In between appointments at work I checked my voice mail. I didn't see I had missed call, so wasn't sure who the message was from. As I listened to the message it was our new temporary case worker. As she began to introduce herself, I assumed she was calling to let us know she would be covering R's medical leave and maybe ask us to come in so she could meet us.
She actually started saying that she was going to show profiles next week (this must have been a new mom because we did not have one ready for profiles on our past updates. Remember we did not have our March update however) and wanted to know if we were open to her showing ours. Since she was new, she was not completely familiar with all of our preferences.
It took a few hours of phone tag to finally get in touch with her.
She told me the scenario pretty much everything matched up with what we were open to. Without sharing too much of the baby's story- the baby has had limited prenatal care. This was something that Matt and I had different opinions on. Birth mom had an ultrasound last week and the doctor said everything looked great and that the baby looked healthy with no concerns. That was very reassuring.
Matt was working an overtime shift and it took me a few hours to get a hold of him at work to go over the details. We talked for just a few minutes and agreed to go for it!
I called A back and left her a message that we were okay for her to show our profile.
As we laid in bed that night, I went over the scenario again with Matt on my little note bad I wrote the details on. We were both comfortable with it. I am both scared and excited- but it is nice to know that our profile is going to be shown.
Showing posts with label profile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label profile. Show all posts
Friday, March 30, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Green Light for Printing
On February 2nd we got an email from our counselor that everything was a "go" to print the profile! I was so excited. Once we have our profile and questionnaire in the agency's hands, we are "officially waiting". This was such a big deal to me. I know that once we are officially waiting, there is nothing to do but wait- I just wanted to get there so bad!!!
When I got the email, I called Matt (and woke him up since he works nights) and asked him if he wanted to go pick up B early from school and go get them printed straight away (of course this is what I wanted to do). B was supposed to wrestle that night in a dual, so we decided that we didn't need to go right that minute. We could go the next night when we have more time and would still be just fine. (Big sigh from impatient Amber)
Even though everyone around was in a state of panic due to the large snow storm that was supposed to be coming in, we were able to make it to get everything done before the weather started.
We left after B got out of school and headed to the agency to pick up the zip drive. Next up was a trip to Kinkos to print. I had already called ahead to ask about options and price so I thought I knew what we were doing. The Kinkos people were so helpful with walking me through the options and reviewing the order. When it came down to the paper, they printed me four samples (that really all looked the same) Matt of course said they all looked the same and that any of them were fine. (thankyousomuchhelpfulhusband) I picked one that was second best of the four and the order was sent to print.
We went for a little dinner across the street and took our time, arriving back about 15 minutes before the scheduled pick up time. As I walked in the gal was just putting our books in a sack.
We needed four copies with black back, clear cover, and spiral binding.
I ordered one copy for us to keep and to share with family and friends who know about our plans. One copy will go with each of the three counselors to their office and the last copy will stay at the main office.
Hooray!!
When I got the email, I called Matt (and woke him up since he works nights) and asked him if he wanted to go pick up B early from school and go get them printed straight away (of course this is what I wanted to do). B was supposed to wrestle that night in a dual, so we decided that we didn't need to go right that minute. We could go the next night when we have more time and would still be just fine. (Big sigh from impatient Amber)
Even though everyone around was in a state of panic due to the large snow storm that was supposed to be coming in, we were able to make it to get everything done before the weather started.
We left after B got out of school and headed to the agency to pick up the zip drive. Next up was a trip to Kinkos to print. I had already called ahead to ask about options and price so I thought I knew what we were doing. The Kinkos people were so helpful with walking me through the options and reviewing the order. When it came down to the paper, they printed me four samples (that really all looked the same) Matt of course said they all looked the same and that any of them were fine. (thankyousomuchhelpfulhusband) I picked one that was second best of the four and the order was sent to print.
We went for a little dinner across the street and took our time, arriving back about 15 minutes before the scheduled pick up time. As I walked in the gal was just putting our books in a sack.
We needed four copies with black back, clear cover, and spiral binding.
I ordered one copy for us to keep and to share with family and friends who know about our plans. One copy will go with each of the three counselors to their office and the last copy will stay at the main office.
Hooray!!
Profile Stress
Our profile has been printed! This was such a relief to me to finally be able to do this. The last few months were so stressful for me as I waited and waited. We had a very dear friend who does amazing work design our profile. Our friend has a family and a full time job that requires her to travel frequently. It was hard for me not to be in control during this situation. My original goal was to have our profile done by the end of December and then it was the end of January. We ended it up with it done the beginning of February. Not too bad. There were days that it was killing me that I couldn't speed things up. We first sent the text only in to the agency and had to wait for the 4 counselors to review/ edit it. Then when our friend had the first draft done with the layout, we had to wait again for all 4 to review it. Once they sent us the edits, I had to wait again for our friend to make these changes. Oh how I wished I was able to get in there and do it myself. Our feedback was good that they gave us on the profile. We didn't ever have to change any photos etc. The main things were to add captions to the photos and a few grammatical errors. Another one of the major issues we had when trying to send in the completed layouts for review was that each page had to be emailed by itself due to being such large file sizes. Then, it took about 3 days each time of trying because we kept getting "delivery system failure". Finally, we ended up having to drive the files on the zip drive to the office and personally deliver it due to the email problem! Frustrating!!
