Pages

Friday, September 28, 2012

Book Review Video Blog

Just wanted to share some of the things I'm learning in my 2nd book, The Open Adoption Experience. :) It's been a great resource, I'm really enjoying it.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Our Profile Book! :)

We finished our profile book today! eeeeee! ::grin:: Mixbook had a sale that ended tonight, so we took advantage of the opportunity to save a little money on our order. You can check it out HERE folks! Just click on the corners to flip the pages. :)

Friday, September 21, 2012

Individual Interview Done

Well the interview didn't take quite three hours, but it was pretty close. :) I can't really share too much about it because Ryan still has to do his and she wants him to come into his meeting fresh, without being swayed by my answers. Makes sense. What I can tell you is that we dove into lots of aspect of my life including family, marriage, infertility and miscarriage. It went really well, and there weren't really any surprises. Most, if not all, of the topics had been touched on in either a survey or my autobiography. But talking it all out with her was really nice, and almost like a bonding experience as well. I feel like she really knows me and wants to help us through this adoption process. :)

I was sent a list of guidelines and instructions for our profile book last week. At that point I was already almost done with ours. ::blush:: Impatient? Overachiever? Psycho? I donno, call me what you will. lol. Anyway, I was hoping that what I had already put together would work, so I asked Anita to look over it with me and see if there was anything I should change. She loved it!! She said it was very well put together, and furthermore it was a unique style. She hadn't seen one quite like ours before. ::beams:: 
Her only recommendation was to trim out some of the wording, which I am more than happy to do! I didn't really want a whole lot of text anyway, but I felt like I might need more after I saw the instructions. So I have a couple pictures to add in, and then I will be ready to post it here so you can all see what the expectant mothers will be looking at. :)

Thursday, September 20, 2012

First Book Done!

I just finished my first book! Woohoo! This one is called Dear Birthmother, Thank You For Our Baby. I have to write a little bit about it, so I figured I may as well share a little bit here. :)

In a nutshell, the authors seek to tear down the four myths of adoption-
1) Birthmothers don't love their babies
2) Secrecy in every aspect of adoption in necessary
3) Birthparents will forget about the baby over time
4) If a child wants to know more about or meet his/her birthparents, they do not really love or appreciate their adoptive parents.

As proven by the experience of all parties in adoption, none of these ideas make sense. But they still impact the thoughts and actions of the general public today. As adoptive parents, we really need to evaluate ourselves to see if we are falling into the trap of believing these false ideas. Furthermore, it is our responsibility to raise our child(ren) in a manner that totally contradicts these myths. They need to know that their birthmother loves them and will never forget them. They should be able to know who she is, at a minimum through pictures, if not some level of face to face contact.  And we need to always encourage them to ask questions, and to speak openly of adoption in our home. God chose to form our family through adoption, and that is something to acknowledge and be happy about. :)

One down and two to go!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

1st Meeting Recap

Our first meeting went very well yesterday. :) Anita is very nice and easy to talk to. I'm really glad that we hit it off well, since we will be working with her for the next several months and she is actually the one approving us as adoptive parents. She really just asked us all kinds of questions about lots of aspects of our life - what does Ryan do for a living, how supportive are our families of the adoption, why did we choose adoption in the first place, what are our goals for the future, blah blah blah. It was very much a get-to-know-you meeting. The last bit of our time together consisted of a series of questions regarding what sort of birthparent history and situation we would be ok with. A couple of these questions I knew were coming, such as "What do see your relationship with the birthmom looking like?" and "To what degree are you comfortable with alcohol or drugs being used during the pregnancy?". But then there were others that we didn't even think about, such as incarceration, family history of severe mental illness, pregnancy from rape/incest, personal or family history of congenital disease, etc. 
Umm...yeah, we hadn't talked about those possibilities and ramifications at all. So those are some questions that Ryan and I will need to work through and decide on in the coming weeks. I will say upfront that we will be keeping our decisions on these topics confidential, since we definitely want to protect the privacy of our future child and the birthparents. But I did want to share some of the things we have to think about as prospective adoptive parents. 

Our next meeting with Anita will be individual interviews in two weeks. They are each three hours long. Yup, three HOURS. Yikes. We need to have our autobiographies turned in by then. After that will be the third and final interview, which we can schedule once we have three of our books read. I know the book reading is going to be the hardest thing to finish, especially for my working man. ::sigh:: I am going to see if any of them are available as audio books, cause I think that would really help. I'd hate to have the approval set back another few months just because we haven't finished reading. 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

A little of this and that

Just got off the phone with our official social worker, Anita! :) We are all set for our first meeting/interview with her on Monday afternoon! Yay! It's been quiet for a couple weeks now, so I'm excited about any sort of movement on the adoption front. :)

These days I've been working two projects-
1) Our profile book, which has been a lot of fun, but can also be kind of intimidating. I mean I'm trying to find the right pictures and say the right things to sum up our life together and describe who we are. This is what birthmothers are going to be looking through to figure out if we are the family they want to raise their child! I just want to make sure that we are representing ourselves well and accurately, you know? 

2) Cleaning out the baby room so that I can start decorating! :)
I've had ideas about this room for a long time. It's wonderful to actually be able to start looking at things I want to buy and figuring out how I'd like to set everything up. I'm going to be making some of my own things for the room (bedding, a mobile, curtains, etc.), so I have a handful of mini projects to do that will keep me busy in the coming months. There's nothing like a fun project or two to help pass the wait. :) Below are a couple prints that I ordered today, so you can see the direction the room is going in. :) They make me so happy. :) 

Monday, September 3, 2012

Sterling Fundraisers

Hello friends, I will have an adoption update soon, but today I just wanted to let you know about little Sterling. She is my sister in law's cousin, and was recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in her brain at only two years old. You can follow along on their journey on their blog or on their Facebook page. Anyway, I just wanted to spread the word about some fundraising that the family is doing over the next couple weeks. 

Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 4th) 15% of your purchase at Chick-Fil-A in Chino Hills will go towards Sterling's cause between 4-8pm. Just make sure to mention "Team RockStar" when ordering (Dine in or Drive thru).

Also next Monday, September 10th, there will be another fundraiser at Vince's Spaghetti in Rancho Cucamonga. You must have this flyer when you go, and 15% of the purchase will go to Sterling. 

Feel free to spread the word!