last weekend's post... MAJOR website progress!

I didn’t get a chance to blog after the last two weekends, but I need to. We’ve made SO much progress! Todd built a fire in the fireplace and we worked on adoption stuff ALL day Sunday (11th). We watched a tutorial on the website program we were going to use. We then tinkered around with a web template that I had found the previous weekend and we actually made 2 pages! It took a long time, but that’s ok…. After we figured out how to get it from the computer to the world wide web, we then stopped in that effort and focused on some homework that we had from the adoption consultant: making our profile book.

We wrote an opening statement. Next: a blurb about our lives together. I wrote down how I feel about Todd. He wrote down how he feels about me. We continued with how we envisioned life with a child. We wrote a blurb about family and friends. Then we wrote a blurb on our parenting philosophy, why were we live is a great place, and closed with a statement back to the birth mother. That took us into the night & we crashed shortly after.

All-in-all… it was a great day. We made a lot of progress and we got to do a little soul-searching to boot. Once the website is ready to roll, I’ll post it. An official “launch” party of sorts.

And -- since I didn't post this earlier - I should go ahead & report on what I did last weekend. Fri & Sat (16th - 17th) I was at my mom's after a work trip in NC. There were 20 pages worth of text that we had for the website... but I actually put it into pages. Todd & I designed & made the first two pages. After that, it was a breeze to make the others.

Granted -- there will need to be edits and photos -- but it is such a relief to have work to show for all that we've been thinking about doing! yay.

Gotta run. We're headed down to my dad's for Thanksgiving.

Later.
c

saturday morning

i'm determined to have a great day today... last saturday - i was in a funk.
not much is progressing, honestly, as i've been working a lot. but, last night: a little glimmer of hope. todd watched some of the website tutorial with me. he's way more into computer stuff than i am - so i'm really going to be relying on him to help. i surfed a lot last saturday looking at sample websites. i downloaded the template for one i liked. now - with the software that our neighbor eric has loaned us - we need to learn how to modify it... then go one step further and actually upload it. i've got the content pretty much ready to go!

stay tuned. hopefully you'll hear screams of joy soon with the successful making of our site.

ps - a little more progress, i suppose: got a few more pics together. dinner out with friends last friday night & dinner out with a couple of girls this past wednesday. todd w/ pigg on the couch and todd playing golf (yesterday - his structural engineer that he hangs out with took him to play and took pics of him in his backswing!) ahhhh.... the photos are coming together.

over and out. c

The meeting went well

We were over-prepared for our meeting with the adoption consultant. Todd & I completed all sorts of forms -- which aren't due yet. That's ok. It will come in handy. Our instructions weren't clear, so I was stressed about filling out all of the forms we were instructed to download.

Some of the pictures that we liked -- they weren't so into. Some of the pictures they were into weren't our favorites, but that's ok. We'll still make the book our own. I really want to use excerpts from the great letters that we've received so far. One of the profile books we looked through had letters included. The adoption consultant said that was because it was a single person and that they needed a little something extra. We're going to pick a sentence or two from a few of them and find a place to include them.

We've paid the consultant a bit of money... but we'll save some bucks by designing the book & doing all of the photoshop stuff ourselves. Our schedule: get some more photographs of my family (I'll be in NC in two weeks and in Fla the following, so I should round it out). Write the verbiage & email it back / forth to the consultant so that they can edit it. Once we're done -- she will go ahead & put us in the pool of candidates! I think we can finish the book by the end of November!

Our next step: start the home study. This is something that you HAVE to do to work through an agency. She gave us a folder of information on a social worker that she likes and thought it would be a good fit because she just moved her office to Marietta from Douglasville. We'll begin that at the beginning of December. The consultant said that was good b/c we'd get a jump on the slew of people who want to start it in the new year.

We learned something by reading through all of the materials: to go with independent adoption, you don't have to have a home study done. We're going to pursue both -- just to see what yields faster results.

