Our First Purchase

When you're pregnant it's easy to compile a list of all of the things you need for a baby, have a shower and start buying things.   I guess if we were adopting an infant the same process would apply.  But we have a very broad age range and we want the kid(s) to  be able to pick out their furnishings so that makes it a lot harder.   Instead I have been mentally compiling a list of all the things we are going to need:

• Furniture
• Linens
• Books
• Games & toys
• Bike & helmet
• Swing set
• X-box 

OK not all of these are necessities but many of these items are going to be needed quickly.  We have been putting money aside each month to cover the cost of the big items that will be needed since we have to wait. This waiting is hard so I was super excited this weekend when we were in Santa Fe and made the first purchase for our future child(ren).    We plan on putting a photo of us/our house in this and giving it to them prior to placement to prepare with the transition.   

We're Licensed!

Well, we don't officially have the license in our hands but we got word on Monday that the missing piece of paperwork was received and we are good to be licensed.   This is HUGE!   It means we are onto the next step of the process; the searching and networking.  

I took a gander at AdoptUsKids this afternoon, it is a website that lists kids available for adoption.  This is only one avenue of the networking but I was curious to see if there were any listings that jumped out at me.   Do you believe in signs?  I normally don't believe in signs but I found this listing and immediately thought - yup these are the kids for us.   Dave said he could deal with sharing his name with a child but having a child share a name with our cat is a bit much.  

Happy Mother's Day

For as long as I can remember I've known I wanted to be a mom.  Did I think I would become a mom for the first time in my 40's absolutely not.   I watched my sisters become mom's and as happy as I was for them I was a tiny bit jealous.   When they were becoming moms I was at a place where I  was giving up on my dream of motherhood for a guy that didn't want kids. After that relationship ended I figured I would end up a single mom by choice and started researching adoption, then I met Dave and I put those plans on hold again.

Now here I am within arms reach of my goal of becoming a mom.   It's weird knowing that our kids are out there somewhere and next year at this time we will hopefully be celebrating mother's day as a family.   Do I know what kind of mom I'm going to be no - but I hope that  learning from the examples of my grandmother, mom and sisters I will be a good listener and somebody that my children will look up to.

Home Study Approved

We reached a huge milestone yesterday, we are officially home study approved!   What does this mean exactly?  We have completed all the training requirements, passed criminal background checks, completed the psycho-social evaluation, and are home is safe for children.    The next step is the licensing.  We are still waiting on 1 form from a state agency to come in and then we will be officially licensed.  

It is weird seeing your life and relationship distilled into 12 pages.  Our caseworker said ours was easy and that some people end up with 30 page home studies.  I guess we're boring.

So, what comes next.   We have to pull together photos for our profile showing our house, family, the animals, and the neighborhood.  This will be used for marketing and networking purposes.  We can't officially present our home study until the missing background check comes in but we can start unofficially inquiring once the profile is completed.  

Boob Jobs and Adoption

No I am not getting a boob job.   I stumbled across this video on an adoption message board that I frequent.  It is a humorous way to educate people about appropriate adoption language and questions.  Adoption is an unknown for many people and there are lots of questions, sometimes the questions people ask or the words they choose are offensive.  

I have been fortunate that we haven't been asked these questions.  The one thing we have been asked that does fall in this category is a variation of " Aren't you afraid the child will be unhealthy/damaged/emotionally unstable?"  While it hasn't been these exact words it is the idea that adopting a child from foster care means we are getting damaged goods.   Yes these kids have had a hard life and have experienced trauma but that doesn't mean they are any less of a person and don't need a loving family.   There would be no guarantees even if we had a biological child that they would be perfectly healthy.

Questions are natural, and I am happy to answer them, but first ask yourself "would I ask this about a boob job?"

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Not much new on the adoption front these days, we've been in a holding pattern waiting for our home study to be finalized.   After finishing our training and our last home study visit our case worker went off to prepare our profile and present it to the team for approval.   Hopefully it will be presented this week and then we get to review it.  There isn't much that we can do until we hear from her.   Waiting is hard.

Once our profile is approved we move onto the exciting part - networking and reviewing profiles of our potential child(ren).   Of course there will be more waiting during these times but we can at least take an active role in things then of viewing profiles and submitting our homestudy for our potential children.   There is no saying how long this process will take.   I know many people can wait upwards of a year but for some reason I think it will be quicker than that for us, but maybe that is wishful thinking.   We did just buy 2 tickets for our vacation to the east coast this summer, part of me thinks that is a sure fire way to ensure that we will need be placed by then and will scramble to purchase additional seat(s) on our flights.  

Dave leaves on a business trip tomorrow ( a little role reversal)  I fly out on Friday to meet him and spend a weekend in NYC.   I wonder if this will be the last flight we take without kids (well I have plenty of trips for work but those don't count).  

   

What a Difference a Year Makes

Last year at this time Dave had just returned from a trip to Denver to visit family and I was in a tough place at work and very stressed.  This prompted us to start talking about whether we wanted to raise our hypothetical family in Seattle or if we wanted to move elsewhere.  Seattle is great and we loved it but we were very far away from family there.  Flights to see my family required between 6-9 hours of travelling, flights to see Dave's family 3-6 hours.   IF we were going to move we were moving someplace with family and with a lower cost of living.   We looked at the cities and towns our family lived in and  narrowed the list down to Denver.

Denver gave us a number of benefits

• Family a quick car ride away.
• Travel to see my family dropped to 4-6 hours.
• Travel to see Dave's family dropped to no more than 4 hours with the closet trip being 20 minutes.  
• Lower cost of living.
• Mountains. 
• Red Rocks.
• A great craft beer scene. 
• 300 days of sunshine. 

We knew it wouldn't be easy, but this wasn't the first big move for either of us.   If we were going to move we needed to move first and then start the adoption process.  We figured it would take about a year or so for the move to become a reality.  Imagine our surprise when a few weeks later Dave learned of a job opportunity, it seemed like a sign.   2.5 months after "thinking" about moving to Denver we were packing up our house and saying good bye to Seattle.   

Here we are a year later, getting settled into our new home and approaching the time when we are home study approved.  The move happened much quicker than we anticipated and there have been definite adjustments, but it was definitely the right decision for our family.  I have mostly adjusted to working from home and am in a much better place career wise, we are making friends, we are exploring our new home state and most of all we've enjoyed spending more time with family.