The Call

On Thursday December 4,2008 we received "the call".I was at work and Love instant messaged me saying that our Social Worker called and said she had a 1 month old baby for us!!!Right at that moment the door opened at the office...(No one had came in for the last 2 hours I had been there).So after what seemed like an eternity I was able to call Love. We talked about the situation and told our Socail Worker we would be interested in the situation.She asked when could we see her. We both said we could be on our way now.When we got to the Adoption Agency we were told more about the situation and we decided the baby would be a perfect match for us.We will be picking him up on 12/10/08.When we told Precious Daughter she jumped up and down for about 5 minutes.At first it wasn't sinking in yet. I think it won't be real until He's home with us.So our adoption journey took 9 months and 5 days!!!Our social worker made the comment that she thinks that adoptive parents have a sixth sense about when they have a match...because remember I called her on Wednesday.She said she knew then but she could not say anything because she was waiting on medical paper work.

December Update

I called the Social Worker today, to ask how long our homestudy would be valid and if we needed to do any thing to our profile.She said that the profile was perfect and that our homestudy would be good for 2 years and that we would have a baby long before it will be time to renew it.She said the agency had several moms they were working with and wanted to know what we were doing for Christmas and I told her we had nothing planned.I told her about an up comming trip and she asked who would be keeping Precious Daughter.I told her that my mother in law would be.As usual she ended our conversation with "hope to be talking to you soon".All I can say is that it was an interesting conversation and that I am not going to read anything into it.I know that when we are meant to get our son we will.
On the home front the nursery is complete all we need is a baby and diapers (still can't decide which ones to use).Precious Daughter is a bit discouraged because it is taking so long to get a baby brother.I try to be encouraging.....but I know how she feels.

October update

I spoke with our socialworker who stated that one of the offices called and wanted to know if we were still available to be shown to a few of the mothers they were currently working with.She said she called them back and left a message stating that we were eagerly waiting.She told me that she did not know any of the mothers' due date and that she would call me when she heard anything.After a week of not hearing from her I called her back and she said she still hasn't heard anything. This could mean several things:1.) the mothers have due dates that are far off, 2.)we were not chosen,and or 3.)the social worker still doesn't know .It's been at least 2 weeks from when I spoke with our socialworker but who knows.

Update

On Tuesday, we spoke with our Social Worker who said that we had been chosen by not 1 but 2 possible situations. The mothers decided to parent , which is great because they can keep their families together. I guess we should be sad, but we are both happy that we were even considered for not 1 but 2 possible situations. We were also told that the agency is working with several mothers at the current time.She also said that she hoped to talk to us soon. I am probaly reading into this but how cool would it be for us to get the call soon!!So we continue to patiently wait.

Thoughts

I have been praying that if our son is out there growing in a Mommy's tummy that God watches over them both and keeps them healthy and safe.I have also been praying that God leads and guides his first Mommy in making the decision that is right for them both.On a selfish note I have been praying that I am able to deal with the wait...the long,long wait.I know that everything happens in God's timming but I am anxious to see how everything will play out and when it will play out.I can't wait for our family to be complete.

More Waiting

Originally I had promised myself that I would not call the adoption agency until 5/28/08 (3 month mark of waiting) to check and see if our interim social worker had heard anything.Well, I called last Wednesday and was told that our local office had no mothers...and that she did not know about the other offices.Well it really doesn't matter about the local office since we requested not to be shown to local mothers!!!We requested to be shown to mothers in neighboring towns.I guess I was and am a little dissatisfied with her response because it seems as if she would have been touching base with neighboring offices and that basically she responded as if I were bothering her. I will chalk it up to maybe she ws having a bad day.In 3 more months I will call the adoption agency again and hopefully our social worker will be back from medical leave or our interim social worker will be having a better day.

Thoughts

Where to start...Have you ever just been so happy you can not stop smiling and do not want to?Well that's how I've been feeling the past few months.I don't know if it is because we are closer than we have ever been to completing our family or what.I hope it is the fact that I am more aware of how God is so good!! What I do know is that I am constantly thanking God for all he has brought us through. At work when one of my clients come in and complains about what they don't have. I always tell them it could always be worst and that we should always be thankful for what we do have.Thinking back ....when Love and I first got married we had nothing, materialistically but we did have three very important things we had Faith, Each other, and Family.We may have wanted for things but we have never went without anything.With all we have been through one thing I can honestly say is that I have never doubted God's ability to lead us and guide us through everything and I am a very strong believer that God will never give us more than we can handle.
OK on the adoption front we have officially been waiting a month and two days!!
The nursery is pretty much complete. Love picked Michigan to be the theme.We are still excited.I have been picturing how things will play out.I know the perfect situation is out there for us and I can't wait to bring our new bundle of joy home. Now the task at hand is to prepare Precious Daughter to be able to cope with not being the only child.She told me before that she is "used to sharing mommy but not her daddy, because mommy you like holding babies." Everything that brings to mind something that she done when she was a baby we share with her.To try to give her an idea of what to expect.We are also constantly asking her how she feels about being a Big Sister. She says she is excited, but will be more excited when the baby gets here. To me that's understandable, that he is not as real to her as he will be.We have been letting her know that when the baby does get here if we are doing something and the baby needs his diaper changed or to be fed that mommy or daddy will have to stop to do that. Right now she seems to understand but I guess time will tell. Love and I have been talking about how we will make sure that Precious Daughter has one on one time with both of us.

