Adopting Without Debt

We did it! We have officially hit the point in our adoption journey where we will be able to adopt without (long term) debt! This is such a huge accomplishment for us, and we are so excited! 

(Can you read my excitement from all the exclamation points in the paragraph above?)

One of the most common questions we get asked is "how much does adoption cost?" or "why does it cost so much?" or some other variation. So, I apologize ahead of time for those of you who don't like to talk about money, but here we go:

Our expenses for the adoption have been/will be the following:

$3,700 Registration fee, activation fee, and homestudy fee. This money signed us up and helped us get to a point where we were legally able to adopt a child in the state of Indiana.

$4,000 Advertising fee. This money pays for our profile book to be put together pays for the time that the agency spends doing outreach on our behalf to find our birth mother.

$2,500 Birth mother coordination fee. This money pays for the time that the women at our agency spend with the birth mothers, including some counseling for the birth mother.

$1,000 Assorted fees related to getting the homestudy final. This included copays at our doctors' offices for physicals, vaccines, and blood work; paying for finger prints and background checks; etc.

$10,000 Placement fee. Due 10 days before the baby is due (or immediately upon birth, in the case of a fall-in-your-lap placement), this money covers the cost for the agency to place the child in our home.

$3,000 Birth mother living expenses. This is money that our birth mother can use to help defray her cost of living pre-delivery and for up to 12 weeks postpartum.

$4,000 Estimated legal fees. Exactly what it sounds like, this is what we pay the attorney who will draft the paperwork for her to sign and for the attorney's time in court the day we finalize.

All told, just under $30,000. That's assuming our birth mother has health insurance or Medicaid. If she doesn't, we will have to pay the medical bills related to her pregnancy and birth.

To date, we've either paid or saved $24,000. The last $5,000 or so we're hoping to save before the baby comes, but even if we don't, we're counting on Target's $5,000 adoption reimbursement program to help us out. So, even if Little Laskey came tomorrow, we'd use a zero-interest bank loan for that amount until we were reimbursed. We have 3 adoption grants that are ready to be mailed out, and we're hoping something positive happens with at least one of them. We're also planning another no-spend month to ramp up our own savings one more time.

So how did we do it? How did we get to a point where we were able to afford this without incurring long term debt? The short answer is: YOU! There is no way we could have done this without each and every one of you helping us along the way. While we've pinched pennies, and socked away bonuses and raises, and sold some of our stuff to make extra money, it would never have been enough without all your support.

There is never anything we can do to repay all of you for your exceeding generosity, kindness, and support during this time. Please know that anyone who donated to keep that atrocious awesome beard, came to enjoy a meal at Brunchie's, ordered a Santa letter, or bought a football square has our undying gratitude. Everyone who donated items to the garage sale or shared a Facebook status is appreciated more than they know. And anyone who prayed, kept a good thought, or put out good juju for us during this time will always be in our thoughts and in our hearts.

More than anything, though, we want Little Laskey to know how many people came together to help bring our baby home. So, we're going to ask for your help one more time. We've contacted a local artist, and she's working with us to create a piece of wall art for the nursery, something similar to the picture above. Inside the heart, we'd like to include pictures of the families of everyone who has helped us along the way. So, if you're reading this and you've done anything to help us bring Litte Laskey home, please email a photo of your family to laskeyfam717@gmail.com so you can be sure to be included in this. We want our child to know how much we appreciate and love every one of you!

Nesting

Everyone tells you that waiting is the hardest part. To be fair, they're right, it is. I think the hardest part about the wait is that you don't know when the wait will end. We could have a baby tomorrow, or in a month, or in a year. We just don't know. It's hard to prepare for something when you don't have a timeline. So after everyone tells you that waiting is the hardest part, they tell you to not let the wait bother you, to keep busy, to live your life.

So we are.

It's a busy summer around here. It's a good summer to have to wait. There's a lot to keep us occupied: two graduation parties, a bridal shower, a wedding, a work trip, a baby shower. Not to mention those concert tickets that were a Christmas gift, and the Reds tickets that we won at a silent auction, and those other concert tickets that we bought on Groupon. Add on a visit from the in-laws, and don't forget the trip to Michigan for round 2 of what will surely go down in history as the world's largest garage sale.