I appreciate my friend creating such a beautiful project for us more than I will be able to express to her. I started crying when I tried to tell her thank you when I picked up the zip drive from her house. It just means so much that she would do something so important for us in the middle of her own busy life. Thank you CDPlam!
I appreciate my friend creating such a beautiful project for us more than I will be able to express to her. I started crying when I tried to tell her thank you when I picked up the zip drive from her house. It just means so much that she would do something so important for us in the middle of her own busy life. Thank you CDPlam!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Odds and Ends
It's late and I should be in bed. I am on my third pack of starburst candy from our son's Halloween candy bowl and trying to wrap up a few odds and ends. I feel like I have so much going on right now in our life and that it is going by so fast. I'm trying to organize a holiday boutique for 10 vendors this next week, pick out and order Christmas cards, catch up at work,organize my bazillion photos saved on my computer hard drive and most importantly- finish our profile.
Writing our profile has been so difficult for us! We are finding it hard to sit down and write all of that stuff about ourselves while not making it sound too cheesy! I had a goal of having it done by December 1st and I really don't see that happening. Matt and I had Friday off together and worked so hard the last two days trying to finish up the questions. Tonight we pretty much finished them all and are almost ready to send in our first {very rough} draft. That was way exciting for me and I did a little happy dance to the Michael Jackson video that was on VH1 at the time.
I'm overwhelmed with thinking about getting the pictures picked out and finalizing our profile to look "pretty". I have to depend on a few friends for help with these final pieces and so that means fitting things in with their schedule as well.
I haven't been as good at writing here as I want to be. I think of things almost every day that I want to include but I don't have the energy to come in and write them. They are little things that I run into- someone who shares something encouraging, someone who says something insulting or ignorant, or someone I meet that has an adoption story for me etc. I hope to get better with these once I am finally "waiting" and don't really have anything else to be doing.
In other news, I received an email a couple of weeks ago from our adoption counselor. One of them was an article about the "stages of waiting". It was very interesting and even though we are not officially waiting yet, I know the feelings it discusses to be true. They range from relief, joy, outrage, guilt, doubt, all the way up to exhilaration. I know I was feeling relief tonight as we have our first stage of our profile nearly completed.
The second (and way exciting) piece of news from her was our Agency Update. These are exciting to get but as you look at it I feel like there are so many waiting families and currently not a lot of babies on the way. I was excited to get this but know I will be discouraged after waiting months and months and not being selected. Recently, there were twins and a single placed with an adoptive family in August and currently 3 receiving pregnancy counseling with two of them reviewing their options (considering an adoption plan) and due in January and May.
Writing our profile has been so difficult for us! We are finding it hard to sit down and write all of that stuff about ourselves while not making it sound too cheesy! I had a goal of having it done by December 1st and I really don't see that happening. Matt and I had Friday off together and worked so hard the last two days trying to finish up the questions. Tonight we pretty much finished them all and are almost ready to send in our first {very rough} draft. That was way exciting for me and I did a little happy dance to the Michael Jackson video that was on VH1 at the time.
I'm overwhelmed with thinking about getting the pictures picked out and finalizing our profile to look "pretty". I have to depend on a few friends for help with these final pieces and so that means fitting things in with their schedule as well.
I haven't been as good at writing here as I want to be. I think of things almost every day that I want to include but I don't have the energy to come in and write them. They are little things that I run into- someone who shares something encouraging, someone who says something insulting or ignorant, or someone I meet that has an adoption story for me etc. I hope to get better with these once I am finally "waiting" and don't really have anything else to be doing.
In other news, I received an email a couple of weeks ago from our adoption counselor. One of them was an article about the "stages of waiting". It was very interesting and even though we are not officially waiting yet, I know the feelings it discusses to be true. They range from relief, joy, outrage, guilt, doubt, all the way up to exhilaration. I know I was feeling relief tonight as we have our first stage of our profile nearly completed.
The second (and way exciting) piece of news from her was our Agency Update. These are exciting to get but as you look at it I feel like there are so many waiting families and currently not a lot of babies on the way. I was excited to get this but know I will be discouraged after waiting months and months and not being selected. Recently, there were twins and a single placed with an adoptive family in August and currently 3 receiving pregnancy counseling with two of them reviewing their options (considering an adoption plan) and due in January and May.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Profile
The packet we got on our profile instructions is pretty descriptive. I am happy with that, and feel a little more at ease with what we need to include in it. We pretty much have set sections & questions that we must answer so each family has the same information.
