was telling us that we should portray ourselves as something that we are not.  She wanted us to focus on our struggles and we want to focus on all the good that is in our lives.  That is who we are.

As I sat there listening and taking notes and trying not to cry, I reassured myself that it couldn't possibly be as bad as I thought.  I am notorious for not taking criticism well, even in its most constructive state.  I figured that when all of this was over, Carla would tell me it wasn't as bad as I thought. Nope.  Turns out that Carla was just as annoyed as I was.  We both couldn't believe that this woman had our draft for three months and was only now saying anything to us.

Our adoption counselor finally stopped.  We finished the home visit.  She left and Carla and I went off to drown our sorrows in milkshakes and margaritas.  I got some wonderful advice from my mother (thanks mom) and we both decided we needed to just put the letter away for a while.

I now have a few days of distance from the whole thing.  I can now think more clearly and rationally about the whole thing.  Carla and I have both decided that THE most important thing for us is that our letter accurately portrays who we are.  We hope that our adoption counselor likes our letter and we will make some changes to ensure that happens, but more than anything we need to be who we are.  We need our letter to show the real us and we have to know that a birthmother will choose us because of that.

So, we will keep working on the letter.  Our deadline to be on the wait list is no longer the start of May.  Hopefully we will be there by the start of June.  Though we are ready to be done with this phase, we are somewhat at the mercy of our adoption counselor.  She now has to finish our homestudy report (which she has 30 days to complete) and only then can we move onto the waitlist.  So until then, we will continue to work on our profile and fill out the last few remaining pieces of paperwork.  I will try my best to be patient and know that someday we will be done with this and it will be worth it in the end.

A Marathon of Cleaning

Carla and I just had an intense marathon cleaning session to prepare for tomorrow's home visit.  For those of you who don't know, Carla is THE most efficient person I know.  She has the ability to accomplish what would take me hours, in just a few minutes.  So basically, Carla cleaned the entire top floor and vacuumed and mopped all the floors on the bottom floor while I cleaned the basement floors and the kitchen.  I know it sounds really unfair, but for every ounce of efficiency that Carla has, I have an equal ounce of inefficiency.  But now the house is clean and I suppose that is all that matters.

Tomorrow will be the first time that we will have anyone from the adoption agency in our home.  I am nervous.  Mostly about the pup, but having someone in your home like this is just kind of a nerve racking experience.  I know things will go well, but until it is over, I will just be a bit on edge.

So think of us tomorrow at 4:00.  I will let you know how it goes!

Gay Penguins and the First Hints of Anxiety

What a week! It truly feels as if this is the first chance that I have had to sit down and write about the many adoption-related thoughts and emotions that have been whirling around my head and heart this week.

I will start with the good ones.  On Tuesday, I read one of my favorite picture books to my class of fifth graders.  The book is called, And Tango Makes Three and it tells the true story of two male penguins who lived at the Central Park Zoo in New York.  While all the other penguins mated in pairs of one male and one female, these two male penguins wanted to spend their lives with each other.  Upon seeing these two male penguins attempt to sit on and incubate a rock, a kind-hearted zookeeper decided to give these two their own penguin egg.  He took an egg from a pair of penguins who continued to lay two eggs, but was only able to care for one of them and he gave the second egg to the pair of male penguins.  The egg hatches, the baby penguin is born.  They name him Tango and he is raised by the two male penguins.

It is an incredible book and each year, before I read it, I let the kids know that there are a lot of schools in our country who won't allow teachers to read the book.  I then read the story and sit in awe of the children's reaction.  In past years, my heart has been warmed by hearing the comments that the kids make.  Each year, several students talk about how silly they think it is that anyone would have a problem with this book.  And then, they go on to talk about how anyone who loves their child can be a family.

