Wondering what I can do

In the midst of all the excitement with finally (almost) getting to the point of waiting, we have gotten some bad news about a family member. My stepdad is sick and we are still waiting for more details, but I just feel so helpless. While I have known my stepdad all of my life, he and my mom got married only two years before I did. It is only recently I have started calling him my stepdad because "my mom's husband" gets long-winded. So right now I'm hurting for my mom, and it is so hard to see a parent in pain. We are helping out by keeping my step-niece while my mom is at the hospital, and my sister and her kids serve as entertainment during the day. Since my mom and her husband raise this grandchild, I know we are helping out a lot. It just doesn't seem like enough. We should know more tomorrow after they are able to talk to the appropriate doctors. In the meantime, we put on a happy face and take the girl to see some holiday lights. And we try to make it through the night thinking about my mom sleeping in a chair by a hospital bed.

I will continue to hug my loved ones and tell them how much they mean to me. Tomorrow we will face whatever needs to be faced, together.

File approval! - Updated

We got word yesterday that our agency has approved our file. Yea!

Of course, there is always a "but."

There are two minor changes recommended for our letter. I called to speak with our coordinator to see how necessary the changes are and to explain that we would have to go through another round of proofing to make these changes. Because I had to do a few extra steps to convert our file for printing, I would want to make sure it stays true to color. Grammatically, the changes are not necessary. One would be to add the word "that" into a sentence. The sentence in question: Our hope is to develop a lasting relationship with you to the extent (that) you are comfortable. I confirmed with a friend, who teaches writing at the law school, that it is okay to leave the word "that" out of a sentence if the sentence is clear without it. I think it is. The other change is to the compound sentence structure in Mike's section. Again, I like it the way it is.

Our coordinator is going to have to check with her boss (who made the suggestions) tomorrow and get back to me. Keep your fingers crossed I don't need to make the changes and can get started on the printing!

Once our letters are received in CA, they will turn on our website and start sending out our letters. I am going to assume this won't happen until after Jan. 4th when they return from holiday break. If it happens sooner, so much the better!

*************************************************
Edited to add:

I'm having to change the letter. The boss REALLY didn't like the sentences in Mike's section and said they HAVE to be changed. I am not a happy girl right now. I don't like the suggested alternative so I am trying to rewrite those couple of sentences. I'm hoping to load the letter to the printer tomorrow and get the proof the next day. If we can make that happen, we aren't adding more than a couple of days to this deal.

So, I will add the word "that" to the first page. (Thanks, Bobby, for the laugh!) I'm also going to change our fourteen-year marriage into a fifteen-year marriage. Our anniversary is in May so I figure that will be a true statement by the time we are getting some responses.

Cross your fingers on a quick turnaround!

And we're waiting to wait

Any day now we should hear back from the agency that we can get our letters printed. I would love to be official before the holidays, but I don't know if we can get the letters to CA by the 22nd when they close for the rest of the year.

There was something missing from the home study, but after writing her a very nice email (and stressing the importance of communicating with me) our social worker took care of getting our child abuse registry information to the agency the next day!

I did have an interesting dream last night. We went to pick up our new son from the hospital only to discover he was a toddler when we got home. I remember remarking on how he had a mouth full of teeth! I kept telling everybody that we would have to give Tim back (not sure where that name came from) because he was over a year old and we couldn't afford to take 6 months off work, as recommend/required by our agency. That marks my first adoption dream. I'm worried where they will go from there!

Due to the craziness of our school schedule leading up to the holidays and the fact that I was sick over Thanksgiving, we are still working on our personal webpage. We will be able to start working on it again this weekend. It should be up and running by the time we get the official nod from the agency.

So, not much new!

Finally!

Our adoption coordinator at our agency called today to tell me she had finally received the home study.

Yea!!!

She is putting our packet together to send to the person who will complete our final review to make sure everything is in order. I'm told this can take up to two weeks. Assuming everything is good (not sure if I want to get my hopes up too high just yet!) we can get our letters printed and be listed as officially in the books.

I'm really hoping we can wrap this up before our holiday break!

You've got mail! Or not.

I have been slacking in writing a post lately, because I have just been so frustrated. I have spent the last few weeks trying to get our social worker to mail our home study to our agency. She told me on several occasions that it had been put in the mail, but the agency never received it. When I would call and ask the social worker about it, she could only tell me that someone at her agency was supposed to have mailed it and she would find out what was going on. She finally personally delivered our copy on a Friday night (Nov. 19) and told me our agency would receive it on the following Monday or Tuesday. Nope. When I had Mike call to check in with her on that Wednesday (Nov. 24), she was a bit snippy with him. Good thing I wasn't the one on the phone, because I think I would have finally lost it. She said she would put it in the mail that night. So, we'll see what our agency has to say about receiving it tomorrow.

In other mail news, our agency finally got our printed proof of our letter. It got hung up in UPS limbo because I had the nerve to abbreviate the agency name. Apparently they can't figure out where the agency is located by the address or anything. When I called the print company to have them check it out a week later (after shipping it overnight), they checked with the shipper and decided to just print another copy and ship it again. I have been so impressed with that print company!!! Of course, they are getting a nice bit of money from me, but their customer service is outstanding. And our letter looks fabulous if I do say so myself. All those hours of hard work seem to have paid off!

So, long story short (if that is even still possible) is that once our agency receives the home study, we will go into file review. That could take up to two weeks and then we can go into the books, assuming all is good. In the meantime, we are finishing up our personal website.

I imagine finally entering the waiting period will be very similar to entering the two week wait after doing IVF. You get used to talking to someone just about every day and then suddenly there is no reason to talk to the nurse on a daily basis.

Whatever will I do with my time? Oh, that's right...I could finish going through 10 years of accumulated junk in what will be the nursery.  : )

Zoom, zoom!

First the update:

1. Still waiting to get the home study.
2. Set up the toll free number.
3. Started working on both websites (agency and personal).

