And we're up again

I was tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep but thinking about how I was going to word a "checking in" email to our first contact since we haven't heard from her in just over a week, when my phone gave a happy ding to say that I had an email.

OMG! It is from contact number 1.

She has been busy with work and hasn't had time to write. She wrote a long email telling us more about them and saying how she is really liking what she is hearing about us. She even sent a couple of pictures! I woke up Mike to read it to him. Now at least I am not up all alone.  : )

Wish me luck in getting to sleep tonight!

Ups and Downs

We haven't heard back from our first contact since sending our last response a week ago. Needless to say, it has been a tough week. While I still hold out a small hope of hearing back from her, we are coming to terms with being on this roller coaster.

And roller coaster it is! This morning we got an email from another young woman who is considering adoption. She was very honest in stating that she didn't know if she would be making an adoption plan, but she wanted to learn more about us. I just sent off our response to her email. This one was easier and harder to write. Easier in that we have already had practice answering some questions, but harder because she is so much younger than our first contact. It is hard to imagine one of the students we work with being in the position where they would be looking at making an adoption plan.

So I am back to checking my email on a (very) regular basis.

Emotions

I'm sure it is understandable when I say I am quite emotional today, and have been for the past week. Ok, I just cried multiple times during the Eukanuba dog show, for no apparent reason. We go into the adoption process knowing it is going to be an emotional roller coaster, but I thought we would have a bit of time in the waiting line before jumping on the ride. My sister and I likened it to the Rock n' Roller Coaster that uses magnets to start you on your ride at 60 mph. No chain pull up a tall hill to get you ready for the first big fall.

It is so hard to think about how my excitement in bringing a child home is so closely tied to other people dreading giving away a part of themselves, even though they feel it is the best thing to do. I know I'm not alone in these thoughts. It is just hard when they become a reality instead of some vague unknown person who will suffer in the future.

We continue to share emails with our contact, and I am amazed by the number of similarities we have in our interests. The differences are also fun to learn! As I said before, our contact lives in our state, and they are less than 6 hours away and less than an hour away from my aunt who lives in the area. We are ready to hop in the car at any time to go meet them in person. I am trying to let things move at her pace and let her decide when we should make the next move forward, assuming she chooses to do so with us.

For now, I will try to focus on grading some papers. We have had the rare occurrence of  having two snow days in two weeks, so I am a bit off my schedule for school. It isn't like I have anything else on my mind or anything! Because I need a laugh right now, I'll share a few pictures from our first snow storm last week.

Dashing through the snow!

Maybe I'll catch the next one.

Why is my nose cold?

Daddy, will you throw a snowball please?

Got it!

Still cautiously optimistic

We just sent off our second email to our contact after she replied to our first response last night and asked some more questions. This time I wrote the email outside of my email program so I wouldn't accidentally hit send before finishing it.  : )

It is hard to not get too excited. It just seems almost too good to be real!

After speaking with the counselor who did the intake at our agency, we were thrilled to learn that she lives in our state! She is due in mid-June, which is interesting considering that the day she emailed us I was planning out a Disneyworld vacation for that week.

Mike and I always joked that we would get a contact about 2 weeks into being on the books, because you know those things just don't happen! I can't believe we were on the books for less than two weeks before hearing from her. She must have gotten our letter in the mail within the first couple of days of them sending them out.

So, we are now waiting to hear back from her.

Holy Contact, Batman!

I spent the weekend writing up our networking letter and sent it out to everybody yesterday (after spending hours copying email addresses out of Face.book). Throughout the day, I would get messages saying this or that email address was not valid. So, I just sort of glanced over an email that came in at 4:30 this afternoon. But then I took a closer look because I didn't recognize the email address.

It was a contact! In the words of Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer - check out his blog!), "SQUEEEEE!" She said she got our letter as part of a packet from the agency, told us a bit about herself, and then asked a couple of good questions: Why do you want to adopt? and What are your views in raising a child?

Long story short (Mike says my dinner is ready), I was working on a beautiful response...and then accidentally hit the send button. Ahhhh! I had to rush with followup email to finish our thoughts and tell her how much we hope to hear from her again. I didn't get a chance to ask her questions except to ask what she liked about our letter and to please tell us more about herself.

Now I will just be checking my email every five minutes. Not like it dings on my phone or anything.

I'll keep you updated!

Let the Waiting begin!

The agency has received our letters and has turned on our profile on their websites.

Finally!

We attended our Weekend Intensive in May, so the whole process took longer than we expected. But we made it through all of the issues with the home study, 7 proofs of our letter, and 4 hard copy proofs. I think our letters look great, and I am pleased with our website. I still need to do a bit of work on it to see if I can get it to load more quickly and to add some more photos.

As excited as I am, I am a bit freaked out by the fact that the profile directly below ours on one of the sites belongs to a couple named Krista and Michael. I'm just not used to seeing people with my name, even if she does spell it wrong.  : )   At least he doesn't go by Mike!

So, I guess the countdown begins. We will try to forget that we have been trying for 10 years to have a child. As of right now, we have been waiting for one day.

Are we there yet, Papa Smurf?

Not far now, my little smurfs!

 

A taste of parenthood

Having a 7-year-old in the house for a week has certainly been interesting, and our week has been filled with discussions of what will and won't be the same when it is our own child we are caring for. We know our life will change when we bring home our baby. Because the child will have needs that must be met, not all of our time will be our own. However, we don't expect it to be as it was this week, and that is what we had to keep reminding ourselves about. Mike and I rarely had a minute together, those only once the girl was asleep, in whispered conversations in the kitchen. Because she is not used to sleeping away from home, we set up an air mattress in the family room and I slept on the couch. When she was awake, one of us was always with her because the dogs were excited to have her there. We were pleased to see that the dogs were not aggressive toward her. Leila would just get excited and bark any time the girl stood up and walked around, and Indy just cuddled right up next to her and suffered through the many hugs. Mike was dealing with having two picky eaters in the house (although I like to say I just have sensitive taste buds).

I have to say that the girl did pretty well overall, considering she was plucked out of her home and away from her loving Mimi (my mom) for what ended up being 7 days. It helped a lot that she could go over to my sister's to play for a few hours each afternoon, because we don't have much in the way of entertainment for a 7-year-old at our house. Eloise and 2 seasons of Rugrats via Netflix helped save our sanity when she was with us.

Fortunately, I talked Mike out of giving her a Kong filled with peanut butter.