I am always inspired by this interaction with my students, but this year it just meant more.  Amidst our decision to adopt a child, I have often wondered what our child will encounter.  Will people question our family? Will people make comments to our child?  What kinds of hate will we face?  And then here was this group of twenty-one fifth grade students, telling me that it was okay to be any kind of family.  My class doesn't know that Carla and I are beginning the adoption process.  They know that I am gay and they know that Carla and I are married, but I am not sure that even crossed their minds much during this discussion.  Now I realize that not every child feels this way and I also realize that as these children grow up, their kind hearts might be swayed towards harsher sentiments.  But as I sat with my class on Tuesday and heard their comments, I was so hopeful that our child wouldn't grow up in a world as filled with hate as it is today.  My students make me so hopeful for the future.  The fact that picture books like this one even exist makes me hopeful for the future.  The fact that I feel safe to have this conversation with my students without fear of the repercussions it might bring  makes me feel hopeful for the future.  And knowing that there are children whose hearts are so full of love makes me incredibly hopeful for the future.

So that was a good day.

On Wednesday, Carla and I went to another adoption class.  This is our second to last class and it was called "Making Connections."  While all of our other classes have focused on the philosophies of open adoption and building empathy for the birthmothers, this was the first class that dealt with what happens  in the process of matching a birthmother with prospective adoptive parents and what happens once that match has been made.  I sat through much of that class with true pains of anxiety in my chest.  I have to say that these are the first real anxiety pains that I have felt in this process.  I am still not completely sure what led to the anxiety.

I think a piece of it was how real it all started to feel.  So much of our process has been consumed by paperwork and crossing items off of a checklist.  I don't think I have thought all that much about what happens when all the items have been crossed off.  It all of a sudden felt really real.  And while that feeling of realness is incredibly exciting, it is also somewhat terrifying.

Another piece of it has to be my terrible fear of rejection and failure.  Ever since I was young, I hated the thought of being rejected or of failing at something.  I used to convince myself that I had failed tests that I had taken, just to prepare myself for what the results would be.  Even when I knew I had done well, I still prepared myself for the worst because that way I never had to feel disappointed.  I can feel myself doing the same thing now.  I find myself saying things like, "It will be okay if it takes five years to be chosen."  I know that I am just trying to prepare myself so that I don't have to feel those dreaded feelings of disappointment.

And I guess the last piece of it is just the unknown.  Thus far, our adoption counselor has been able to tell us exactly what will happen each step of the process.  Once we are placed on that waiting list however, that all changes.  The control is completely out of our hands and it is hard to be prepared when the possibilities of what could happen are endless.

So all of that was swirling around in my head as we sat there for the two hour class.  As we left, I tried to explain what I was feeling to Carla, but couldn't quite get the words right.  I think I have a better understanding of it now.  But as we left that night, the one thing I knew for certain was how lucky I was to have Carla as my wife.  She is the opposite of me in many ways.  She is so optimistic and I am so incredibly thankful for that.  I can't even imagine what it would be like if we were both the way that I am.  I am thankful to have found someone as strong as she is and someone who is able to balance me so well.  She makes me feel like there is some possible way that we are going to make it through all of this and that at the end we are going to be family of more than just her and me. And for that I am incredibly thankful.

It's Conceivable...again

Hello all!  I actually have multiple things to write about, but not much time to write about them.  But, what I do have, is a new post on It's Conceivable.  So, if you are wondering what has been going on in our world of adoption, head over there and take a look at my latest post.  You can find it here:

http://itsconceivablenow.com/2012/04/11/adoption-process-seventh-inning-stretch/

Thanks for reading and stay tuned to find about what happened when I read about gay penguins to my fifth grade class and how our second to last adoption class goes (we are going tonight).

Everyone is Up to Date

In case anyone happened to be wondering, the cats are now legit!  They are both up to date on all their shots and they were both champs at the vet.  No one pooped in their carriers this time and in fact, we found Jellybean sleeping in her new carrier once we got home from the vet.  Real progress.

So that's one more item to check off the list, which brings us down to 11. Yay!

I dropped off a bunch of paperwork at The Cradle this afternoon along with the next check.  I then promptly emailed our counselor to try and schedule our home visit.  I want to make sure that this part gets done before our final class and I figured that means I should try and schedule it now.

I am not so freaked out about the home visit.  I am proud of our home and know that we are good on things like fire stuff (after a fairly large trip to home depot).  I kind of get the sense that mostly they are looking for fire alarms in the right spot and a place for a baby to live.  I already confessed to our counselor that I am nervous about the behavior of our two-year-old lab mix.  Those of you who know Frankie know that she is not the calmest dog you have ever met.  But luckily she has gotten way better in the past few months and has even been allowed to mingle with guests when they come over!  So I am looking forward to getting the home visit schedule because in my mind that gets us one step closer to the end of the paper work stage.