That's just the list of "events" that we have going on. Then there's the never-ending to-do list to prepare for Little Laskey's arrival. We have a chalkboard on the side of the fridge where we keep track of what still needs to be done. See, the thing with adoption is that you spend the first few months rushing to get the paperwork done, the home visit scheduled, the house deep-cleaned. Then the paperwork is approved. And you just wait. So in an effort to not "just wait" we have The List. The List includes fun things like painting the nursery and assembling the furniture. (I'm not sure Brian would consider assembling the furniture fun, but we only had one small moment of tension in a whole day of work, so we'll go with that as a good description.) The List also includes practical things like arranging child care, finding a pediatrician, and arranging boarding for the dogs if we have to be away from home to pick up the baby. The List includes not-so-fun things like drafting our wills. Apparently, we need wills to protect a child we don't even have yet. There's a weird legal time between placement of the child in our home and finalization of the adoption (about 4 months) where, if anything were to happen to us, the guardianship of our child could be contested by several different parties and no one really knows where the baby would end up.

The thing is, though, that I have much less motivation to tackle The List than I have to clean the house from top to bottom and bottom to top again. I've been bitten by the nesting bug...bitten hard. I'm currently in the process of clearing out the office closet, which was home to our holiday decorations. I toss one Rubbermaid tub in the trunk of my car every day as I head out for work, stopping at our garage to unload it.  All so that I can move the few items (a graduation gown, a bridesmaid's dress, my wedding veil) that were being stored in the nursery closet out so that baby's closet is completely empty.

I'm working off a List that lives in my head, not on the chalkboard on the fridge. On some days, it seems to be an instinctual List. I never know when I wake up in the morning what cleaning or organizational project I'll tackle that day. Organize the wrapping paper. Clean out the cabinet under the sink in the half bath. Might as well tackle the under-the-sink cabinet in the guest bathroom while I'm at it. Those fabric bins in that 9-cube bookcase in the living room? Time to sort through them to see what we really use. That stack of mail that normally lives in the corner of the coffee table? Pay the bills, put the wedding and grad party invites on the fridge, trash the rest. 

I'm driving Brian crazy, I know I have to be. He tolerates it well, though. He doesn't even question me anymore when I announce on a Tuesday night that we HAVE to go to Target to get yet another plastic tote because the china dishes need to move out of the storage ottoman and into a closet. He didn't even bat an eye when, this Saturday morning, he woke up and found me sorting through and organizing the Christmas gifts that we have already purchased. (Yes, I have some already. I buy them on sale and store them until Christmas!)

Apparently adoption nesting is a real thing. Go on, Google it. And while you do, if you'll excuse me, the Tubberware cabinet needs a little attention...

Managing Details

Last week's post was an attempt to answer some of the most common questions we've gotten throughout this entire process, but especially now that we've become active with our agency. After reading through it several times, neither of us could think of many questions that we left out. After thinking about this all some more, though, I think we missed one. A big one. An important one. You see, we are asked fairly frequently why it costs so much to adopt a child. 

I understand the curiosity, I do. I especially understand it when it seems like every other day there are news stories of foster children sleeping in DCS offices across the country for lack of a home, or babies being abandoned (hopefully using their state's Safe Haven Laws), or babies and children being abused. The shortest, easiest answer I can provide is that those children will be adopted through the foster care system. When a family adopts a child through the foster care system, they should not face financial expenses. Of course, we have seen families go far above and beyond the stipend provided for fostering a child, thus incurring expenses that they "choose" to incur. Case in point, paying for a foster child to play soccer on their high school team may be beyond the monthly allowance that a couple receives for taking that child into their home. We've seen friends pay for this (and more) for their foster kids, and are constantly in awe of the courage and grace that it takes to welcome a foster child into their home.

We are not adopting from foster care, however. We are pursuing a private domestic infant adoption, meaning that our birth mother will terminate her parental rights around 48 hours postpartum, the birth father will terminate his rights no more than 30 days postpartum (hopefully, he'll terminate while she's still pregnant), and we will take the baby home from the hospital. We'll be legal guardians for 4-5 months, until we go to court to finalize the adoption. We have many reasons for pursuing this type of adoption instead of foster-to-adopt, but that's a topic for another post. In this post, I want to give you all a glimpse of why we are happy to pay our agency for the incredible work they do. These women work hard for the babies, birth parents, and adoptive parents they see, and we are happy to pay for their services.