I guess that's all for now. 1 - work on Lifestyle Profile. 2 - complete Home Study. We'll have a handle on both by the end of the year. yay!

I'm going to crash (early). We were up late last night / early this morning to work on this stuff. G'night.

Quick post with thanks and pictures

I am at work, so I have to post a quick blog. No – we haven’t had our appointment yet w/ the adoption consultant, but I wanted to say that I was freaking out b/c we needed a slew of photographs to take to our first appointment and – you know us: we love taking pictures of buildings, but of us and other people?! So, I was nervous.

I asked a few friends for some shots to include (of us and of them) and they CAME THROUGH BEAUTIFULLY!!!! I was so touched when I opened my email to find gobs and gobs of great pictures (and some scary ones – uh, Cindy, I won’t be including that “goth” picture from Halloween a few years ago!) THANK YOU for stepping up to the plate, finding pics, scanning pics, etc. It is so helpful – and is so great to know you are there for us through this!


Todd and I have been filling out the questionnaires / writing the narratives that we’re supposed to be doing. Man – this is a lot of work so far! ; - ) I know it will all be worth it, though!

On a side note, we had dinner last night with Shelli… our neighbor who’s awesome, but is moving to Gulfport. They bought a house and closed on it a few weeks before Katrina hit. It was destroyed, but they’re slowly rebuilding (and living in a FEMA trailer in the meanwhile). The movers came to her house yesterday and she was cleaning it the rest of the afternoon. It was so strange to go in there & see empty rooms. I guess it’s sinking in that our good friend is really leaving! But, we’ll have a great spot to go visit. (Todd designed a new house for them on the existing structure & utilizing the majority of the walls and such… but – Shelli’s husband, Scott, is a contractor and he changed it. TYPICAL!) kidding.


Finally – and I’ll wrap – I also got some photos a neighbor took at Girl’s night at our house last week. I’m only including the costume of Crazy Candace… and some of the goulish foods (Eyeball Salad -- and Eyeball (turkey meatballs in the background. More descriptions of the costumes and food are in the last blog.

Fun time was had by all.

Monday before the first adoption consultation....

It's been awhile since I've posted.

Went out of town again two weeks ago. This time - to Charlotte, NC. I have one more work trip this year (a 3 1/2 day tour of NC) and then that will be it for travelling. I really need to talk to the folks at my office about no more trips after the first of the year. According to people we've talked to about adoption, we could get the call that a birth mother is in labor & we need to get on a plane that night!

I don't think I'll get out of teaching classes, but I will ALWAYS have to have a back-up person in the wings in case we get THE call. I can do project work from home -- I'm not worried about that. It's the out-of-town teaching (especially to places that require non-transferrable airfare) that has me concerned.

I hosted girl's night last Thursday. We had a great time. Several people dressed up (I was a cat -- pretty tame, really). A pregnant neighbor's belly was a pumpkin. Another neighbor was a little devil. But - the most creative costume of the evening -- donned by Crazy Candace. Yes, there's another Candice on the street (she spells her name with an -ace). She was a trashy bride -- wearing a wedding dress, torn up black hose, one of those crimped wigs, and makeup running down her face. She was coming onto Todd & some other guy that he was doing some work with in the home office. It was pretty funny. I made eyeballs (turkey meatballs with olives stuck in them & tomato sauce drizzled over)... someone made eyeball salad (button mushrooms, cheese whiz, and olives set in a bed of lettuce), green potatoes, a witches brew housed inside of a real pumpkin, a beef stew housed in another pumpkin, a spiderweb cheesecake topped with a rubber spider, and my locally-famous witches fingers cookies. (They're sugar cookies dyed green with food coloring, shaped as a finger, an almond for the finger nail, and red decorator gel at the other end (like blood). We had a great time!