As you might have been able to sense, I am getting antsy about this phase of the process.  I feel like we have been meeting requirements forever now (thought it has only really been five months).  I am ready to be in the waiting pool and let the wait time begin.  Though, I am sure once I am in the waiting pool, I will long for the days when we had some control over how quickly things were going.  Oh my!

I suppose that's it for now.  It's a good thing that I am going back to work on Monday.  Too much time to think only leads to unnecessary worrying!

12 Items and Counting

Well, here I am on spring break.  I mostly have a week full of wonderful nothing planned for my break. So far it has been incredibly delightful.  I feel caught up on things that I have not felt caught up on in a lifetime.  I have had time to see family and friends and enjoy just being home.

After a couple of days of just hanging out, I decided to make today a get things done kind of day.  So this morning, I took out the ole adoption checklist.  Slowly, but surely, we have continued to check items off of the list.  It is amazing how long this initial stage is taking us, but I feel as if with each checked item, we are becoming a bit more prepared for what lies ahead.  I was able to check a few more things off the list today that simply required putting things that we already had into the pile or printing off some things from on-line.  After checking off the newest items, I realized that we are now down to 12 items left on the checklist.  I have no idea how many items we started with, but I can guarantee you that it was a whole lot more than twelve.

Some of the big items left are safety plans for our home, a hand-drawn fire evacuation plan, a health form, and some other items that I have to ask our counselor about because I have no idea what they are.  We are getting there.  We are now enrolled for our last two classes and will be emailing our counselor soon to set-up her home visit.

On Friday we will take care of another big item on the check-list.  We must submit records that show that our pets are up to date on their shots.  For the dog, this is no problem.  She is a good two years ahead of needing more shots.  The cats are another story.  Furby (the little one) is not really a problem as she is up to date and only needs the next round.  Jellybean is kind of a rebel.  She hates the vet.  She hates the vet so much that she is willing to let us know just how unhappy she is by pooping in her crate on the way to the vet.  You get the picture.  Well, on Friday, we are sucking it up and going to the vet.  We have no choice.  Carla and I are both taking the cats as this is most definitely a two person job.  I even brought a brand new cat carrier for the occasion.  I am hoping that this one won't have any traumatic memories associated with it.  I have even put the new carrier out and scattered salmon flavored treats inside, in hopes that will entice her to enter and fall in love with the new carrier.  Sure our bedroom now smells of salmon, but in my eyes that is a small price to pay.  So as of Friday (provided we all make it safely to the vet and back) all of our furry pets will be caught up on their shots and we will have the necessary records to submit to the adoption agency.

It's crazy what we are willing to do to get this home study completed.  I truly don't think that there is anything that they could ask of us that would make me want to stop the process at this point.  So I will keep filling out forms and creating plans to safely evacuate our home in case of a fire and I will do it all knowing that at some point this part will be over and then the waiting will begin.

An Individual Interview

What a day! I just got home from my individual interview with our adoption counselor and since Carla is still at work and I have no one at home to debrief with other than the cats and dog, I figured I would blog about it.

Let me begin by saying that my meeting was scheduled for 4:00 today.  I work about 30 minutes away from the adoption agency and school gets out at 3:15.  Technically, we are not supposed to leave until 3:45, but I took some creative license and excused myself early.  Normally, the last few minutes of the day are not all that stressful and I can get ready to get out when I need to.  Today, however, was a little but more of an adventure.  We walked over to the junior high to be the audience for the dress rehearsal of their musical.  The musical ran late and we had to run the kids back to school and hurriedly get ready for them to get on their busses and go home.  Luckily we made it with minutes to spare, but it was certainly a stressful end to the day.  So I was already a bit harried when getting in my car.  I had about 40 minutes to get to the adoption agency.  And since I can't get anywhere without getting lost, I took a few wrong turns.  So I pulled up to the agency just a few moments early, which to me feels like being late.  Luckily, our counselor was running late so I had a few minutes to do some deep breathing.