Now that is out of the way, I have to share a couple of pictures I took this morning. We went to watch my nephew play football, and the weather was beautiful. All I can say is...I LOVE my new camera. How long do I get to call it new? This is the first time for me to take pictures using my zoom lens in a real situation, and I played around with the framing of the shots. I still have to work on focusing on the correct object when there is so much movement going on. I started doing better halfway through the game, and I want to look at changing the number of focus points the camera uses because I wasn't always sure which points were doing the actual focusing.

My nephew was taking a rare break during the game. They put down the line markers, and I thought it would make a neat addition to the shot. I had to keep moving around so other people were not in the shot. I like it!

As we were leaving, my brother-in-law was walking his dad to the car and my youngest niece reached for their hands. I had to stop and get the camera back out of the bag because I knew it would be such a sweet picture. I did crop it a bit, because I wanted her to be the main focus of the shot.

I think I'm becoming addicted!

Anybody else need a vacation?

First, I have to share how freaked out I have been the past couple of days. A co-worker lost her husband on Sunday. He was 36, just a few months younger than me. He broke his ankle in December and just died from complications due to an infection. I have been giving my hubby lots of extra hugs the past couple of days. I can't imagine life without him. The support at work has been phenomenal. Parents have offered to cover classes to allow teachers to go to the funeral, and this evening we stood in line for at least 40 minutes just to give her a quick hug. It makes us thankful to work in such a loving, supportive environment. I just can't stop thinking about her and the two young kids and how quickly life can change.


It makes me realize how precious it is to be loved and to share my love with others.


As hard as it has been to focus the past couple of days, I have been trying to get a lot done to move forward with the adoption process. I talked to the social worker again. She had to track down our state fingerprint results, and she is supposed to put the home study in the mail this Wednesday. I had difficulty explaining how we needed the home study to say we are approved to adopt a child of any race, because our future decisions might vary from our current feelings on the races we are open to. Another post on that whole issue will be coming soon. Our out-of-state agency said they will let us know if they think it should be reworded.

I sent in the letter and finally got an "It looks great!" from our adoption coordinator. The formatted letter still has to get approval from her boss before we do our printed proof. And, you'll never guess this, she is currently on vacation! So we are waiting to hear back on that after she returns. In the meantime, we are starting to put together both websites (personal and agency) and looking at printing options for the letter.

I finally got what I think is a very cute picture of the pups being all cuddly (since we couldn't get a picture of them with a kid). A friend of mine said that she didn't think it would be a good one to use, because Leila looks big and is showing her belly. But she is admittedly not a dog person. However, it makes me wonder what the agency will say about it. I called it "Relaxing in the family room." Mike was looking at a book on how to set up our webpage, and I told him to pretend like he was asleep. Two minutes later he is snoring, so I just kept snapping away at the pictures as Leila moved around to different positions. Want to share your thoughts (as long as you agree these are two of the cutest pups in the world)?

Hug your loved ones.

Are we there yet, Papa Smurf?

After a previous post expressing frustration with our local social worker, Geochick asked if our approval was coming from the social worker or our agency. So I thought I would clarify how our home study is being done.

We live in a different state than the adoption agency we are working with. The reason for this is quite simple -- we are non-religious and 99% of the agencies in our area require you to be religious in some form or fashion. It is still hard for me to write or tell people that we are atheists. Living where we do, when the first question from anyone new you meet is "Where do you go to church?", makes it hard to be open about our (lack of) beliefs.

So, we had to hire a local social worker to complete our home study. She is really nice and is herself an adopted mom. We just hit at a time when she is transitioning in her job role, and broke her foot. I finally got a hold of her on the phone two days ago. She had been on a 2 1/2 week vacation with no internet access. Ugh. At least she said she will be putting the home study into the mail on Tuesday, to us and our agency. i will certainly be following up next week.

We are also about to have our proof copy of our profile letter printed and reviewed. Hopefully, we are looking at wrapping up this part of the process in the next couple of weeks.

How many times have I said that now?!?!

On a side note, the agency wanted us to get a picture of our "big" dogs with a child. After two tries, we are giving up on that one. The dogs just won't settle down enough for a picture. They haven't been around any kids enough to not be all excited about the new people there just for them. So, we are trying to get a picture of them being all cuddly with me on the couch. Still not an easy task because they want to check out the camera every time it comes out. We will see what we can get!

To go along with the title of this post, I will share a picture:

A perfect birthday gift for hubby from some friends at work because of a nickname he has (not Papa Smurf, that would just be weird).   : )

Ask and you shall receive (eventually)

Geochick tagged me a while back, and I am finally taking a minute to answer her questions. Thanks for sharing the love!

1.  Do you still live where you were born/grew up?  Why?
Since I was 3 years old, I have not moved more than 35 miles, although I have changed states. I chose to go to a local college (full ride didn't hurt) because I didn't want to leave my family. I ended up taking care of my grandparents for a few years while in college, and then moved into our current house. We have been here for 11 years now. Hard to imagine I have been here almost as long as the house I grew up in (13 years there). With the exception of an aunt who is 4 hours away, all of our family live less than an hour away. I still can't imagine moving away from our families.

2.  What's your favorite holiday and what makes it so special?
I used to think Christmas was my favorite, but it is so different now that me and my sister have different obligations and my mom is married again. It just doesn't seem the same. Mike's favorite is Halloween. I haven't been answering the door the past few years because I couldn't handle all the little kids in cute costumes. Hopefully, in my new positive state of mind, I can enjoy it this year. Mike wants to dress up like a wizard and set up his telescope for kids to look through. We've talked about it for years, so maybe we will do it this year.

3.  Do people IRL know about/read your blog or do you keep it relatively private?
I have shared my blog with friends and family. I think some of them read it from time to time.

4. What's your favorite color?
Growing up, I was so into pink. It was sickening! I had a pink bed, pink curtains, pink wallpaper, and yes, pink carpet. Now, my favorite color is green. For my engagement ring, we picked out a beautiful emerald surrounded by small diamonds. It doubles as my wedding ring. I love it!