The Wait

Dealing with the wait...like i said I have been waiting for 5 years to hold another baby in my arms that was ours. During our joint visit with the Social worker, Love and I asked what the wait list was for an African American infant male and we were told that there was a zero wait and that it was hard to place African American infant males.We turned in 5 profiles for our Social Worker to distribute to neighboring agencies.As you all know the internet can be our enemies and our friends. All of the reading i have done has confirmed what our Social Worker said that African American infant males were hard to place and placed quickly when they could be placed.I am a very organized person and do not like things hanging over my head..especially things that i have no control over!!I know no one knows what is in store for us.I guess I just don't like the unknown..who does?On the bright side we are closer than we ever have been to having another baby!!!Which is very exciting!!!We have put a few things in the nursery.It still is not completely finished. A little voice is telling me to get the nursery done because it could be any day now and another little voice tells me to not finish the nursery until we get a match.

Telling Our Families

Telling our families was like we expected it to be.My mother and Love's mom and dad were and are supportive. Our siblings were and are excited. I decided I would give my dad the benefit of the doubt and call and tell him....I don't have a close relationship with my dad.When I told him he said "I guess it's ok since you two don't want to have another one, I'll take grandkids any way I can get them...Just don't get a big one because you will wake up with a gun to your head or a knife to your throat".I did not expect him to be supportive, since he never has anything positive to say. I didn't expect a supportive response, but I thought I would tell him all the same.

Emotions

Although we have not been waiting long, I feel like we have been waiting a long long time. I have been wanting another child since Precious daughter was 4 years old. All the false alarms, attending other people's baby showers, listening to people say they did not even want to be pregnant, and how they weren't even trying to get pregnant.I won't lie it has been a very heart breaking 5 years. I even had to stop going to baby showers because I was so depressed that we have not had another baby. I then began to think maybe we just did not deserve to have another baby. Then I was like maybe it is just not meant to be for us to have another baby.
I began to pray to be content with what I had and not to long for what i did not have.Months would go by and the want for another baby would come back.No matter how long it stayed away something would trigger it and the longing would come back. Oh yea I forgot to mention that I love kids, love being around them, and they are drawn to me and I to them.
So I came to the conclusion, that God did not want me to be content and that we are meant to have another child....through adoption.

Our Story

The Love of my life and I met the summer of 1996, while in high school. We dated for 2 years and were married. After being married for 1 month our Precious Daughter was born.After being married for 6 months My Love was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer called osteo-sarcoma.After rigorous chemotherapy treatments and an above the left knee amputation, My Love is doing great and in remission for 7 years this April.We always dreamed of having another child after our Precious Daughter was 4 years old.Fast forward...Precious Daughter is now 9 years old and we decided to get tested to see what are options were to add to our family. A specialist informed us that we would not be able to have another child naturally.After discussing our options we decided that our life would be fine with just the 3 of us.
A few months earlier we had talked about adoption and looked into foster adoption and decided that an infant would be the best placement for our family.After we attended a foster parent information session we decided that foster parenting was not for us.I had also been researching online to find out about different adoption agencies.I requested info from a few adoption agencies.Nothing ever came of the information gathering.
In October we were contacted by an adoption agency that I had previously contacted for information. The social worker stated that he had a possible match for us. The baby boy was to be born in late February or early March. After discussing it and lots of prayer we decided that we were interested in the possible match. Unfortunately due to a lot of red flags we decided not to pursue the match with said adoption agency. The upside to all of this is that we decided that we did want to adopt and we did want an infant boy.
After the situation with the adoption agency, we decided to go with a local adoption agency that has been around for several decades.In mid November we began the paper work process. In November we had the initial joint interview.In December we had individual interviews.Then we began to wait for holidays to pass and worked on our profile.In early January we had home visit. On February 28 we were told that the committee still has not met, but that we would not be disqualified if any potential moms came into agency.Basically the Social worker said we were unofficially approved and that she sees no reason why we would not be approved because everything looks great. I have faith in her opinion because she has been with agency for 30 years.
So I guess we are unofficially waiting!!!