Unbelievable and completely amazing

You are not going to believe this.  Today I was walking out of my first appointment for work and our case worker called.  I had hoped she would call back since I had left her a message last night that it was okay to show our profile next week.  I told her in the message to call if she thought of anything else to tell us or if I needed to do anything else.

She started in with saying that she needed the answer right away about showing our profile because she actually showed it to the birth mom this morning. 

Birthmom had a couple maybes but one was a big yes.  That big yes was US!   The caseworker asked me to pull over and we talked for a few minutes.  One of the things birthmom wanted was for the adoptive family to be involved as soon as possible.  Case worker told me we can set up a meeting next week, but for me to call and tell Matt the news.

I was about 35 minutes away from home.  I was a nervous wreck!  I didn't know how I was going to drive the whole way home.  I decided not to call Matt, I wanted to tell him in the person.

Luckily I had no more work appointments today. I drove straight home where Matt was outside mowing.  I threw the car in park and went running across the yard.  He saw I was crying and panicked right away.  He said- What's wrong???

I looked him in the eyes and said-  SHE PICKED US! 

Matt was very excited.  He thought it was so cool.  I was freaking out nervous!!! Am I going to remember how to parent a baby??? Can I do this again??? Can we afford it??? Now we have to have a baby everywhere with us!!!!  I wanted to throw up!

 I went back to work for a while to grab some work to bring home.  We both pretty much knew that I would not be able to get any work done this afternoon.

We picked up B from school together and couldn't wait to tell him.  I wrote a card for him to read.  It said:  You are going to be a  big brother in May!   We had him read it outloud and I was capturing it on video.

After we answered any of B's questions, he still wanted to go to gram's as planned for a slumber party with his cousins.  (what 7 year old wouldn't) 

We continued to meet with lots of our family the rest of the evening to share the news.

I still can't believe it.  not. one. bit. 

We meet with  birth mom on Tuesday.  We are supposed to bring a list of questions.  I'm not exactly sure.  I told the case worker I don't know what to say, what to do....we have never done this before!!!   Any suggestions?

Here are some prayer requests:

1.  Birth mom and baby- that she will continue to take care of baby and make healthy choices
2.  Birth mom- that she will be at peace with any decision she comes to.
3.  Our case worker R, and her days ahead with chemo.
4.  That God will provide for our needs during this time.
5.  Circumstances surrounding baby to go smoothly.

Thank you and I will be back to update!

New case worker

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. 

Terrible News & Prayers Needed

We were nearing the end of the month and I was wondering where our monthly update was.  I don't want to be the girl who calls to bug them about it.  I know that probably not much has changed but these little bits of info are what keep me going! 

Matt received a call on Tuesday from the program director that our case worker has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer.  She had surgery this week and will begin chemo right away.  They are planning on her being out for at least 6 months. 

She is young, upbeat, and wonderful.  I hate this news.  I don't understand it.  I don't her to be "one of us" now. 

They wanted to let us know that they will still show our profile and will have someone filling in for her but this is not what we were concerned with.  We are concerned about her and her life.

As much as I want a baby, I am not in a hurry.  I am okay if this slows things up.  Money stresses me out.  Are we going to be able to afford diapers, childcare, formula, and everything that comes with a baby???  I try to remind myself that most people are never "ready" completely but they find ways to make it work. 

Please pray for her during the dark days ahead.  She needs every single one of them.

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!!

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! 

Agency Updates

I continue to love getting the monthly update from our agency.  As I have mentioned before, they are a small agency so there is not a lot of activity at times.  They don't hustle birthmoms in and out.  Their main purpose is pregnancy counseling so they typically only see a small number of adoptions a year. This does allow for a really personal feeling with any of the staff we have worked with. 

The latest update told us that there were/ is:
2 Hospital calls in December that were placed with families
1 due in May- leaning towards parenting
1 due in June- leaning towards parenting
1 due in July- reviewing her options

So, basically, there is one expecting mom who is thinking of adoption at this time.  I am looking forward to the February update!

Hello out there!

2+ months?  Really??? I know I only have a few people who read this blog and at least one of you have checked in with me for being so quiet.  I've just been busy with work, home, our profile corrections, and LIFE!  I didn't mean to be gone so long, but I didn't have much to say.  I am not a very good writer so I don't have much to go on and on about that is interesting.  A few times something has happened or I've had a conversation with someone and thought to myself, "I should put that on the blog".  Part of our problem too is that we have had major computer problems as well.


But, here I am nonetheless, and will let you know where we stand on our journey!

On a fun and flattering note- I was nominated for a blog award from TTABaby.

I was nominated for the Liebster Blog Award. TTABaby has been waiting for a while and just got her "call" this last week to be a mommy.   It isn't clear where the award started and its not adoption related but its based on love and well... thats what adoption is all about. Liebe means love in German and liebester means "favorite" or dearest."

The Liebster Award is for “little blogs” with fewer than 200 followers and is a way to spread the word about your great finds.

The rules of this award are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who nominated you by linking back to their blog. Thanks TTABaby!  Congratulations on your new little one! I can't wait to read more about the details of your first meeting and all about her.  I am continuing to pray for your new family and the birthparents as well as you begin this journey together.
2. Nominate five other blogs with 200 followers or fewer by posting a comment on their blogs.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Check out what the other up-and-coming blogs have to offer. 

I am such a rule breaker however. I am supposed to nominate 5 blogs.  Tonight, however, I am only going to nominate one.  Heidi at Thinking of a Clever Name is my choice!  She also recently just had her "call" and is preparing for a baby girl due April 1st.  Heidi and her husband have a biological son already and I think this is what drew me to their blog.  Besides TTABaby, the few other blogs I follow have over 200 followers. 

Please take some time to visit these two lovely blogs and wish both of these new mamas a big CONGRATULATIONS!