5. We're all pretty open here in the interwebs but how open are your IRL about fertility struggles?  What influences your openness or lack thereof? 
I am extremely open in real life. I am the type of person who would implode if I couldn't talk to others about what I'm going through. Mike and I had many conversations about this after he was pronounced infertile (azoospermia for those just joining in), and I wanted to make sure he was okay with me sharing that part of our struggles. We both feel like talking about this normalizes it a bit. We didn't want it to be our dirty little secret (meant in no way to demean those who are not up to sharing their story). I did not share all of the details with everyone (like doing sperm donor), but I shared with others when it was appropriate. Our friends, family, and coworkers have been nothing but supportive (other than the occasional "This couple I know got pregnant by..." comments). I also had to explain to a few people why I would rush out of a meeting crying when they would be celebrating the new births of the month (lots!) or had to get someone to cover my class for the 3rd time in a week for doctor visits. But it also allows my friends to give me a heads up when a new pregnancy is happening so I'm not blindsided by the news. I've never regretted sharing our story. I'm still going back and forth a bit about being more open on the blog (providing more identifying information like our letter and website), so we will have to see about that (not because of issues with openness with those IRL but with people out there we don't know).

Unfortunately, it is now way past my bedtime. I will try to think of some questions to tag a few others soon.

Seriously?

Our social worker is on vacation.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

She sent me an email after Mike left her a message the other day. She said she will email her assistant when she gets to a free wi fi spot and have the assistant mail the home study to us. She will send us several copies so we can forward one to the agency.

So, does this mean we are approved or does she have to do something else before it is official? Waiting to hear back from her on that one. Sent in another draft of our letter and waiting to hear back on that one too.

It is an extremely busy week at school because we are writing comments and finishing grading for reports to go home next week. Once I am done with all of that, I will answer some questions Geochick tagged me with. (I feel loved!)

Still practicing patience

I was extremely frustrated on Friday.

Our social worker had not called us back after we left her a message earlier in the week. Mike actually got hold of her yesterday, and she said she would be putting our home study in the mail on Monday. To us or to the state? Mike didn't ask. I'll wait a few days for something to come to us and then call her again.

I also heard back about our profile. We have to rewrite it to put our interests and neighborhood info into specific sections instead of scattered throughout the profile. Grrr. At least it is just moving things around a bit. And they did like the formatting of the actual letter I sent, so that is good.

Mike and I went over to my sister's house yesterday to take some pictures with the kids, and we had a lot of fun. We played on the trampoline. Mike showed them the moon, Venus, and Jupiter through the telescope. My oldest niece decided to crimp my hair. I'm sure we have a few decent pictures out of the 500 that were taken. Okay, so the kids got a hold of the camera a few times and liked playing with the multi-photo sport setting. The night went a long way toward reducing my stress.

So, I will try to make the changes to the profile and send that again in a few days. The week wait each time is getting harder to deal with. But I will continue to practice patience as much as I can!

So far, so good

Lots going on!

I spent a late night working on draft 3 of the letter, and I made quite a few changes. I am now over the word limit! So back to the drawing board. I also sent in a pdf of the actual formatted letter I have been creating with my digital scrapbooking software. Let's hope that doesn't get too many suggested changes since it represents many hours of work! Our counselor is having to check with someone else about the way I have broken up the sections. Let's hope I don't have to do a total rewrite. I don't know how I would react to that.

We found out that our local social worker broke her foot a few weeks ago and hasn't been working on our home study. Argh! She was supposed to finish up this past weekend, so I'll get Mike to call and check on that. Practicing patience!

On an interesting note, I put together a packet of forms to send to our agency. Now, there was nothing in there that wasn't a copy, except for the certified marriage license which we could get again. I had a small panic attack at the thought of putting it in the mail. And someone chose that time to say, "Just wait. Now you'll get pregnant." I held it together which was a good thing since there were a bunch of other people and kids around. A friend put her finger on the reason for the panic attack. This is now seeming more than just a concept. We are going to have a child soon! After almost 17 years together, that is becoming a bit strange to think about.

Okay, last thing. I am quite pleased with the following, so I hope it doesn't get negative feedback from the agency. Thank you Crafty Nester for the idea of including more than one photo! It only took 200 photos to get these 2 good ones. Of course, I was doing 10 photos at a time and figured I couldn't use the ones with the blurs of fur running past the camera.

I have an idea!

So, we got home too late to take more pictures outside with the dogs. I've been wanting to take a picture of them sitting at the top of the stairs with me below them. We tried that while Mike was cooking us dinner. I got a few in before they had to go watch him cook in case he dropped something. I think this might work for keeping them enclosed a bit and less likely to wander off. I got a few decent ones, and at least I have an idea about how to make it work.

Here is a cute one:

That is Indiana (Indy) on the left. He is part lab, part beaver (at least according to my table leg). Pretty girl Leila is on the right. Is this a good picture for the profile? I want to try to get them on the same level, both laying down, but Indy is pretty darn cute here.

Okay, so about my idea. I want a family picture of the four of us, and based on the other day that won't be too easy. So, I figure we will take a bunch of pictures, pick a good one out of us trying to get a good picture and call it "attempt at a family picture." I think it could work. I definitely think it will reduce the stress of trying to get a great shot of the dogs sitting still, etc. And it has the added bonus of showing us laughing and having fun (I hope). I can picture it - I just hope it will work out that way!

And I must say, I am LOVING my new camera!

Never work with animals

We tried to take some pictures of the dogs this afternoon for the profile letter. It ended up with me and Mike getting frustrated and the dogs getting lots of extra treats. Guess which two doggies will be learning how to "stay" on command!

I just sent an email to find out the status of our home study. I'm feeling a bit stressed out with finishing all of this up now that school has started. I'm trying to take it one day at a time!

Time to rewrite my life

So much for "That is the best letter I have ever read! Don't change a thing!"