When we posted the blog last week, I mentioned in the Facebook post that we knew that our profile book was out to one birth mother. We were super excited to hear that, but that knowledge also brought with it a slew of anxiety. Every beep or buzz of our cells made us jump. What if that was “the call?” What if it was our Adoption Coordinator on the other end saying that this birth mom wanted to choose us? It’s now been a week, and our phones have only been buzzing with normal activity, so we’ve calmed down a lot, but it’s good to know that we’re being shown.

We’re allowed to check in with the agency once a month to see what our “activity” is. At first, we thought that meant they would be able to tell us how many times our profile book had been shown to different women. In reality, all we’ll be able to know how many women have copies of our profile book at the moment that we ask. It’s an incredibly complicated, but fascinating, process. The agency representative explains it like this:

We update our active birthmother list once a week. Within that week a lot can change! We add new women and take women off. We typically add about 3-7 women every week from new birthmother intakes. Women can get taken off the list due to placing their child for adoption, choosing to parent, birthfather risk has stopped the adoption, no phone minutes on her phone leading to extended period of no contact, or family steps in to save the day and help. These same women that we take off the list cold go back on due to losing her job so parenting is not a solid option any longer, birthfather is not so much a risk any longer (for many reasons), family broke promises again and aren't helping after all, or simply getting minutes back on her phone. Women that get taken off the list one week could be added back on the very next week or even several months down the line. So when you check in for an update I will only be able to let you know how many women you are out to in that given week. That will not mean that you have only ever gone out to 1 woman since activation, again, it is just this week. That doesn't mean that last week you were out to different women, it could have been all the same, or maybe 1 of the same, etc. This also doesn't account for when a coordinator is in the field and shows or shares your bio to a new woman that she was just popping in to say hello to.

I can't even begin to imagine the level of detail that her job entails with updating this list and all the varied reasons women jump on and off the list at any given time. That's what we're paying for when we fork over our checks to this agency. That, and so much more! We're paying for the social worker's time as she evaluates our home and paperwork to make sure that we're able to provide for this little one. We're paying for the director's time as she explains the process to us in our meetings and (13 hour!) home study class. We're paying for the Adoption Coordinators' time as they take calls from women at 3am in a crisis situation. Perhaps most importantly, we're paying for counseling and support for our birth mother, as she prepares to make a decision that takes a level of strength and courage that I cannot even fathom. It's so fascinating to me to get even a small glimpse into these women's lives. I hope that these little glimpses can help us to better empathize with whomever is on the other end of the line when we do get "the call."

FAQ Round 2

Well, we’ve been officially “active” in our agency for a month. That means that we’ve been up on their website for a month and that any birth mothers who are potential matches have been shown our profile book. We thought we’d take a minute and answer some FAQs that we’ve been getting over the last month, so that you all know what’s happening:

How much longer?

The short answer to this is: we have no idea, but we hope not long. The longer answer is much more complicated. One key piece of paperwork in the mountain of forms that we filled out was what I’ve been affectionately describing as something similar to an online dating profile. We listed out different things we were open to, in regards to how open this adoption will be, levels of alcohol/tobacco/drug use during pregnancy, and various health issues that we’re able to accept. When a birth mother comes to the agency, she’ll fill out similar paperwork. The agency staff matches her needs to our needs, and she’s shows profile books of hopeful parents who may be a good fit. On average, she’ll see 3-5 books. She can then ask to meet any of those people who she wants to get to know further. Once that happens, you hope to build a relationship with her spanning the remainder of her pregnancy, and ideally, beyond birth.

So, our wait time is really twofold: we wait until we have a good lead on a birth mother, and then we’ll wait out the remainder of her pregnancy. Some of the women come to the agency after their first positive pregnancy test, some come later during their pregnancy, and others wait to call the agency until they have given birth. All of these are distinct possibilities that we have to prepare for. On average, we can expect to wait 9 months from date of activation to date of birth. Our agency’s goal is 12 months maximum, but a lot of that depends on how many birth mothers walk through the door. For those keeping count, we activated in April, so 9 months puts us around a January birthday. Of course, nothing is guaranteed!

So, you’re just…waiting?

