When we found out that we were approved for our homestudy I was in Seattle on a business trip. As a matter of fact I was at a luncheon and out of habit checked my email and saw the message from Bethany. It’s a bit of a blur now but I know I jumped up from my seat and ran into the hallway. I wanted to jump and shout but I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. I called Ted and of course that’s when the tears started flowing. At this point I no longer cared how I looked. I called our worker to see what we needed to do next. She was just as happy for us as we were. At that time, there were three moms looking for families. So for us to be considered by those moms we had to pay our fee to enter the “domestic program”.
Before I left for Seattle I meant to have a check ready just in case this happened. But I didn’t. I have to admit I was getting a little discouraged. So our worker informed me we could do it online, (which they told us before that credit card/debit card payments took 3 weeks to clear). I was ecstatic and I nearly ran back to my hotel. They probably never saw a black woman move so fast in the streets of Seattle. I made it to my hotel and was able to transfer the whopping $5,550 needed to complete our homestudy ($1,050) and pay the domestic program fee ($4,500). Within 30 minutes, our worker sent us the profiles of the 3 birth moms. Wow! It was that fast.
I tried to collect myself as best as I could so I could conduct business. Let’s just say the rest of the conference was a bust. I needed to call somebody. I really needed my mom. But I didn’t have time to get sad I just needed to talk it out. I called my friend Kiota who was getting ready for a wedding that Ted was also attending. I called her and she could hear it in my voice. She said, “You got a baby”. So I said, “Um no, but thanks for stealing my thunder”. When I told her we were only approved for our homestudy. She was still just as ecstatic. I proceeded toward the convention center talking to my friend of friends. We laughed and joked and thought about what all of this means. I’m so thankful to have friends to call on in good and bad times. Plus she was acting as my police officer that evening to make sure Ted didn’t dance with any hot women at the wedding. But WE decided WE would let him have a good time because his life was about to change. LOL!
That’s the story of how we found out about the homestudy. But what does this approval mean exactly? Before now, we were filling out extensive paperwork and doing our interviews, but we were not allowed to see any profiles of birth moms and vice versa. It’s like we had to go through the steps to qualify to see these precious secret profiles. The approval of the homestudy and the payment of course lifted this veil of secrecy. Our worker would give us hints about moms that were due, but that’s all she could tell us and she probably wasn’t supposed to tell us that much. Now our worker sends us profiles of birth moms based on what we’re looking for. We also see basic information on birth moms who are in their system or moms they are working to bring into their system.
Over the past month or so, I found it very comforting that when I told friends and colleagues that we were still waiting on approval, their response was, “What’s the problem? What do they need to know? You all will be wonderful parents”. They were really offended that it took this long :) It was so sweet. What they didn't know was that in some cases approval could take longer. Ted and I are so grateful for the prayers and support that have been given to us. We continue to need them. I will continue to post on our journey.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
My Bad
I really didn't mean to keep you in suspense this long. Please see the video. Be sure to note my husbands banter at the beginning. Just another day in the life :)
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
And We Waited
After our last home visit our worker gave us good reason to think that she could complete our paperwork quickly and that we could get approval pretty fast. So that week she called us with more clarifications and last minute paperwork to get signed. One of the forms holding up our process was additional verification from our physicians making sure that we were indeed healthy. Ted made a personal appearance to his doctors office to hand deliver a form and they returned it that day. But our efforts were to no avail because our worker went on vacation. Nerds!
While our worker vacationed, we tried to keep ourselves busy. We watched webinars on adoption (because we still have 10 required hours of training before placement). We added to our registries (shout out to my friend Kim who gave me quite an education in Babies R Us). She came to my rescue or really Ted's. We also attended an infant care class. What an education that was. They dismantled all the things that I grew up with. Don't use powder. Don't use certain lotions and shampoos. Don't do this or that. The Madeas and the Big Mamas of the world would have been in dismay with all the things the nurse told us :) Nevertheless the information was useful. We took lots of notes. I learned how to change a diaper. Finally! We also bought the book, "What to Expect the First Year". This book is huge! We have lots of reading to do.
We also had to generate a profile book. This is what the birthmother will see when she chooses families. Please see the link on our blog that we shared via Shutterfly.
The saga continues...
While our worker vacationed, we tried to keep ourselves busy. We watched webinars on adoption (because we still have 10 required hours of training before placement). We added to our registries (shout out to my friend Kim who gave me quite an education in Babies R Us). She came to my rescue or really Ted's. We also attended an infant care class. What an education that was. They dismantled all the things that I grew up with. Don't use powder. Don't use certain lotions and shampoos. Don't do this or that. The Madeas and the Big Mamas of the world would have been in dismay with all the things the nurse told us :) Nevertheless the information was useful. We took lots of notes. I learned how to change a diaper. Finally! We also bought the book, "What to Expect the First Year". This book is huge! We have lots of reading to do.
We also had to generate a profile book. This is what the birthmother will see when she chooses families. Please see the link on our blog that we shared via Shutterfly.
The saga continues...
Monday, October 15, 2012
Our Home Visits
In September we began our home visits. Our worker came to our home at 3 different times over three consecutive weeks to interview us. The visits went well but it was nerve wrecking. (Note: each agency is different, some may require fewer home visits, but the information below is specific to our agency)
Visit #1
Our worker asked us general questions. Mostly about our family background and clarifying anything that she had questions about on our application. She wanted to know how we came to the decision to adopt, etc. It lasted over 2 hours. Mostly because of my talkative husband ☺ He was indeed in his wheelhouse. This visit was a little painful because we ended up discussing my parents quite a bit and I was not ready for this discussion or the feelings that came afterward. I realized just how much of our lives were devoted to them. I would certainly do it all over again, but our worker was just in awe over the stories we told her about that time in our lives.