I heard back about the first draft of our birthmother letter, and overall the comments were good. I am still processing a few things that were suggested. I am most frustrated by the fact that some of the suggested changes make it sound like all of the other letters I looked through.

Yes, I know they have experience with "what works," and I do value their feedback. One of the things that I am trying to do is have different headings for the sections. I really (really, really) don't like the "About Crista" or "About Mike" or "About Us" headings.

I'm going to have to think about it for a bit to see what I am going to change and how. I'll have to go back and look at the suggestions when I'm not so frustrated with getting paperwork together for our house refinance people. I swear I have never filled out so many forms as I have this summer.

Past, Present, Future

Well, I attended my first baby shower since moving out of fertility treatments, and it went well. Mike and I had fun purchasing little girl socks, bibs, and onesies for our friend that is due next month. The only thing I wasn't able to do was pick out a "congratulations on your new bundle of joy" card. Couldn't do it. So, I found a nice "I'm glad you're my friend" card instead. I did fine at the shower and even enjoyed cooing over my other friend's 6 month old that she brought along. I think it helped that there weren't any games and not too much talk about being pregnant.

While at the shower, in addition to sharing updates about our adoption, I was able to share my wisdom (what there is of it) with an acquaintance that is starting her IVF process. She asked how I did it all while working, so I had to explain that I didn't - we did them over the summer for just that reason. Good thing too because the weight gain from the hormones meant I didn't fit in anything I owned, other than sweatpants. I finally lost the rest of the weight this past spring, only to gain it back over the summer. Darn those tasty treats, especially a great cake recipe I saw at Here We Grow!

As for where we are with the adoption, we met with our local social worker earlier this week and handed over the rest of the paperwork she needs. She said she would be in touch this coming week. Yippee! We also went and got our certified marriage license and worked on filling out forms for our agency. Still have to work on the profile form stating our preferences for drug use, ethnicity, etc. I want to try to get those forms done this week, if possible.

I am still waiting to hear back on the birthmother letter draft I sent in for review, and I have been working on the layout for the letter. We also still have some pictures we need to take, but that will be fun with my new camera! If the number of pictures we have already taken of the dogs is any indication of the number of pictures we will have of the kid, I'm going to need a bigger hard drive.

I am still debating about how open to be on this blog. I have shared it with friends and family, so I'm not worried on that end. I also have it blocked from being searched through browsers. I guess I question sharing pictures and general info about the actual adoption with our names and faces attached to it. I would appreciate any feedback any readers want to share!

We are starting teacher in-service this week. Let the fun begin!

Looks like...moving on?

In reading some postings on other blogs, I have been thinking about what has helped me deal with and move past our struggles with infertility. I think the fact that we are dealing with azoospermia has a large part to play in my moving on. We can't get pregnant with anything less than using donor sperm with an IVF cycle (7 IUI cycles did nothing). And with all that, I wasn't able to sustain two pregnancies. But I think I covered the What If questions of trying to get pregnant. For me, it finally came down to not wanting to wipe out our finances before successfully starting our family or dealing with the emotional roller coaster of more IVF treatments. Even if we got pregnant again, I couldn't handle the stress of worrying about another miscarriage. So we move (excitedly) forward with adoption, something we had always considered.

There is one thing that continues to make me think about our infertility - family resemblances. I get a little twinge when I see siblings that look a lot like each other and/or share obvious physical traits with a parent. I'm talking about those stair-step siblings who are virtual copies of the oldest one. As a teacher at a 6th through 12th grade school with lots of siblings, this happens more than you would think. And yesterday I went to the pool with my sister and her 3 older kids. The youngest boy has my skin and hair coloring (pale and red). He made the comment that people would think he was my son instead of my sister's.

Even knowing the impossibility of our getting pregnant "naturally," I recently experienced a few days of wondering if I was pregnant because I had some pregnancy symptoms (I needed a bigger sports bra!). It was the first time in a long time I was thankful for Aunt Flo's visit so I could quit thinking about it. It isn't like I carry around a sparkle of hope that I will get pregnant, but I wish I wouldn't even waste time considering it.

Out with the old

 Hi, my name is Crista and I'm a packrat.

We bought our house with enough room for our future family, little knowing we would still have several empty bedrooms 10 years later. We have collected a lot of stuff in the intervening years, and we have spent the past week trying to clear it out. And by stuff, I meanly mostly junk we don't need to keep. The final tally includes 5 computers that have been gutted or are too old to work with anything, 4 monitors that weigh more than I do, and lots of old bills, receipts, and pay stubs that need to be shredded. I am trying to get rid of everything that is just a dust collector (have I mentioned dust mites give me asthma?) and that is no small thing. Thank goodness we have a Goodwill collection site just down the street. And Mike has made several trips to recycle the computer stuff.

We are in the process of setting up the bonus room over the garage as our family room complete with new entertainment area, play area, computer center, and scrapbooking corner. It is strange to spend so much time in a different part of the house (and the fridge is so far away), but we are already enjoying the idea of this being a family room. Mike is already making plans to create some castle walls around the play area.

I still need to clean out the nursery. I brought the crib home from my sister's house, but it is still in the back of my truck. I can't quite wrap my head around the idea of having a crib in my house. Do I want to go ahead and set it up or leave it in parts leaning against the wall? I guess we will see soon!

Water everywhere...not a drop to drink

I had my yearly girly exam today. I mentioned it to a friend who said she hates going to those appointments. I explained that after years of infertility treatments, not much bothers me anymore. Wanna bring 8 more people into the room? Why not! You want to put what where? Whatever.

So I get checked in, finish my paperwork, fill the cup (wondering at reason for doing this anymore), and settle down with my adoption homework, reading The Kid by Dan Savage (story of a gay couple doing open adoption). I am able to smile at the lady walking past my chair with the stroller. And the first pregnant lady that strolls by. After about the 5th pregnant lady passes by and the 2nd newborn near me starts crying, I'm thinking they better hurry up and call me back.