Well, yes and no. We’re waiting for a good lead and a match with a birth mother, and then we’ll wait out whatever remains of her pregnancy. But we’re not just sitting idly by. The first few months of working with the agency were so filled with activity and movement that it’s hard to imagine just sitting still now. We have a list of baby prep things to keep us busy while we wait. There are pediatricians to interview, daycare options to tour, grants to apply for, wills to set up, parenting books to read, and many other things. We’re slowly crossing things off that list.

We are also still living our lives! We can’t put our entire lives on hold while we wait. We went on vacation earlier this month, and we’ll be spending a LOT of time in Michigan this summer with our families. We get to celebrate a bridal shower, wedding, and two graduation parties this year. We have concert and baseball game tickets for this summer, plans with friends, and weekends to go to the farmer’s market with the dogs. It’s hard to plan around an unknown time frame, so we’ll just make plans as best we can for the time being.

Where will the baby be from? How old will your child be?

Our agency is based in Indiana and works with women mostly from Indiana. They get a few birth mothers from towns on the border of other states, but that’s pretty rare. It’s also a lot harder in those cases, because you have to balance the laws between Indiana and whatever neighboring state you’re working with. Yes, each of the 50 states has different laws surrounding adoption.

Our agency also works almost exclusively with expectant mothers, meaning that we will more than likely take our child home from the hospital a few days after they are born. Sometimes the agency will get sibling groups, and even more rarely will they get an older child being placed, but these situations almost never happen, since most older children are placed for adoption through the foster care system, not through a private agency.

What will your relationship with the birth mother look like?

In an ideal world, we’ll share letters and photos pretty frequently with our child’s birth mother. We’d even visit a few times a year. I know this sounds scary. It took us a long time to really discover how we felt about this level of openness. When you think about it, though, it’s really what’s best for everyone in the long term. Our child will know where they come from, we’ll have access to as much medical and social history as possible, and our birth mother will get to see her biological child thriving and happy. Eliminating the mystery helps to reduce adolescent rebellion (“you’re not my REAL parents”) and keeping in touch helps her heal from her grief.

That said, it’s really up to her how much interaction we have with her after all the papers are signed. Some birth mothers send cards and letters monthly, others visit yearly, and still others fade away after a few years, especially if we or she moves out of Indiana. We will set limits based on our family’s needs, but we hope that she is an active part of our child’s life. After all, the more people loving this little kid, the better!

I think it’s so important to note here that openness in adoption is not the same thing as co-parenting. When I think of co-parenting, I think of a couple who has divorced or separated, but are working together to raise their children. Both parties in a co-parenting relationship have some level of say in the day-to-day lives of the kids. This is not at all what happens in open adoption. Once the papers are signed in the hospital (24-48 hours postpartum), the birth mother has no legal rights to the child. We will be our child’s parents in everything except DNA.

And last, but not least, the most common question we’ve been asked over the last month:

Are you getting a boy or a girl?

We don’t know! We don’t get to choose the baby’s sex (really, what parents do?), and we’re matched with a birth mother, not her baby. She is making the decision to place her child with us because she feels we are the best people to care for this child. Let that sink in for a minute, and experience just how humbling this whole process is for us!

Paper Pregnant

Well, it's been a long time coming, but I am so excited to announce that we are officially activated with Adoption Support Center! What does "activation" mean? It means that we are featured on their website and that when a birth mother chooses to work with ASC, if we match her needs and she matches ours, then the agency staff will show her our biography book. She'll have the opportunity to learn a little bit about us, our families, and our desire to be parents. She'll decide at that point if she would like to meet us in person and get to know us better, and maybe eventually place her child with us.

All in all, we had about 40 pages of paperwork to do, 5 background checks to pass (two of the checks we had to complete twice since it had been so long since we did them that the results expired), and about $12,000 to fork over. We had to have an additional $8,000 available in case we had an immediate placement.

We still have a ways go to on the fundraising side. Our final fees will total around $17,000 ($3,000 for birth mother living expenses, $4,000 for legal fees, and $10,000 for adoption agency fees). We have about half of that right now (the $8,000), and have a Dine & Donate with a local restaurant planned for next week. The plan for a big chunk of the rest of that is to apply for a few adoption grants. We are hopeful that we can bring in even just a couple thousand dollars in grant funding. 