It was strange to be at the agency without Carla.  We have gone through every single step of this process as a team and it was weird to be there without her.  I can't say that I was really nervous for the interview, but, as usual, I had no idea what to expect.  Our counselor came out and we went into the same room we have had all of our other meetings in.  It is starting to feel comfortable there.  We spent the next hour and a half talking about a myriad of things.  We covered my childhood, my schooling, what I do for fun, how I take care of myself, religion, beliefs on parenting, and I don't even remember what else.

There was certainly nothing scary about the interview. In fact, most of the conversation was enjoyable.  Every so often though, I thought about how strange it was that I was being asked to explain how I planned to parent when there won't even be a child in my life for quite a while.  I thought about how most people get to formulate their thinking about parenting as they are parenting. There were moments that I just felt unqualified to answer some of the questions she was asking.  I don't know why, but I left with sort of a frustrated feeling.  I am thankful that we have the chance to think about these things now and I know I have to just get it out of my head that there is some right answer that they are looking for.  I am proud of what I have to share about my life and where I have come from and I suppose that needs to be enough.

Carla goes for her interview tomorrow and I am looking forward to hearing her take on it.  She is usually the more positive one about these things and I suppose part of my feelings have to do with the fact that she wasn't there to reassure me that everything went well.  Perhaps tomorrow things will seem different.

One of the big pieces of our talk today was going through where we are in the process and what we have left in the process.  Through our discussion we made a tentative plan to be done with the home study and paperwork by May.  The last class that we will need is on May 5th and so hopefully that will be the last step in this process.  It's good to know that there is an end in sight as this can all feel never ending at times.  I know that we are anxious to be done with this phase and I know that other people in our lives are ready for us to be officially "waiting" as well.  It is nice to know that it will happen soon enough.

Well, I suppose that is it for now.  I am off to take the dog for a long walk and enjoy the nice weather.

A Legal Seminar and A First Draft

Yesterday Carla and I were back at The Cradle for a workshop all about legal issues for same-sex couples. The presenter was a woman who is a lawyer who specialized in adoption and specifically in gay and lesbian adoptions.  She was fascinating.  The first part of the workshop was really just about the legal process of adoption in general.  In Illinois, there is no difference in what we will go through as a lesbian couple and what any straight couple would go through.  The more she talked, the more we realized just how lucky we are to live in Illinois.  In many states, one person would have to do the adopting and the other person would then have to do a second-parent adoption.  In other states, both of our names wouldn't be able to be on the reissued birth certificate.  In many states, I believe she said it was 35 states, there is an amendment to the state constitution or some other law that makes it impossible for gay marriage or even civil unions to be allowed in that state.  Again, we felt very lucky to be living here in Illinois.

The second part of the workshop was about the Civil Union bill and what protections it gives us and what it doesn't give us.  It was nice to hear from a lawyer, definitively, that our marriage license from Vermont is all that we will ever need to be considered to be in a Civil Union here in Illinois.  Carla and I realized that we were one of the first gay couples that the Cradle required to have a civil union before they would consider us for adoption.  Their view is that they wouldn't adopt to a straight couple who wasn't married and therefore, to keep things equal, they will not adopt to gay couples without a civil union.  It is certainly an interesting time.

After the workshop, Carla and I decided it was really time to sit down and work on our Dear Birthmother letter.  We decided to start with the long profile which is supposed to show who we are and the things about our lives that will make us a great choice for a birthmother to choose.  It was one of the most difficult things that I have ever had to write.  But we did it! We now have a first draft of our text.  We even have pictures picked out to go along with what we have written.  Now we just have to find a way to put it all together so that is looks engaging, eye-catching, easy to read, and filled with love.  Not an easy task.

It feels good to be getting more things done.  We did so much about a month ago and then really put adoption things on the back burner for a while as other things in our lives needed to get done.  But with this seminar and the first draft of our profile done, I feel like we are back into things.  We sent an email to our adoption counselor yesterday to try and schedule our individual interviews, which is the next meeting we have to have with her.  Hopefully we will hear back soon and get those scheduled.  Until then, we will continue to put together our letters and check more things off of our checklists.

It's Conceivable

Here's a link to my next blog post on It's Conceivable..

.http://itsconceivablenow.com/2012/02/14/adoption-paperwork…a-k-a-sh-done/


Hope you make it over there to take a look!  Enjoy!

Crossing things off...