Focus on book. Focus on book. Think about how the sound of my baby will be filling my ears soon.

I glance up at the TV screen every now and then to learn about doing my self-breast-exam and the risk factors for breast cancer, followed by a commercial of the beauty treatments the office offers. Next came a slide show of lots of cute baby pictures so I quickly look back down at my book, only to hear the song "You're Having My Baby" start blaring out of the speakers. They played the whole song, showing baby pictures the entire time. Grrr.

An hour after sitting down I get called to the back by a nurse that keeps calling me dear and honey, and we go through my medical history to make sure nothing has changed. I was prepared for the pregnancy question. It bothers me that I have to say I have been pregnant two times, for a grand total of like 9 weeks (I think).

Finally the doctor comes in. I have been seeing her for 20 years (geesh that makes me feel old), and she is really nice and easy to talk to. She asked what's up and I told her we were busy with our home study for adoption. The first thing she asked me was what I planned to do if I got pregnant while in the process. I told her there was about a 1/1000000000000000th chance of that happening. She wrote down the specifics of our infertility (azoospermia, donor, IVF, etc.) so she wouldn't have to ask me about it again. Thank goodness for small favors. She did her thing in about 2 minutes (not joking) and wished me luck with the adoption.

Standing in line to take care of my copay, I realized my shirt was inside out. Feeling like an idiot, I step into the bathroom to fix it and then hurry out of the office as the slide show and song start again.

I didn't get emotional or cry, but I certainly would have preferred not being around so much "baby." Sometimes I ask myself if I am truly upset, or if I just feel like I should be upset.

Home Study Visit #2...check

Our social worker came back today to talk to us about our families and marriage. We also went over the remaining items that we need to complete for the home study and for our agency. After we chatted for a couple of hours, she surprised us by saying she had what she needed. She wouldn't need to make any other visits in order to write up our home study! It is hard for me to imagine that this part of the process used to seem so daunting to me.

Here are the other items we need to complete:

1. state criminal record check (another fingerprinting trip)
2. child abuse registry check (our social worker does this)
3. employment verification
4. letters of reference (4 for home study and some additional ones for agency)
5. physicals
6. TB and HIV blood tests (going to check with health department for cost and lead time)
7. pet vaccination records
8. copy of marriage certificate (photocopy for home study and certified copy for agency)

Mike called the FBI to make sure they had received our fingerprint cards and was told that they wouldn't be able to tell us anything for 10 weeks. I am still trying to find out if our state runs a federal check at the same time they do a state check. If not, we will be waiting until the end of August to go on the books. My goal is still to have our birthmother letter and home study completed before we head back to school in mid-August. If we are using the FBI timeline, I don't want to have the home study done too soon.

I am pleased to report that my dog did extremely well today. She was barking as the social worker came in, but we informed the social worker to ignore her. She immediately stopped barking. Of course, the treats in Mike's hand didn't hurt!

We are continuing to work on the house. Mike asked when we could set up our new entertainment center (with new TV) and I responded with a list of repairs/tasks to be completed first. Little did I know that would help motivate him to take care of most of them in one day. He is feeling very manly.  : )

Here is a picture of our new "library" that we completely shelved in (that was the royal "we" meaning he did most of the work).

Once we get the rest of the books in there and out of the nursery, we can start bringing the furniture over from my sister's house. It is starting to seem more real now.

A child by any means?

 The following was written as a letter to the editor of my local paper.

Children aren't commodities

One recent Saturday as I was about to enter the park for a long walk with Fritz, a young German shepherd I adopted in April, I decided to check out an unusual sign for a multifamily fundraiser for families that wished to adopt children. The people I met were friendly, white and well-off financially. I learned that a few families were pooling together some items that had been gathering dust in an attempt to raise funds to adopt children from foreign countries. I left uncomfortable about the concept of selling castaway items for that purpose.

I wondered: Was there a shortage of children in the area who would benefit from the care and guardianship of a loving and financially secure family? I found out that there was no such shortage. I contemplated how funds that might be raised to secure an international adoption might help the children of our own region who have great need, but who may not be ideal candidates for adoption due to their age or other factors.

I then investigated and found that an international adoption typically could cost up to $50,000 in travel costs and fees -- legal fees, documentation fees, baby broker fees and probably other fees that are needed to grease the wheels of progress. Adoption, particularly international adoption, is big business, with youngsters as the commodity and a need to graft another person into a family tree the motivational force.

I found my skepticism growing toward the altruistic jargon used at the fundraiser. I concluded that the fundraising event wasn't about the child's welfare, but about possessing a child by any means. I asked myself: Why not just donate the money to the foreign orphanages to help the kids? But then the adoptive parents would not gain the child; these people who purchase a wanted commodity by selling off knicknacks are well-versed in the lingo of many websites dedicated to international adoption. Sadly, the commodities were human beings.

Decency mandates that children who have lost their family be given respect and empathy, not a yard sale. Do you suppose that one day the youngsters will ask to hear the heartwarming story of how their loving parents sold off some end tables to purchase them? I suspect they may be told how lucky they are that they have such spiritually generous parents.

Human beings, particularly defenseless and voiceless children, deserve better from society. This practice would be an outrage in a moral society, and is de facto human trafficking.

Seriously?! I love that he pointed out the he adopted his dog. Did he pay any fees to do that? I know we had to pay fees for our dogs when we adopted them. There was a rebuttal letter the next day from someone helping out with the yard sale. She did a good job telling this guy what an idiot he is. She also explained that at least one of the families in question would be doing an open adoption:

This particular couple is working with domestic agencies that specialize in open adoption because of the ability to keep a child connected with his roots and foster that relationship with the birth family. The notion of "buying a child" makes me livid. Parents don't tell their children about the hours they slave away in a cubicle on a 9-5 job to afford maternity hospital bills. Adoptions are expensive because time, effort and resources are not cheap. Most of the money is spent on counselors, prenatal care, food, housing for the birth mother and travel expenses.