What does this mean in terms of timing and next steps? It means that, other than fundraising, we have done everything within our power to move this process along. Our fate completely rests in other people's hands now. While that's a nerve-wracking thought on one hand, it's nice to know that we are truly at just a waiting game stage of this process.  Our agency's goal is 12 months from activation (where we are now) to placement (taking our baby home from the hospital). They average 9 months. So, we'll see. We'll wait. And while we wait, we'll hope!

Wrapping Up Frugal February

We've successfully completed our Frugal February, and, looking at the bank account, felt comfortable putting $750 into the baby's savings account as a result! (We also netted $750 from the Super Bowl Squares, so all in all, Little Laskey made BANK this month!) I was hoping for an even $1,000 from Frugal February, but neglected to take into account the fact that we had a month of double health insurance coverage. My Komen benefits kicked in February 1, and Brian's Target benefits don't end until March 31, so our insurance premium payments were higher than we normally see. 

I think I can accurately say that you learn a lot about your spending habits when you force yourself to NOT spend anything for a month. Our top 3 lessons learned include:

1. We eat out A LOT! Several times per week. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but it's certainly not conducive to saving money. I think our biggest reason for eating out is simply because we can. We're in the habit of it and, especially when we both work a long day, it's so much easier than trying to figure out dinner.

2. Meal planning has been absolutely essential to get through this month. Half the battle when we get home at night is figuring out what to cook for dinner. On the other hand, though, neither of us work well with super rigid plans for dinner pre-mapped for each day. We found a good balance of having a few options each night that could be prepped in just a few minutes. This gave us some flexibility but some structure at the same time. 

3. Keeping busy kept us from spending money. It's amazing how much more money we spend when we have nothing specific to do. We kill time by walking around Clay Terrace or something similar. If we have plans (particularly on weekends), we can save a lot of money. Even if the plans involve spending some money, it's spent more intentionally than if we just "wing it." We spent most of our free weekends painting the nursery, building furniture, and moving things from a storage unit we had rented to a garage in our complex. 

Special Bonus Lesson #4: It's easier to deal with the situation of your debit card being hacked if you know you're not spending money during a particular month. When we got a call asking us to authorize a purchase in New York for about $700, we were 1000% certain it was fraudulent!

With all that in mind, and wanting to not lose our momentum of saving for Little Laskey in March, we're going to continue the Frugal February streak into March...at least when it comes to dining out! I think we have to relax our spending rules in some areas (Brian is very excited to regain his Tuesday afternoon movie outings and we're both in dire need of haircuts!), but we plan on only going out to eat in March when we have a gift card to cover a portion of our bill. Luckily, our friends and family know us well, and we have several gift cards stocked up from Christmas presents, and one really nice one that was my going away gift from Social Health saved for a special occasion. 

Our Life in 11 Pages

We're halfway through Frugal February folks! We'll do a check-in at the end of the month and announce our plans for our own savings moving forward (Money-Saving March, perhaps?) In the meantime, we've been finding ways to keep ourselves busy at home that don't require spending money. Free movie passes were a great excuse for a freebie date night a few days ago, and the free, pre-planned dates that I gave Brian as my "something I made" Christmas gift are waiting for us to use whenever we have a night we need to get out of the house.

This week, we had a chore to do related to the adoption that took up what would have been a mindless evening watching TV. We got to read and sign our home study document! This is the paperwork compiled by the agency that will be presented to the judge to formally say that we are approved to adopt a child in the state of Indiana. It's essentially an 11-page summary of our life, based on the 45 pages of paperwork we completed, our letters of recommendation, and our total of about 24 hours interacting with the agency staff.

If you've never had a home study completed, I'm not sure I can adequately describe to you what it's like to read one written about you. The best I can do is to say that it's an incredibly surreal experience. On the one hand, you get to read quotes from your closest friends on how awesome they think you are. (Note: we didn't get to know who wrote what, but wow! We have some amazingly thoughtful and eloquent friends in Cera, Mark, Macara, Lenny, Doreen, and Marti! You all made us cry!) 

On the other hand, you see all the skeletons you and every member of your family possess, out of the closet, right there on paper for everyone to see. By everyone, of course, I mean us, the social worker, and the judge. So not everyone, but still. It's humbling on so many levels. 

