Thursday, June 20, 2013
Smiling face
We Skyped with Lena today! We were so happy to see her smiling face! We miss her! We hope that she will be able to come back over the Christmas holiday's. That's the tentative plan and we are hoping to visit Germany next summer!
More on the Adoption
OK, so it's been over a month since I posted anything!
We had our call with our agent on May 8th. That went very well. Since I already had a profile started I had asked another friend, who is a social worker, to give it a gander and let me know what to change, add, omit. She did. I worked on it and sent a rough draft to our agent on May 10th and had another phone call with her about it. Well, I sent the wrong draft, so I sent it again then worked on it some more based on suggestion our agent made, went to the UP$ Store, had six copies printed and sent her one for her records on May 15th. SHE LOVED IT! I will say, it did turn out well. Now in "the pool" we are for sure. We were in the pool as soon as she got our home study which was also May 10th, but this just made it more official.
Fast forward to June 7th.....We were at the lake with little to no cell service and no access to email. I turn my phone on half way home on Sunday to see that I have one text from Teri to check my email. I check my email and there are two birth mom profiles for Tim and I to look over. We mull them over with Lena (after all this will be her baby brother or sister) and decide we like one birth mom over the other, but that we would submit for both. One birth mom lives in Florida and has a 3 year old son with the same father as her unborn baby girl. Both parents are 22 and their big request was to allow their son (who currently lives with her mother) to have a relationship with the unborn child. OK, not sure what she's looking for with that. The other birth mom lives in Nevada. She's 17, so is the father. She's having a boy. She's not getting the prenatal care that she should and on paper doesn't look that attractive of a situation. So, our profiles must be in the hands of each of their agencies by June 11th. They are.
On June 12th we get a call from our agent, Teri, telling us that the birth mom in Nevada wanted to ask us two questions. 1) What is our favorite movie and 2) What is our favorite song. Now, she wants to know each of ours. I thought it was a strange question, Tim thought it was a good question. I had Teri and Lena on my side. LOL! We answer and leave it at that. June 14th Tim and I are shopping at Costco for Lena's going back to Germany party when Teri calls to let us know that the Nevada birth mom has chosen us. YEAH! OH CRAP! WHAT THE HECK! Yes, all of that was going through our minds.
Anyway, we have spoken with the birth mom's agency, our agent and received contracts. We are mulling over the contracts and have some questions and an amendment into the birth mom's agency. Unfortunately, her agent doesn't work on Thursday's, so we will have to wait to hear until tomorrow. IF we can all agree on our change and we can get the most recent medical records then we will sign and we will have a baby on the way.
Fingers crossed. I'll keep you updated.
We had our call with our agent on May 8th. That went very well. Since I already had a profile started I had asked another friend, who is a social worker, to give it a gander and let me know what to change, add, omit. She did. I worked on it and sent a rough draft to our agent on May 10th and had another phone call with her about it. Well, I sent the wrong draft, so I sent it again then worked on it some more based on suggestion our agent made, went to the UP$ Store, had six copies printed and sent her one for her records on May 15th. SHE LOVED IT! I will say, it did turn out well. Now in "the pool" we are for sure. We were in the pool as soon as she got our home study which was also May 10th, but this just made it more official.
Fast forward to June 7th.....We were at the lake with little to no cell service and no access to email. I turn my phone on half way home on Sunday to see that I have one text from Teri to check my email. I check my email and there are two birth mom profiles for Tim and I to look over. We mull them over with Lena (after all this will be her baby brother or sister) and decide we like one birth mom over the other, but that we would submit for both. One birth mom lives in Florida and has a 3 year old son with the same father as her unborn baby girl. Both parents are 22 and their big request was to allow their son (who currently lives with her mother) to have a relationship with the unborn child. OK, not sure what she's looking for with that. The other birth mom lives in Nevada. She's 17, so is the father. She's having a boy. She's not getting the prenatal care that she should and on paper doesn't look that attractive of a situation. So, our profiles must be in the hands of each of their agencies by June 11th. They are.