I wonder if the writer of the original letter has children or has ever wanted children. I have lots of responses to what he said (i.e. why we don't feel we can do foster care or foster/adopt at this time, why a Russian adoption made us nervous because of the extra fees paid in-country), but I don't want this post to be any longer than it already is. In the future, I just hope I don't have to deal with this type of attitude face-to-face.

Home Study Visit #1...check

Well, our first visit with the social worker went well. She stayed about 2 hours. We chatted about our reasons for adopting, our infertility history, and a mutual love of sci-fi movies and astronomy. The house? She didn't even look at it. The dog? She did very well, and even though she was a bit out of sorts, she didn't bark after the first couple of minutes (love that rawhide).

Because we live in a state with probably the fewest requirements for a home study, we have been trying to figure out how to take care of the additional checks the agency wants. They are in a more regulated state, and I think they also want us to have the additional checks to help with getting clearance to transport the child across state lines if (when) the child is born in another state. My biggest stress the past couple of days was figuring out where to get our fingerprints done for the FBI check. It is still hard for me to understand why the FBI doesn't have an option to do scanned prints. And the current 13 week processing period is longer than I planned for going in the books (insert curses here). But I am trying to think of it as just giving me some additional time to create a great Dear Birthmother Letter. We will be heading to a local police station to get old-fashioned fingerprinted tomorrow to send into the FBI. I need to remember to take the camera!

I also have to clarify what we have to do for a child abuse registry check. Guess I'll be calling our local children's services office to see what they say. In order to take care of the additional requirements, I know I just need to call people to ask questions, and I put in a call to our agency today with some. Some of it is just making sure I understand exactly what they are wanting us to do.

We set up our next meeting with the social worker for next Wednesday morning. She said we will talk about our families and our marriage. She also wants us to come up with a plan for who would take care of our child if something were to happen to us. Guess we need to have some conversations with family. I also need to do some serious work on our letter, looking through and taking pictures. In the meantime, we will continue to work on the house!

No White Gloves Allowed

We have our first appointment with our home study social worker tomorrow. She assured me that this was just an introductory meeting to go over the process and learn what all we have to do, and she didn't expect the house to be spotless. I am certainly hoping this is true because my house is not how I want it to be for this first meeting. It is difficult to spend hours dusting the house when I am having trouble with my asthma. It doesn't help that my allergy/asthma trigger is dust mites. Yuck! So, the house is mostly tidy, but we certainly have lots of work to do in the next few weeks. I just want the house to be presentable for her first visit.

Our other task for the week did not go as planned either. We had some kids come over so we could try to take some pictures of them playing with the dogs. Our youngest dog enjoyed all of the fawning, but his big sister is not comfortable around strangers. She is not aggressive but she barks, loudly. So, we just used it as an opportunity to get her more comfortable with visitors. We certainly want her to be calm when people come over and will continue to work on that. We just have to figure out how to keep her happy tomorrow so she isn't barking non-stop while the social worker is here.

As for the pictures of the dogs with children, we may just have to forego that. The kids that came this week are now out of town for most of the summer. Unfortunately, one of my nephews is allergic to dogs, so that prevents us from asking our nieces and nephews to do the pictures for us. I have a gazillion cute pictures of the pups, so I'm sure I can find some to use in our Dear Birthmother letter if the kid shots don't work out. Again, our agency just recommended "large" dogs be shown with kids in the picture. Our dogs are considered large breed, but the bigger one is not over 60 pounds or so. It is now hard to think of my dogs as large after befriending a Great Pyrenees who escaped the local vet's office in the middle of the night last week, and we saw him in the parking lot as we were heading home. He walked out the front door that wasn't properly latched, after getting out of his closed cage. His head came up to my waist...and I'm 5'8''.

I will continue to make plans for what I want to get done and practice patience as I accept that not everything will turn out that way. Now, I'm off to do some dusting with the vacuum!

Open Adoption Roundtable #16

This will be my first time responding to a roundtable prompt, and I've been waiting to join in! Heather at Production, Not Reproduction provided the following prompt. Check out what others have written here.

 
Imagine your child as an adult describing their open adoption experience. What do you hope they will be able to say about you? How did you view their other parents? In what ways did you support their relationship with them?

Since we are just starting out in our process to adopt, this has been a big part of our discussions recently as we sort through everything. Since we hope to have two children someday, I will write in the plural sense. It also avoids all those awkward his/her references.

We are hopeful that we will have an open relationship with our children's birth parents and that everyone involved is committed to maintaining the relationships. If that is the case, we hope our adult children will feel that the relationships were natural, meaning that they never had to feel awkward about asking any questions or expressing any of their feelings or concerns. I want our children to look back and see that we encouraged them to freely communicate with their birthparents and that we were able to visit them and other birth relatives when possible. Having a sense of family history has been important to me, and I want them to have access to whichever of those stories interest them.

Another blog writer (sorry I can't remember which one) talked about her daughter (?) coming to her with a question about her (the child's) birth for a school assignment. The mom responded that she should call her birthmom to ask those questions. The relationship was such that this was a natural response to the situation. I want our children to have that option. I know we will have to do some work to start and strengthen those relationships, but I think that will be easier to do if we think about having this conversation with our adult children. I want them to know we did everything we could to support the framework of those relationships so they would have them if/when they wanted them.

Ready. Steady. Go!

Last weekend we attended the Weekend Intensive training session at our agency. They went through all the steps we will need to go through for the adoption and covered the decisions we need to make prior to "going live." Mike and I will have to discuss various issues such as race/ethnic background and whether or not we are open to twins. One great thing about both of us being teachers is that we now have a lot of time to devote to this process. My goal is to finish our home study and Dear Birthmother Letter before school starts again in August.

Because we live in a state where our agency doesn't have an office, we have to work with someone else to complete our home study. I have chosen a social worker and will call her tomorrow to set up a meeting to discuss what we need to do to complete our home study, but I already have a general idea of what we will need. My biggest concern with respect to our time frame is running our fingerprints through the FBI, currently a 13 week wait according to our agency. I have a feeling that may be the holdup on my schedule.