Then of course, there's the legal-ese language that the document uses. Never in my life would I think to describe Brian, myself, our family, or our home the way this document describes all of us. Apparently, we are "adequately educated" about the challenges of raising a child of a heritage different than ours, we were "internally motivated as children to not disappoint our parents," and we would like to "emulate the example set forth by our own parents regarding discipline." I agree with those ideas; I'm just not sure I would have put them in quite the same words!

We ended up having more edits to make to the document than I imagine the average family makes. Most of those edits were the result of my taking a new job right in the middle of this whole process. For example, the home study document has to reflect which of us is providing insurance. We just switched to my insurance coverage through Komen, so that will need to be updated in the document. Once those changes are made, our social worker will submit the document to the judge for approval. Once it is approved, we will have officially done everything in our power in this process. The agency can start to advertise us to birth mothers, and then it's just a waiting game to be matched with the right one.

Frugal February

So we've done a lot of fundraisers in the past year. We did #BeardforBaby, Santa Letters, and are currently in the middle of a Super Bowl Squares fundraiser. (By the way, if you're interested in purchasing squares and a chance to win up to $1,000, be sure to check out https://www.superbowlsquares.org/6z65s. Enter username "username" and password "password" to pick your squares. Also, the more people who play, the bigger the winnings, so please share the link with any friends who may be looking for some squares!)

We've also squirreled away our tax refunds, bonuses and raises, and some money from each paycheck over the last 14 months. Right now, we are only about $5,000 from the total amount we will need to fund the adoption. So, in addition to the Super Bowl Squares fundraiser, we would like to introduce you all to our personal contribution to our savings for the next month:

Frugal February. I got the idea from a Pinterest link called "No Spend November" which was designed to help people save for Christmas shopping.  We've agreed to spend  no money in February outside of necessities (you know, like rent, gas for our cars, etc.). We decided to keep our produce delivery every other week and that buying milk was acceptable, but we plan on making meals with what we have in the house. Other than that, though, no spending.  No dining out, no movies (good thing I organized 10 free date nights as per of Brian's Christmas gift!), no shopping for new clothes, nothing.

We aren't big spenders normally, but we usually don't think twice about going out to eat if we've both had a long day at work, or grabbing a nice sweater at Target if it's on sale, that kind of thing. It's going to be a challenging month; wish us luck!

February...

As the month of February approaches, Stephanie and I sat down and thought about what could we potentially do for our next fundraiser to help bring Little Laskey home.

We have seen a great idea called "Adopt a Block" where you have grid of boxes labeled 1-100 and each person picks a square and donates that amount of money. However, after talking, we both decided that you all have been INCREDIBLY generous so far with your support of our previous fundraisers and we wanted to switch things up a bit.

Well...being the quick thinker that I am, I decided to take the idea of "Adopt a Box", combine it with the time of year, the hype of PowerBall, and make things a little more fun. 

Introducing, "Little Laskey's Super Bowl Squares"! These are just like other Super Bowl squares but with a minor twist. Instead of doing payouts each quarter, or each half, we will do one payout at the end of the game. 50% of the pot will go to the winner, and 50% will stay with us to help bring Little Laskey home. If we fill out grid, that means $1000 to each!

The nice part is there is no paper to fill out! Everything is digital! 

To play, simply visit www.superbowlsquares.org/6z65s and when prompted for a username/password, enter username/password (secure right?). This will allow you to pick the number of squares you'd like.

The score numbers will be filled in 1 hour before the game (unless we haven't sold out, then they will be filled out at kickoff). 

Payment can be made to Stephanie or myself, or online through our GoFundMe www.gofundme.com/LittleLaskey and must be received 1 hour prior to kick off, or your squares will be removed. If you pay online, please put the number of squares you are buying in the comments section.

We really want to see this extend past our spheres, so please share this with all of your friends and family and help get the word out.

Thank you so much for your support and good luck!

Brian

Losing Control

Anytime a family welcomes a child into their home, whether that's through adoption, foster care, assisted reproduction, the "old fashioned way," or any other way that may exist, that family gives up a certain level of control over their lives. Midnight feedings, loss of sleep, planning a sitter before a night out, the list goes on and on. We knew all of this, we anticipated all of this going into this process. Quite frankly, we can't WAIT for all of this! We are so ready to open our home to our child and give up all the control that comes with having a new baby in the house. (The dogs are less sure about giving up control than Brian and I are, but we're working on it...)