On June 12th we get a call from our agent, Teri, telling us that the birth mom in Nevada wanted to ask us two questions. 1) What is our favorite movie and 2) What is our favorite song. Now, she wants to know each of ours. I thought it was a strange question, Tim thought it was a good question. I had Teri and Lena on my side. LOL! We answer and leave it at that. June 14th Tim and I are shopping at Costco for Lena's going back to Germany party when Teri calls to let us know that the Nevada birth mom has chosen us. YEAH! OH CRAP! WHAT THE HECK! Yes, all of that was going through our minds.
Anyway, we have spoken with the birth mom's agency, our agent and received contracts. We are mulling over the contracts and have some questions and an amendment into the birth mom's agency. Unfortunately, her agent doesn't work on Thursday's, so we will have to wait to hear until tomorrow. IF we can all agree on our change and we can get the most recent medical records then we will sign and we will have a baby on the way.
Fingers crossed. I'll keep you updated.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The path so far...
Tim and I have begun the adoption process for an infant, either gender, or twins domestically. We met with an agency in March 2012, but decided to hold off of beginning since Lena was coming to live with us, we were going to Disney over Christmas and then I was off to Disney again in January for my race. Our reasoning was that the route we are going to take could be as quickly as three months to match and we didn't want Lena to arrive and then have a baby a month later and we were NOT taking an infant to Disney World.
The plan was to get signed on with Adoption and Beyond in October 2012, put together our home study packet, get it turned into them, have our home visit, get the home study back and turn it into our referral agency, A Step Ahead, by mid-January. WELL, we got signed on with AB in October, but putting together our home study information took longer than we had hoped with all of our distractions. We finally got it all turned in on April 5th had our home visit/interviews on April 11 and we are currently waiting for the notarized copy to be sent to us.
April 26th we signed on with ASA and we will have our first meeting with our consultant tonight. Our consultant, Teri, is based in North Carolina, so I'm hoping it will all work out well. ASA is a referral service. This means that they work with many agencies all over the country to help birth parents find loving home for the children they have chosen adoption for. Since they work with so many agencies the process to match can take anywhere from 1 week to 3 months. I need to get a clearer definition of what "match" means. I had asked a year ago, but the gal that answered wasn't really clear. She made it seem that match was baby in arms, but I think it's being matched with a birth mom.
From April 2011 to now our profile has been with an adoption attorney with no results. I feel confidant that the route we are pursuing now will have a great result. We'll keep you posted.
The plan was to get signed on with Adoption and Beyond in October 2012, put together our home study packet, get it turned into them, have our home visit, get the home study back and turn it into our referral agency, A Step Ahead, by mid-January. WELL, we got signed on with AB in October, but putting together our home study information took longer than we had hoped with all of our distractions. We finally got it all turned in on April 5th had our home visit/interviews on April 11 and we are currently waiting for the notarized copy to be sent to us.
April 26th we signed on with ASA and we will have our first meeting with our consultant tonight. Our consultant, Teri, is based in North Carolina, so I'm hoping it will all work out well. ASA is a referral service. This means that they work with many agencies all over the country to help birth parents find loving home for the children they have chosen adoption for. Since they work with so many agencies the process to match can take anywhere from 1 week to 3 months. I need to get a clearer definition of what "match" means. I had asked a year ago, but the gal that answered wasn't really clear. She made it seem that match was baby in arms, but I think it's being matched with a birth mom.
From April 2011 to now our profile has been with an adoption attorney with no results. I feel confidant that the route we are pursuing now will have a great result. We'll keep you posted.
Lena from Germany
Tim and I decided to host a foreign exchange student for the school year. We choose a girl from Germany named Lena. She has been an absolute joy! We are preparing for her return to Germany which makes us all very sad. Lena came to live with us in August 2012. She was on the cross country team and is currently on the track team. Lena has made so many friends and has enjoyed every bit of being in an American high school. Schools in Germany are all academic. They do not have school spirit, sports, dances, etc. Here are a few pictures to highlight her year.
Lena
Lena and her friend Rajvi. Nominees for Sweetheart Queen. Lena won!
Our "family" picture
Lena and her Prom date Collin
We also took Lena to Disney World over the Christmas holiday. Well, actually my parents took us all as our Christmas present.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
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