Saying No...

Greg and I received the home study of a child available for adoption. We don't want to share details as to protect the child's privacy, so it is sufficient to say that we had to say no to adopting them.

Saying no is one of the hardest things I have experienced so far. There is a lot of guilt attached to it. I know it was the right thing to do, but still, it means that that child still does not have a forever home.

I know our kids are out there, and I know we have to keep our needs in mind. But it breaks my heart that I couldn't give that child a home.

Weekends

Weekends are interesting nowadays.

They provide us with a well-needed break from checking our phones to see if we have a match e-mail, but at the same time, we also feel like we have to wait two days for something to happen.

Waiting is the hardest part. It has been the hardest part through this entire experience. You wait for your class to start. You wait for your paperwork to be received. You wait to be assigned a caseworker. You wait for your homestudy to start. You wait for it to be completed. You wait for your homestudy to be approved. Then you wait to match.

Then, once you have matched, you still have to wait for the adoption to be finalized.

Everyone keeps telling us that patience is a virtue, and that good things come to those who wait. We know. It's also hard to understand what we are going through from the outsiders perspective. When you have a baby, you have a general idea of how long you will wait before it's here. You have things you can do to prepare. With adoption, you can't prepare because, especially in our case, we have no idea if we will have a girl or boy, how old they will be, if there will be more than one. And we really have no clue how long the wait will be; days, weeks, months...

On top of that, when you have a baby, you get to start at day one with that kid. You have their whole life. Every first, every holiday. We are missing out on those every day that we don't have our kid(s).

So, if we get a little upset when someone says patience is a virtue, or that good things come to those who wait, or if we are a little frustrated with the process, please forgive us. We are just trying to find our kids.

Matchmaker matchmaker...

We are finally in the matching process!

We have submitted a couple of inquiries, but nothing has worked out yet. Most of the children were already adopted, or they wanted them to stay in the same state they were in, in the case that they were out of state.

We are trying to take it easy and realize that this is not an overnight thing. This could take weeks or months.

In the meantime, we will share what we can, but for our privacy, and for the privacy of the children, we will not be sharing details about the matches or non-matches. We need for the decisions that we make to be ours alone. We hope that you will all understand. We will share the process, and our thoughts as we deem appropriate.

Thank you all for all of the love and support you have shown us through this process! We can't wait to find our kiddos!

Results!

Today, around 1pm I got an e-mail with our homestudy first draft attached. There were a couple of errors, so they have to be fixed, but at least things are moving again! The errors were minor. She wrote that our moms live in Northport, but they live in Sarasota, and she said my dad remarried when I was in 2nd grade, but that was when they met. There were a couple more, but nothing serious. I called her and left a message, but it was after 4 so I won't hear back until tomorrow probably.

In the meantime, I also found out that the results of our background checks are in. That means all that's left is to finalize the homestudy itself, a few minor pieces of paperwork (copies of our car insurance, etc.), and then we can be approved!

Want to see the coolest sentence ever? Sorry for the blurry picture, but read the very last line!

Homestudy and Loose Ends

Gianna here!

Our homestudy was last Thursday. I meant to write about it right away, but I have been so busy I didn't have a chance.

Greg and I were super stressed about it. We had been cleaning and scrubbing and organizing for 2 weeks. The house looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Anyways, I had read somewhere that if you are stressed, NOT to work that day, because you will just be more stressed. I decided not to take that advice, and was absolutely miserable at work all day. If you are getting ready for a homestudy and reading this, I know you probably won't listen to me, but for the love of God, take that day off. Set your alarm for later in the day, and, although I know that if you are like me, you will already be awake, lying there staring at the ceiling, force yourself to stay in bed until the alarm goes off. Take it easy, do all the last minute stuff that will suddenly seem important, and do all the pacing you feel like. Do not go to work. If you're like me, you will be absolutely useless anyways.

So, our caseworker got there, and we sat in the living room and chatted. That's all. She asked questions about our lives up to when we met, like where we were born, if our parents were together, why not, how did we feel about it, what is our relationship like with our parents and siblings, what are our religious views, how will we discipline, do we prefer a certain gender, age range, and what disabilities can we handle, etc.

And then she took a 3 minute tour of our house.

That's not even an understatement. It was like "Oh, here is the downstairs, and up here are the bedrooms and the second bathroom and..oh, you are leaving? Ok, thanks."