In addition to cleaning the house prior to the social worker's visit, we are setting up a few photo sessions this week. The agency recommended we take pictures of our "large" dogs with children, so a friend will be bringing over her kids for a play date. It seems funny to me that I am not that concerned with the writing part of the Birthmother Letter, but finding the right pictures is stressing me out!

We have already jumped through what I see as the first hoop. I had to contact a psychologist we met with back in 2006 to discuss our infertility issues. The agency felt it would be best to have a letter from her saying that we had no lasting issues and could move forward with adoption. The psychologist was very sweet and sent the letter within a couple of days. I felt really bad about calling her back to tell her my name was spelled wrong! She sent the new letter that same week. She just asked that we send her a picture of the baby.  : )

As others have pointed out, we are still mostly in control with much of this part of the process. Mike and I know that giving up that control will be one of the hardest parts to deal with once we are approved. As someone who is learning to let go of being in control of everything, this should be good practice for me!

From Open Donor to Open Adoption

Entering the world of donor insemination was a bit surreal. Our introduction was a catalog of donors that our first reproductive endocrinologist gave us. Being techies, we soon found the up-to-date online catalogs that the larger donor firms create. We were able to select our donor based on any or all of the following: blood type, height, weight, religion, college major, years of education, hair color, eye color. Once we narrowed down our choices, we could download a more detailed health history to see if we were comfortable with the family history. Some donors also had recorded interviews and a baby picture you could purchase. For an additional fee, you could send in pictures of your spouse, and they would find a donor that looks like him!

A fairly recent movement is to have an option for open donors, meaning we could have at least one contact with the donor once the child turned 18. Mike and I felt we couldn't choose any other type of donor. Our child might one day have questions about the donor, and we wanted him/her to have that option of contacting him. Unfortunately, this severely limited our choice of donors, leaving about 30 donors out of a pool of 200. In choosing the 3 donors we used for our fertility treatments, it essentially came down to us liking his interview answers and being comfortable with his family history. It was while looking at our first donor's toddler picture that I realized our child wouldn't have Mike's physical characteristics. Tough night.

Mike and I had discussed adoption before beginning fertility treatments, and we met with an adoption consultant to learn more about the different options. The outcome of the meeting: 1. If we could get pregnant, that would be the easiest, potentially least expensive route. 2. If we decided to adopt, we would go to China. At the time, the wait time for China was about 18 months.

Now, move forward in time to just after the second IVF. The wait time for China has jumped to about 4 years. Seriously? Now what are we going to do?

I had previously ruled out domestic adoption thinking it would take too long, cost more money, and we would lose all of that money if the adoption fell through. But I started to do some research on the internet and checked some books out of the library. One of the books had a list of agencies by state, and I started looking them up on the internet. One of the first ones I came across, Independent Adoption Center, had an informative website, a national presence, and did not discriminate against anyone wishing to adopt. So Mike and I drove about 8 hours (their closest office) to attend a Saturday information session and came out of it extremely excited about the option of open domestic adoption. We decided this was the agency for us!

The openness part of adoption just seemed natural to us based on our previous discussions in selecting an open donor, only now we have the potential of developing a lasting relationship with our child's birth parents. Of course, this time we would be the ones selected off a website.

(in)Fertility 101: The Recent Years

In the last post, Mike and I decided that donor sperm seemed the best way forward with starting our family, and my RE (reproductive endocrinologist) wanted us to see a counselor to discuss the ramifications of using a donor to have a baby. Apologies for the long post!

Those four counseling sessions were extremely emotional for both of us. Mike and I have based our marriage on our ability to communicate with each other, and our struggles with infertility have certainly led to an improvement in talking things out. It had to. Mike did not comprehend my gut-wrenching need to have children. He was fine parenting or not parenting. Not have kids? That was not an option for me. I do need to point out that Mike never had an issue with using a donor. He accepted that he would not have a biological tie to any child we had. I had to mourn that child that would have belonged to Mike biologically, with his eyes, his laugh.

Needless to say, we came out of the counseling sessions with a better idea of where each of us stood and the knowledge that we have to talk about all of our feelings on the subject, no matter how inconsequential those feelings may seem. We decided that we would try the medical route for a bit before moving on to adoption. We wanted to limit the funds we put into fertility treatments, especially since our insurance covered none of it. Nada. Zilch.

So, we began moving forward with fertility treatments at our new doctor's office with the help of donor sperm. We tried 5 IUI's that first year. Lots of doctor visits for blood work, ultrasounds, and the actual procedures. At end of every month...disappointment (stupid pee stick pregnancy tests!). Because of the cost, we decided we could afford to try one IVF. Maybe we would be the lucky ones who get pregnant the first try. This led to months of taking pills, giving myself nightly shots in the belly, Mike give me nightly shots in my hip, and planning our lives around the timing of giving those shots. We scheduled it over the summer (2008) when we would be off work. I don't know how anyone could go through that while trying to work.

After my eggs were removed and fertilized in the lab, the focus turned to waiting for updates on how many of them would survive and properly divide. The good news is we had two blastocysts put back in me 3 days later. The bad news was there were none that were good enough to freeze for another try later. More good news...we got pregnant. Unfortunately, I started losing the pregnancy within a few days of getting the positive test. That was tough. We took some time to mourn and to think about our next steps. Because I was able to get pregnant, we decided we would try one more IVF cycle, but we would wait until the following summer (2009). Meanwhile, we had to choose another donor and tried a couple more IUI's to pass the time.

Same story, different year. Two blastocysts put back (better quality), but none made it to freezing. We did get pregnant again, and this time we got to see the heartbeat on ultrasound. Mike was super excited, but I was having a hard time letting go of the anxiety, because I was having cramps. The day after seeing the heartbeat, I miscarried. I was fortunate to be at home and to have my mom with me at the time, and we all went to the hospital to make sure I was okay. This miscarriage hit Mike harder than the first one. The pregnancy and future child seemed more real to him. It didn't hit me quite as hard following the initial grief because I had held onto the fear of it happening all along.