Friday, Todd's mom came into town. She's carpooling down to Florida with a friend of hers who has also has a home in Maine. We had a great dinner Friday night, went to the art museum on Saturday & to a Japanese restaurant that night, then went to a play and to another nice dinner on Sunday. We had a pretty serious adoption conversation Sunday night. I downloaded the instructions from our Adoption Consultant... and we have a SLEW of homework to do before our meeting on Thursday!! Luckily, I asked Todd's mom to bring down some photographs -- which she did. I just talked to my mom tonight & have asked her to start going through some, but I doubt that I'll have any of our family in time for the meeting. The consultant wants 30 - 40 pics and a bunch of written stuff. Luckily, I have a bunch of written verbiage already. Maybe we can use some of it? I wish I would've gotten the homework earlier! It was emailed Thursday afternoon. I didn't get it 'til Friday, but wasn't able to download it 'til the weekend. There's about 100 pages of stuff to go through.

I suppose I should go & do some homework. I'll write more after our appointment Thursday.

C

Meeting at DFACS

At our group meeting with the adoption consultant Monday, some people spoke about their orientation at DFACS and said it was pretty horrible. We had an appointment last night... and thankfully, the meeting wasn't as bad as we thought.

It doesn't really sound like that little 2 year old girl that's in foster care will really be a viable option -- after learning about how to go through the process / how to go through foster adoption. The mail thing (if she's available for adoption) is that she's in another county.... and our county DFACS office places children in our county only. They say that they rarely cross counties. So....... we're considering the adoption (but not the foster program). I know me. I can't have a kid in the house then send them back to a home where their original parents were abusive or negligent. There's 21 hours worth of classes that we might be eligible for in January -- but our profile will be pretty narrow on the type and age of child we are looking to adopt, so they may choose to train more flexible foster / adoptive parents. We'll see.

I'm crashing early. We're getting up early to pack & go to an out-of-town wedding.

g'night.

Adoption Consultant

Todd & I went to an "Adoption Consultant" presentation with 7 other couples and a single woman. I was such a skeptic going into the presentation. My attitude going into it: We've already spent so much money on fertility stuff.... how come we'd want to pay this person to consult us -- when she doens't actually work for an agency or place adoptive children?!

She made a pretty good case for why to hire her, though. The way she works... she helps you make a profile book (I think that's what they're called).... these are the books that agencies hold onto & show prospective birth mothers so they can decide to choose you or someone else. We were going to make one up -- so it's probably good to get advice on this. Also, she's got links with all sorts of agencies across the country. She says that her clients are called on more often because they're "informed" adoptive parents and are less trouble than someone without the help of a consultant. And - she walks you through the whole process. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

She had a financial person there too. They explained about ways to pay for adoption... we were about to redo our home equity line of credit after the renovation work to the house. Sounds like we should increase the amount & put it on there. ugh. those payments are already killing us! or - there are loans.... like car loans that you can pay off in 60 installments. or - there are legal ways for parents to make gifts to a child and their spouse. the other thing mentioned: tax credit up to eleven grand back on what you spent which will help some eventually. (can't be claimed on taxes 'til after the adoption is finalized by the courts... about 6 months after you bring the baby home -- the agency who places it has the right & will occassionally check in on you. once they determine the baby is safe, they file the paperwork to transfer full parental rights to the adoptive parents) THEN, you can do the tax stuff to offset a portion of the cost. this part was upsetting (the financial part b/c it seems so unattainable). Susan - we may have to talk more about your financing ideas!!

we figured that it would be good to have someone work with us along the way. she has insight into which agencies are good (not just have good marketing materials). she knows which ones have little to no application fees so you can get in on multiple agencies' radar. she knows which agencies to pair you up with in terms of what type of children or what type of arrangement you want with the birth mother. i guess, all-in-all, there is a benefit to her services. we have a meeting with her november 1st. after the homestudy -- it could happen then... or could go longer. she said that, really, it goes as fast as the adoptive parents want it to happen. 99% of her clients from last year had a baby within 12 months. some had them before the home study was complete (she says she has "ways" to get around that).

guess we're going to go for it.
c