Super duper fast. And that was it. I just had my fingerprinting done, and Greg's is scheduled for Thursday, and then we should hear something after the first of the year!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

And so it begins...

This evening, around 4:50, when I had accepted that I probably wouldn't hear from anyone about adoption stuff until Wednesday, I got a call from a caseworker! Our first interview is December 13th! We are so excited (and anxious and nervous and scared)! We needed something to take our mind off the homestudy, so we decorated for Christmas. It was a lot of fun. We thought about how this may be our last Christmas that we will not have kids, and decorating our tree with things our kids make, and sharing our traditions and start our own new traditions...so basically we spent the evening thinking about kids instead of the homestudy. :-) So for the next week we will be cleaning up, and I want to clear out the spare room so that it will be ready to be a kids room. We are so excited and blessed!

Progress!

So our check is in the hands of the case worker! That means that our home study has begun! We are so excited that the process has started! Gianna had to order a copy of her birth certificate, and we still need to clear out the room that will be our childs so that it can be put together when the time comes. We are in good shape we think, so hopefully the process will be smooth. We will more than likely have some updates on that! A lot of our friends and family have asked us if we have any particular child/children in mind. The short answer is yes. However, because a lot can change, and because we need to know that we are making the best decision for us, we have decided not to share that information, except for immediate family. This is quite a process. Once our home study is approved, we can send it to the childs caseworker. The caseworker looks it over and decides if she thinks we are a good match. IF she decides we are a good match then we make a time to meet with the childs caseworker, foster parents, and guardian ad litem, and anyone else involved. We sign a confidentiality agreement, and look over a child study, which will have all known history for that child, including medical records, school records, etc. We ask any questions we may have, and then take a couple days to mull it over. If we decide it's a good match, then we let them know and have a few visitations and talk to the child about how they feel about it (if they are old enough to make an informed decision on their own). The bottom line is, though we think we are a good match, we really know very little about this child. We don't want to get too attached or get hopes too high. We probably won't have our child or children for this Christmas, but with a little luck, we could at least have visitation with them before February!

Thanksgiving Miracles

Last night, after dinner, we were discussing with our family the costs of adoption. Since we have decided to pay, even though we are going through public adoption, we will pay for our homestudy, which is a big chunk, plus any travel expenses, notary fees, background checks, yada yada yada.... Right then, Greg's dad offered to pay the homestudy fee itself, so we could get started! Gianna could hardly contain the tears! Then, her dad and stepmom gave us a check as a belated anniversary gift to help cover outher costs! Gianna's mother has been a continual source knowledge about the system, and an ear to listen when I gripe. Greg's mom has shown her interest and support in the process. We still have a little over half of the $1,000 to earn, but we have the beginnings. We are overwhelmed with the love and support our family has offered us. We just couldn't be more thankful.

Gianna and Greg's Handy Service

After a lot of conversations, we have decided that instead of waiting who knows how long to even be assigned a caseworker, and waiting even after that to start our homestudy, we are going to pay for it ourselves.

Especially because we have a child in mind, waiting is really difficult, even more so when there is no end in sight!

We don't know exactly what the cost will be, so we are hoping our savings are enough. Luckily, Greg's company will reimburse us up to $5,000 for adoption expenses. The trick is coming up with it beforehand!

Here is the deal:

For $10, Gianna or Greg will:

Bake a cake or pie

Walk your dogs

Clean your car

Bathe your dogs

Mow your lawn

Help you pack

Help you unpack

Help you move

Help clean your house

Help you wrap Christmas presents

Weed your garden

Clean your gutters

Do any other stupid chore you don't want to do!

We will help you do, or do, just about anything you need done so that we can raise enough money to cover the difference in adoption expenses! Just let Gianna know, and she will schedule you in!

Waiting and waiting and waiting....

We are both feeling a little discouraged at the moment.

We were hoping to at least have been assigned to a caseworker at this point. So far, nothing.

We have sent e-mails, and are attending the Foster/Adoptive Parent Association meetings, and are trying to keep busy in general, but it's hard to not have an end in sight!

Some people we have met have taken as long as 6 months to start their homestudy! We were told that it shouldn't take us that long, but now we aren't so sure.

What can we do but keep busy and wait?

Keep us in your thoughts! Pray for something to happen sooner!