We took some more time to mourn our loss and to figure out our next move (again), and financially we could afford to do another IVF. Thinking as scientists, we felt we did not have a full set of data...I can get pregnant, but had two miscarriages. The results were inconclusive. By trying something different, could we get the next one to stick? We started looking into adoption again and came to the decision to stop the fertility treatments. I couldn't go through the shots and hormones and uncertainty again, not to mention dealing with another miscarriage.

I know I probably need to mourn the loss of my biological child, as I did for Mike's, but overall I'm in a much better place. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I don't cry every time I see a pregnant woman or hear another coworker has given birth.

So far, the move from fertility treatments to adoption has been a smooth one.

(in)Fertility 101: The Early Years

This is the post where I will catalog our past journey to try to become parents. Some of you are very familiar with this story, while others may find it to be a bit more information than they bargained for in reading my blog. My hope is our story may be of help to others, in addition to helping me sort through my feelings.

This month, Mike and I will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary, which is amazing to me! While I don't currently remember the date (or even the exact year), I remember where we were when we decided to start trying to have kids...a baseball game. Not quite the location you picture having the conversation of "honey, I think we should stop taking the pill and try to start our family." I think it was the summer of 2000, and we finally were feeling settled in our jobs and had moved into a home with plenty of room for kids. So started about 2 years of trying things on our own. Nothing. I went to my ob-gyn and she referred me to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE). Lots of tests later and few months trying with Clomid with still no luck meant it was Mike's turn to visit the doctor. To sum up Mike's side of the story: after visits to two doctors over a couple of years, Mike was diagnosed with azoospermia. Houston, we have a problem.

So, Mike's little guys are AWOL. His doctor tells us he doesn't have either vas deferens, so one option is to go drilling for the little guys to see if they are there and just not able to make it out. (I guess I should apologize for some of the analogies you will see here. Throughout this entire process, Mike and I have found that humor definitely helps deal with the frustration.) If they find sperm, and they are of good enough quality for us to use during an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure, Mike and I would have to undergo genetic testing to see if we are carriers for cystic fibrosis. To the best of my understanding, the missing vas deferens could be an indicator for Mike being a carrier, and we could pass cystic fibrosis on to offspring, in addition to possibly passing on the infertility issues. Mike decides he would rather not go that route if there are other options.

My RE introduces the idea of donor sperm, and after some research, we decide to try it out (more about this later). In the meantime, my RE is moving his practice and becoming associated with a hospital group. He informs us that this new group will not allow him to perform fertility treatments using donor sperm. Something to do with women suing doctors for paternity when they end up pregnant after the doctor used donor sperm to impregnate them. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us! For a similar reason, many doctors will not perform fertility treatments for unmarried women using donor sperm.

We are now up to the summer of 2006. Amazing how time flies.

I will continue in the next post to keep down the length of this one.

At least it doesn't make me cry anymore

I love where I work, but sometimes I wish I didn't work with so many people who are young enough to be growing their families. We have had 6 babies born to faculty/staff in the last 5 weeks. No joke! Dealing with infertility while working there has been extremely tough. Over the past few years, I have had to avoid or walk out of several meetings where the new or upcoming babies were being celebrated. My friends had to find a time to tell me about their own pregnancies when no one else was around to see my emotional breakdown. It is not fun to meet their wonderful news with tears. Those same friends have been so supportive and understanding about my emotional state - no questions asked about my missing a baby shower. To make it even worse, a lot of these new babies are the second ones being born since I started fertility treatments a few years ago. We were supposed to have our kid already!

I guess the point of this post is to show how moving on to adoption has totally changed my outlook. I haven't cried once these last 5 weeks, or before that when another friend shared her pregnancy. I have even held a baby in my arms for the first time in years (except my niece). No longer am I on this emotional roller coaster of maybe this next time the pregnancy will last. I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and a baby is waiting there. (Ok, so I just started crying, but it is a good kind of crying. I swear!)

Explaining Star Stuff

Since becoming a physics teacher, I have learned so much. I now appreciate the world around me at a much deeper level. Okay, so Mike's love of astronomy and his ability to explain it have helped me, too. Many years ago Mike introduced me to one of his favorite science writers, an astrophysicist named Carl Sagan. Sagan had a gift for writing about the universe and sharing the beauty and wonder of it all. In Cosmos, Sagan reminds us that "we are made of star stuff." Mike and I love the idea that we are composed of atoms that were created in ancient stars and because of that we are connected to everything else in the universe. How profound! I get chills just thinking about it.

So, when I decided to start the blog and had to think of what to call it, my nerdy side kicked in (when doesn't it kick in?). I wanted to have a blog name that reflected my fascination with the universe and everything in it, and I started looking through quotes by Carl Sagan. At the same time, I wanted to tie the blog title into the bundle of joy Mike and I are eager to bring home. I ran across the star stuff quote and played around with different title ideas. They usually came across as sounding too much like a science blog, or just a really goofy website. After a couple of days of deep thought, I realized how said bundle of joy will be made of star stuff, and that star stuff will be our very own. Hence the name, Our Very Own Star Stuff.

I leave you with a video that was put together from clips of some of my favorite science-type people - Carl Sagan (seen below), Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Richard Feynman. I had to shrink it down to make it fit, so I recommend watching it full screen. Enjoy!

The Whys and Wherefores

After getting lost in the blogosphere while reading about others who have navigated the world of adoption, I wanted to start my own blog to document our journey. This blog will start out as therapy for me to help me deal with the lasting effects of our infertility. Soon it will be a way to keep others informed of the adoption process and will one day (soon I hope!) turn into funny stories associated with raising our child(ren).

Thank you for visiting my blog, and I look forward to hearing from you!