We will have 4 copies made and they will be on 8.5 x 11 paper with a spiral binding. As I took some time this weekend to look over the internet, I am completely frazzled on just exactly HOW I am going to create this profile. I am no longer worried about the content, but have NO IDEA how to do the "digital scrapbooking" type work for it. I don't know what design program to use or how to put it together! The agency did have some names we could use if we want to hire someone to do it for around $250 :(
The profile pages will include:
Cover page
Birth parent letter
As a couple
Wife's page & husband about wife
Husband's page & wife about husband
Our family (2 pages) including : What does family mean to us? What activities do we enjoy as a family? What contact do we have with our extended family? What part do pets play in our family?
Our Child- B will write his own letter here
Our home and neighborhood
Choosing adoption (3 pages) including: Why are we pursuing adoption? What will adding a child mean to our lives? What are the parenting and daycare plans for the child? Describe the perfect adoption experience. Why are we choosing an open adoption? What worries us about open adoption? How will you tell your child about his/ her adoption plan? When will you being to tell your child? If the birthparents have already named the baby, are we comfortable keeping that name? Have we already chosen a name that is important to us? Would we like to name the child jointly with the birthparents? Does our lifestyle allow us to travel to visit birthparents in Nebraska? Do we hope to have birthparents visit our home on an ongoing basis? Do we hope to visit the birthparents in their home on an ongoing basis? Will we welcome relationships with the birthparents extended families? Will we share the child's milestones and significant accomplishments over the years with the birthparents? Do we plan to include special events, recitals, ball games, birthdays, and graduations with the birth family? Do we hope for and support our child having an ongoing relationship with the birthparents over the years?
Closing
We will have 4 copies made and they will be on 8.5 x 11 paper with a spiral binding. As I took some time this weekend to look over the internet, I am completely frazzled on just exactly HOW I am going to create this profile. I am no longer worried about the content, but have NO IDEA how to do the "digital scrapbooking" type work for it. I don't know what design program to use or how to put it together! The agency did have some names we could use if we want to hire someone to do it for around $250 :(
The profile pages will include:
Cover page
Birth parent letter
As a couple
Wife's page & husband about wife
Husband's page & wife about husband
Our family (2 pages) including : What does family mean to us? What activities do we enjoy as a family? What contact do we have with our extended family? What part do pets play in our family?
Our Child- B will write his own letter here
Our home and neighborhood
Choosing adoption (3 pages) including: Why are we pursuing adoption? What will adding a child mean to our lives? What are the parenting and daycare plans for the child? Describe the perfect adoption experience. Why are we choosing an open adoption? What worries us about open adoption? How will you tell your child about his/ her adoption plan? When will you being to tell your child? If the birthparents have already named the baby, are we comfortable keeping that name? Have we already chosen a name that is important to us? Would we like to name the child jointly with the birthparents? Does our lifestyle allow us to travel to visit birthparents in Nebraska? Do we hope to have birthparents visit our home on an ongoing basis? Do we hope to visit the birthparents in their home on an ongoing basis? Will we welcome relationships with the birthparents extended families? Will we share the child's milestones and significant accomplishments over the years with the birthparents? Do we plan to include special events, recitals, ball games, birthdays, and graduations with the birth family? Do we hope for and support our child having an ongoing relationship with the birthparents over the years?
Closing
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Profile Pressure
I've been totally stressing (I stress easily!) over the profile. It is on my mind each day. First, I can't wait until our training on Thursday/ Friday because we get the "format" of what we are supposed to include. Each family is to use the same format to keep them at a level playing field, but there is ways you can make it personal and to show your family in a true light they have said. I have been looking through several resources and guides online looking for things I like, tips, ideas etc.
Second, I am stressing because our counselor is with us for the 4 days of group training and the 5 hours each for the homestudy inteviews. How is this supposed to be enough time for her to get to know "who we really are"??? How are we supposed to make a small book filled with words and some pictures reflect who we are??? They keep mentioning how the birthmoms find something special in a profile that sticks out to them and that the matches almost seem "magical" but really???? I feel like we have so much to offer and I don't know how to express it all in a few pages. What pictures do I include? What do we write? What is important for us to share, what makes us different? We did take a few family photos this weekend while at my sisters that I am hoping we can use.
I hope that after training and we get the format and talk more about profiles specifically, I will feel more at ease.
Second, I am stressing because our counselor is with us for the 4 days of group training and the 5 hours each for the homestudy inteviews. How is this supposed to be enough time for her to get to know "who we really are"??? How are we supposed to make a small book filled with words and some pictures reflect who we are??? They keep mentioning how the birthmoms find something special in a profile that sticks out to them and that the matches almost seem "magical" but really???? I feel like we have so much to offer and I don't know how to express it all in a few pages. What pictures do I include? What do we write? What is important for us to share, what makes us different? We did take a few family photos this weekend while at my sisters that I am hoping we can use.
I hope that after training and we get the format and talk more about profiles specifically, I will feel more at ease.
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