I think to a certain extent, we had even come to terms with giving up control of various aspects of our "pregnancy." We will get matched when the right birth mother sees our profile book. We have no idea when that will be. We have no idea how far along into her pregnancy she will be when she firsts learns of us. We may get 8-9 months to cultivate a relationship with her, or we may meet her several hours after the baby is born, when we are signing papers in the hospital. We have little to no control over the timing of this whole process.

We also have very little control over her health and wellness during her pregnancy. This idea took us a little longer to come to terms with. Having a background in science and health, I know how I would take care of my body, and our child's, if I were pregnant. We would be able to control (as much as anyone can, anyway) our prenatal care, ideal birth plan, prenatal checks, etc. When we made the decision to adopt, one thing that we really had to think very carefully about was the level of care that our birth mother will receive during her pregnancy. We needed to be open to certain levels of smoking, drinking, and recreational drug use during her pregnancy. We needed to be open to caring for a child whose birth mother may have not seen a doctor until she showed up at the hospital in labor. One of the most grueling exercises during our home study paperwork was filling in a sort of check list of various medical conditions that our child could have. Which on the list were things we were willing to deal with, and which were "deal breakers" for us? It felt so slimy to do that, as in the back of my head, all I could think was that any parent has to give up control of their child's life, and if we were having this baby, we wouldn't be able to control for these various medical conditions, so why would we get to select this now?

I think we've come around to all of this loss of control. We've had many difficult discussions over the past few months about structuring work around a fall-in-your-lap placement, we've talked about dealing with recreational drug use during pregnancy, and we've discussed the potential for advanced medical care for our child. Just when we thought we had it all figured out, when we though we were controlling as much of the process as possible, life threw us another curveball.

I think many people know that I've accepted a new job and will be starting on Monday. I'm leaving Social Health Association after an amazing three years to work at Susan G. Komen of Central Indiana as their Mission Director. I'm excited for new challenges, but it's been an emotional few weeks transitioning out of an agency that I've grown to love so much.

In most families, when one person is looking at a new job, they may seek advice from their partner, their families, maybe a mentor or two. Throughout the application and interview process with Komen, I did all of those things. Brian and I had many serious conversations about what this change would mean for us as a couple and for our family moving forward. My parents weighed in with their thoughts, and I sought advice from a mentor of mine. When I received the offer from Komen, however, my first call wasn't to my husband, my parents, or my mentor. My first call was to our adoption social worker. I wanted to know how a change in career would impact our home study approval process. It was amazing to me how automatic this was for me to do; I didn't even think twice about clearing this decision with someone who I've only known for about 3 months and who, outside the realm of our adoption, has nothing to do with the decisions we make as a couple. 

But that's the thing, isn't it? Our entire lives right now are INSIDE the realm of the adoption. That means that not only did we give up control of the timing of our child's birth, the prenatal care and substance use of our child's biological mother, and the medical issues that our child could face (not to mention the possibility that we may never know what hereditary risk factors may exist for our child), we also gave up some level of control over our own decision making. It's all part of the process, but it's one of those things I never would have imagined before we began this journey.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Happy (slightly belated) New Year, everyone! It's hard to believe that just over a year ago, we told you all that we'd begun the adventure to build our family through adoption. What a year it's been! We hit a low point a few days before Christmas this year, thinking about how long it's been, and feeling like we had made very little progress. We lamented, "It's been a year and we aren't even being advertised to birth mothers yet!"  Upon further reflection, however, we realized how far we've come in such a short period of time. So, this post will serve as a sort of recap of our adoption journey through 2015, with a little taste of what 2016 may have in store for us.

In November of 2014, we decided to begin the adoption journey. We had both been thinking privately about how right it felt to grow our family this way, but we had not discussed it with one another. Our nephews came to visit for my birthday, and watching Brian interact with them (frosting sugar cookies to look like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) was really what cemented the idea in my mind that it was time to have the discussion. The kids were leaving the next day, so we had planned a dinner out for my birthday after they left. We hugged our sister and brother-in-law goodbye, gave both the kids kisses and promises to see them soon, and left each other with a "there's something I want to talk about at dinner tonight" before heading to work. Over dinner, we talked at length about both of our hopes for our family, and we decided that we were both ready to begin this process.