It feels like we have been on this huge quest to get as much done for the adoption paperwork as we can in the least amount of time. Carla and I both feel like this paperwork is the last thing that we have any control over in this process.  We know that we are going to have to wait for quite a while to be matched with a birthmother.  We know that we might even have to wait longer than most other couples simply because we are gay.  Truly we have come to terms with that, but we feel like the paperwork is not going to be the thing that holds us up.  So in the last two weeks we have filled out many forms, taken two online classes (we have one more to go), prepared our house to be completely fire safe, taken our CPR class and this morning we got our fingerprints done.  We just went to the post office and dropped off a huge packet of DCFC paperwork that needed to be done including the forms regarding our fingerprints.  And for perhaps the greatest accomplishment is that this morning I made a doctor's appointment.  Now for most people this would be no great accomplishment. However, I cannot remember the last time I made a doctor's appointment.  But thanks to the recommendation of a close friend, I have found a doctor and will be going for a physical in two weeks.  Yikes!

So with that we are just a little bit closer to finishing all the paperwork.  The doctor will be able to fill out my health form and that will feel like a huge relief.  After that we are left to work on our dear birthparent letter and our profile (kind of like a big scrapbook to show a birthparent who we are and what our lives are like).  On that note, we are starting to gather pictures that might look good to show people what our life is like.  If any of you out there reading this happen to have any great pictures of Carla and I doing something that looks like fun, please email them to me so we can use them for the book.

Well that is it for now.  I thought I would sneak in a quick post since I took this morning off in order to get those fingerprints taken care of.  I must now get back to the part of my life that doesn't involve adoption!

Seeking Support

On Thursday night, Carla and I attended our first support group.  We are lucky enough to live fairly close to one of Chicago's gay and lesbian centers.  The Center on Halsted has been a great resource for me in the past and once again has proven to have exactly what I needed.  In one of the many emails I receive from the center, I saw that a new support group was beginning for gay and lesbian couples considering adoption or in the adoption process.  After making a phone call, Carla and I were all signed up.

Now normally, this is the type of thing that would make both Carla and I incredibly nervous.  We don't love having to be social with people we don't know and we are particularly skilled at meeting new people (I believe I have mentioned this before).  But something was different this time. We both said that neither one of us felt in the least bit nervous.  We decided that we had been through enough situations at this point where we were talking about our adoption process with total strangers that it didn't really phase us anymore.  So off we went, excited about the opportunity to connect with other gay couples dealing with adoption.

We were of course early and when we reached the room where the group was meeting, the lights were off and we wondered if we were in the right place.  After a trip back downstairs and then back upstairs again we found the women who would be leading our group.  For a while we were the only couple there, so we chatted with the facilitators of the group.  A few moments after the meeting was supposed to begin, a second couple walked in.  And so the group would consist of just us and this other couple.  The facilitators told us that the following week they knew of at least two other couples who would be there, but we began with just the four of us.

While I won't bore you with all the details we discussed, I would like to at least say that I loved being there.  Carla and I both said that we loved having a place where we could just talk about what we were going through.  This process has become so consuming and yet, I often struggle to find the right time to talk about it with those around me.  It just never seems to be the right time.  It was nice to have a place where that was what we HAD to talk about.  It was our purpose for being there.  I also loved having a place to focus on issues specifically connected to being a gay or lesbian couple going through the adoption process.  Our agency has been wonderful and while they have offered us a huge amount of support, it was nice to be at a place that is specifically geared toward gay and lesbian couples.

We both left feeling really good about the group and about the opportunity to be a part of it.  While we are hoping for more couples next time, even just having the few of us sitting around the room was an incredible experience and one I am very thankful for. It makes me feel thankful for living so close to the Center on Halsted and it makes me feel for the people who don't have the luxury to go through a process like this without the support that we have found.  I know that not every city has a gay and lesbian center and I know that not every state is as accommodating towards gay and lesbian couples who want to adopt a child.  We are lucky.  Though we will certainly face our share of challenges, we live in a place where we are well protected by the law and well supported by our community.  But not for a second do I forget that there are so many gay and lesbian couples who don't have that on their side and I just hope for a day when no one has to worry that because they live in the wrong state, things are going to be harder for them.  I hope changes.  I hope that we won't be considered lucky one day just because we are treating like everyone else around us.