Visit #2
This visit I just knew I blew it! I did not feel well so I wasn’t exactly Mrs. Bright and Cheery. This was the visit where she had to speak to us individually. Although it wasn’t bad in hindsight. At the time it felt like we were suspects in a crime and they had to separate us to see if our stories checked out. Before our individual interviews we had to complete a questionnaire about ourselves, our upbringing and each other. Something like, how would you describe your spouse? How often do you argue? How do you handle conflict? These were all multiple choice, which made it easier, but it was still difficult, wondering if our answers would disqualify us. In our individual interviews she asked similar questions to those on the questionnaire but asked us more about each other and ourselves. Ted did his interview first. Big mistake. He talked for well over an hour. I think it was close to two. She laughed and laughed and laughed. Of course I was trying to keep myself busy and trying not to eavesdrop. I was unsuccessful at both. My interview lasted 30 or 40 minutes. I answered what was asked. That was it. I didn’t want to mess up so I didn’t elaborate unless I had to. Finally it was over and I could breathe.
Visit #3
At our last home visit we were excited to get through this and get it done. One of our first questions to her was how were things going. How were we looking? She assured us that if there were any problems we would know by now. With this visit she clarified more things from our application. It was pretty easy. She asked about our care plans (day care, school, etc.), about our finances for the adoption, and the type of people who would be around the baby. She also verified information provided by our references. It pays to be honest because if we weren’t, these people would know. They really should work for politicians ☺. Our worker told us of potential birthmothers that would be due in the coming months. The one question that got us really excited was, “have you started your registries?” We were like “huh?” No we hadn’t at that time. We weren’t thinking about that yet. There was so much to do during this process that fun stuff like registries sort of slipped our mind. Our meeting ended on a very friendly and hopeful note. She told us that she never laughed so much at her home visits as she had with ours. She assured us that this was a good thing. Whew!
So that was Sept. 28. We celebrated by going to Target to start one of our registries. Which we now need to revise because we had no idea what we were doing. The next day we went to Babies R Us and registered there too. But again we were clueless. We did not accomplish much, but we enjoyed each other and the excitement. More to come…
Visit #1
Our worker asked us general questions. Mostly about our family background and clarifying anything that she had questions about on our application. She wanted to know how we came to the decision to adopt, etc. It lasted over 2 hours. Mostly because of my talkative husband ☺ He was indeed in his wheelhouse. This visit was a little painful because we ended up discussing my parents quite a bit and I was not ready for this discussion or the feelings that came afterward. I realized just how much of our lives were devoted to them. I would certainly do it all over again, but our worker was just in awe over the stories we told her about that time in our lives.
Visit #2
This visit I just knew I blew it! I did not feel well so I wasn’t exactly Mrs. Bright and Cheery. This was the visit where she had to speak to us individually. Although it wasn’t bad in hindsight. At the time it felt like we were suspects in a crime and they had to separate us to see if our stories checked out. Before our individual interviews we had to complete a questionnaire about ourselves, our upbringing and each other. Something like, how would you describe your spouse? How often do you argue? How do you handle conflict? These were all multiple choice, which made it easier, but it was still difficult, wondering if our answers would disqualify us. In our individual interviews she asked similar questions to those on the questionnaire but asked us more about each other and ourselves. Ted did his interview first. Big mistake. He talked for well over an hour. I think it was close to two. She laughed and laughed and laughed. Of course I was trying to keep myself busy and trying not to eavesdrop. I was unsuccessful at both. My interview lasted 30 or 40 minutes. I answered what was asked. That was it. I didn’t want to mess up so I didn’t elaborate unless I had to. Finally it was over and I could breathe.
Visit #3
At our last home visit we were excited to get through this and get it done. One of our first questions to her was how were things going. How were we looking? She assured us that if there were any problems we would know by now. With this visit she clarified more things from our application. It was pretty easy. She asked about our care plans (day care, school, etc.), about our finances for the adoption, and the type of people who would be around the baby. She also verified information provided by our references. It pays to be honest because if we weren’t, these people would know. They really should work for politicians ☺. Our worker told us of potential birthmothers that would be due in the coming months. The one question that got us really excited was, “have you started your registries?” We were like “huh?” No we hadn’t at that time. We weren’t thinking about that yet. There was so much to do during this process that fun stuff like registries sort of slipped our mind. Our meeting ended on a very friendly and hopeful note. She told us that she never laughed so much at her home visits as she had with ours. She assured us that this was a good thing. Whew!
So that was Sept. 28. We celebrated by going to Target to start one of our registries. Which we now need to revise because we had no idea what we were doing. The next day we went to Babies R Us and registered there too. But again we were clueless. We did not accomplish much, but we enjoyed each other and the excitement. More to come…
It's been awhile
Hello everyone. I realized I haven't posted in 2 weeks. I told Ted last week I
needed to make a post because we owe it to our followers. He said "yeah, all 3 of
them". Lol!
Whether we have 3 or 3003 it matters to me that we keep up with our journey via our blog as promised. That being said I will make several posts to catch you up to where we are. I'm keeping you in suspense. Stay tuned because its good :)
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Our profile book
This book is what birth moms will see when they begin to look at families. It provides them with insight into the families and their lives and helps them with their decision. Enjoy
We want to give a shout out to Kimberly Hodge-Bell for taking pictures of us and to my co-worker Jessica Silva-Fisher for putting the book together for us. We have just been so blessed.
We want to give a shout out to Kimberly Hodge-Bell for taking pictures of us and to my co-worker Jessica Silva-Fisher for putting the book together for us. We have just been so blessed.
Click here to view this photo book larger
Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.
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