In late November and early December 2014, we began meeting with adoption agencies. We had decided that we were not going to announce the news to anyone until we found an agency we were comfortable with, one that we knew would someday unite us with our child. We went on several agency interviews (you can review that process in our "Tale of Three Agencies" post), and found one agency that we were comfortable with. It was time to move forward and begin telling people of our plans! We told our families over Christmas. We had ornaments personalized for each of our parents and my grandmother. The ornaments had two snowmen holding a baby snowman. We had someone write "We're Adopting!" on the ornaments, and gave them as gifts. I think my grandma, Nana, had the best response to opening her ornament. Nana was 87 last Christmas, and as she was opening the ornament, I casually asked if she would be able to read what it said without her glasses. She assured me she was fine. Once she got it open, she looked at it and proudly read "We're Adorable!" I assured her that yes, we are adorable, but that wasn't what the ornament said, and she should read it again. 

Once our families knew, it was time to tell the rest of the world. We announced to all of you via Facebook, Twitter, and this blog on New Year's Day 2015. We were overwhelmed by the incredible support, encouragement, and congratulations that you all offered. We truly believe we have the best support system in our family, friends, and coworkers.

We went on one more agency interview in February of 2015. This was ultimately the agency we decided to work with, and we couldn't be happier with how things have gone with them over the past few months. We didn't activate with them right away, since we knew that we didn't want to begin the process until we were financially able to complete it. Neither of us wanted to incur debt through this process. So, we spent the first half of 2015 raising money to pay for the first round of expenses that come with adoption: agency fees, home study fees, advertising fees, etc. Throughout 2015, we cut back financially to throw as much money as we could into our adoption savings as possible. We also fundraised, and through many people's very generous support, eventually had enough stashed away to pay the first round of fees, totaling about $10,000.  My favorite fundraiser during that time was the beard that Brian grew. I couldn't decide how I felt about our friends during that one: so many of you gave so generously, for which I am forever grateful. On the other hand, I can't help but think that at least a few of you took a small amount of pleasure in seeing just how much we HATED that beard and HATED that we needed to keep it around day after day!

In August of 2015, we had enough money set aside to make it through the first round of fees, so we emailed the agency to see what our next steps would be. Things started happening very quickly from that point. We attended our (13 hour!) home study class in mid-September. We spent two weekends filling out the mountain of paperwork that comes along with a home study. We had our home study visit in early October, and got a draft of the profile book that the agency will use to advertise us to birth mothers in mid-October. All of this was happening as we spent a week in Washington, D.C. to celebrate my little brother getting married and a week in Las Vegas to celebrate Brian's 30th birthday. Fall 2015 was a very busy time in our home!  Our home study was approved by the agency committee and their licensing agent in November 2015, and is ready to be sent to the judge after we make a few revisions to it.

We anticipate the judge receiving our home study draft in early February 2016. Once he or she approves it and we have the full placement fee in our savings (another $10,000) we can begin being advertised to birth mothers. We are well on our way to that next funding goal, thanks to very frugal living over the last few months and another successful fundraiser. I sold letters from Santa to children in November and December 2015. That fundraiser was so much fun for me to do, as I had the opportunity to get a peek into so many wonderful people's lives. Over 40 letters went to 5 states and 2 countries, with recipients ranging in age from 6 months to 60+ years. We are trying to time the approval of our home study with our having that final fee in our account. We have one more fundraiser planned for January 2016: football squares for the Super Bowl. Be on the lookout from Brian about how to get involved! Then, in February, we're going on a spending hiatus. We're nicknaming our final push "Frugal February," and other than paying our bills and filling our cars with gas, we plan on spending no other money during the month. The idea spawned from a "No Spend November" challenge that I saw on Pinterest, intended to help people save for holiday shopping without incurring debt. 

With any luck, our profile book will begin to be shown to potential birth mothers sometime in March or early April 2016. From there, our agency's goal is to have us placed with a child within 12 months. Their average is 9 months. We are praying that, by this time next year, one of us will be updating this blog with reflections of how busy 2016 was, while the other rocks our baby to sleep.