Home Study Update

Yesterday Joe and I had our first Home Study meeting. I was very nervous because I knew the social worker would ask very personal questions about our families and how we were raised. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Our social worker is very nice and easy to talk to. She also assured us that nothing she heard would keep us from adopting (Yay!). Yesterday we found out that we are second in line to be put in the pool of families birth mothers have to choose from. That means there is only one family between us and officially being on the waiting list to be matched! We still have two more meetings to get through before our Home Study is complete. On 12/2 we take our second trip to Madison. Then, on 12/9 the social worker will come to our house to make sure we can provide a safe environment for a child. Hopefully both those meetings go just as well as the first.

All of the paperwork for the Home Study has been submitted. However, we need to get our fingerprints retaken. Our first batch was rejected by the state’s background check system. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the second time will be the charm. Our parent profile has also been completed, printed, and shipped to the agency. We are also almost done with our adoption education! It has been a very busy month to say the least. Hopefully our hard work will pay off and we will be in the pool of waiting families sometime in January.

Joe and I have also started thinking about readying the baby’s room. I think we are going to start by carpeting and painting the room we plan to use for the nursery. After that’s done we will be able to focus on the more fun aspects of preparing for the new little one. For me, preparing for the baby is what will keep me from going insane during our wait. It’s a lot of fun to look for ideas online. Since we don’t know the sex of the baby we will be matched with, the nursery will be decorated to work for either.

Conquering the Mountain of Paperwork

Joe and I are in the middle of completing the paperwork for our home study. Last week we both had our physicals, complete with blood tests for every disease known to man (Okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit). I am happy to report that all of the tests came back negative. There was a little hang up with my health form (what the doctor needs to complete and send to the agency). It took them a long time to find a health professional who could confirm that Larsen’s Syndrome does not shorten life expectancy. Luckily they were able to get a hold of someone at the Waisman Center in Madison (where my Larsen’s was monitored when I was a child).  

This week we sent in documentation verifying that all four of our cats are up to date on their shots. We also had to send in paperwork to prove our income, insurance coverage, family background, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Wednesday we took a trip to our local law enforcement agency to get fingerprinted. As you can see we have been very busy!

Although the paperwork can be very overwhelming, we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We only have a few more forms that need to be submitted. Also, our parent profile is almost complete (YAY!). Our next step will be working on our 18 credits of adoption education. I just keep reminding myself that after this craziness is over all we will have to do is wait and prepare for the baby. Besides, the paperwork is a small thing when compared to the joys of raising a child.

Weekend Break

This weekend we took a break from the overwhelming mountain of adoption paperwork and went to Oktoberfest with some close friends of ours. While we were there we couldn’t resist making a couple purchases.

We found this very cute painted wood cutout. We were shocked that they actually had one for four cats!

We also made our first baby purchase. I couldn’t pass up this adorable cow hat.  

Moving Forward

Thanks to our wonderful friends and family we have been able to gather more than enough high quality pictures for our parent profile. This means that we were able to move on to the next step sooner than expected. Now we are focused on writing the text portion of our profile. This has proved to be very challenging. As you can imagine, it is not easy trying to find the words to adequately describe your partner, lifestyle, family, and parenting style. 

We would like to take a moment to thank Tina, a photographer friend of ours. She spent an afternoon with us taking a lot of pictures around our home and community. These pictures will work wonderfully within our profile. As you can see from the pictures below, she does very good work. Her website is http://tinaharpold.smugmug.com/

Since we have made good gains in developing our profile, Joe and I have decided to submit our application to the adoption agency. The agency is 'Adoptions of Wisconsin' http://www.adoptionsofwisconsin.com. They have wonderful placement rates, great reviews, and are very prompt and informative when answering our questions. We are excited to start working with them.

Picture Troubles

We are currently in the process of gathering pictures for our parent profile. For those who don’t know, a parent profile is basically a book about Joe and I that will be shown to birth parents. The pictures are the most important part of a profile because it helps birth parents to visualize what our lives are like (hobbies, family, est).

Unfortunately, I have been struggling trying to find pictures. For one, Joe avoids the camera whenever possible. Despite this, I currently have more (useable) pictures of him then I do of myself. This is because most of my pictures are on Facebook and are not high enough quality to use in a profile. I was told to track photos to their original source.  Easier said than done! I lost all of my pictures when my computer crashed and I have no idea where my more recent SD cards are. 

Right now we have about 30 pictures. My goal is to get 40 to 50 so that we have some options on which ones to put in the profile. There are still some pictures I am trying to track down. However, if anyone happens to have pictures of Joe and I, either together or separate, that are fairly recent, please let me know.

Welcome Everyone

I guess I’ll start off by announcing that Joe and I are planning to adopt a baby. I’ve decided to start a blog to keep our friends and family informed on how the adoption journey is going. Adoption is a very complicated process and will include a lot of excitement, stress, and insurmountable joy.  

For many of you this announcement will not come as much of a surprise. I have known for a long time that my genetic disorder would most likely make having a biological child medically risky. After getting some testing results, we’ve decided that adoption is the best way for us to start our family. We are both prepared, and excited, to start the process.

Since formally making the decision to adopt I have been doing a lot of research. I started by talking with agencies, references, and adoption professionals. Although it has been a lot of work, I’ve been having fun with this initial part of the process. Joe and I are actually pretty sure we know which agency (and program) we would like to work with. However, I’m going to hold off posting the name of the agency until we decide for sure. We actually have a phone conference scheduled with them tomorrow night. After the phone call I’m sure we will have a more concrete idea of where we want to go from here. I will, of course, keep this blog updated every step of the way.

Are you ready to join us as we start this wonderful roller-coaster experience? Hang on! Here we go!