Here it is- the big annoucement....


Drumroll, please! We got "The Call" yesterday (12/23/08) from our agency. We have a birthmom who picked us and is just about 9 months pregnant! The baby is due on January 29th, 2009 and they are currently in the Miami area of Florida. We are flying down on the 29th to meet with the adoption agency and the birthmom to talk about the process, the degree of openness, etc. And it is a boy. The mom is healthy and we are very fortunate to not have any issues with drugs, or fetal alcohol syndrome.

Chris and I are beyond excited (duh) and have frantically begun to prepare ourselves, and our home. We got the mattress for the crib yesterday, and Chris picked up the video camera so we can record every little moment!

Of course nothing is set in stone until after the baby is born and parental rights have been terminated. But so far, so good- it all feels very good.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

So things are starting... (wait, don't get excited- we just have gotten our first email about a birthmom - it is just another benchmark- no news yet)

So one part of the whole AAI program is that we get emails about possible adoption situations. If we say that we'd like to be considered, then the program director will send our file out for the birth mom to check out. She could easily say she doesn't like us, then we're back at the starting line again. So we got our first email in mid October. It was for a baby due on 12/19- which was a bit shocking. That wouldn't leave us much prep time. Not that we'd say no, but it just kicks things into high gear. Right now I'm still trying to figure out what else we need to do. I need a mattress, to zero in the type of stroller we need, pack and play, etc. I still need to replace the nasty carpet downstairs from construction traffic.

Molly has decided that the kid is coming in March. So, I guess we have about 4 months to go. Big phone interview with one of the agencies tomorrow am. 7:30 am on the West coast just so we can sync up with the Florida agency. Cross your fingers that we win them over and they are just dying to sell team Anderstein to all those birthmoms. :)

In the waiting line....


So Chris and I have FINALLY completed all of the documents needed for the AAI program. The next step is that our program director, Liz, will begin to send in our applications to programs and send out our profiles. Our profile is a 20 page book that we made that has a lot of pictures and talks about who we are and who we hope to be as parents. So, things could move at the speed of light and we could get picked soon, or we wait a few months and hear something then.

I have officially been nesting this summer, and have painted the baby's room a light blue color (Thanks mom for the help), got a glider, a crib and a dresser. Things left to do are curtains, accessories, put up a bookshelf, and to add Molly's paintings. If I hadn't have lost my camera battery, I would post a picture, maybe I'll fix that soon with all of my free time.

We're working on names for both boy and girl. Olivia belongs to our Chinese daughter (if this ever happens) so we have a few ideas that we're kicking around.

Big things I still need to work on are doing more stroller research, finding a pediatrician (maybe someone who has adoption medicine background), finishing reading 100 books about raising an adopted child, and starting to get ready to draw up our wills, etc. We are working on finding a financial advisor to help us get ourselves together. That is if we have any money left after the world's economy tanks. But whatever.

That is it for now!

Good news!

Today we found out we are officially accepted into our agencies African American Infants program. This means we are an inch further down the miles long road to adoption- but it is forward movement!! Next steps- filling out lots of applications for the agencies we are working with. Guess the rest of my summer/ early fall is going to be busy with lots of paperwork.

Oh, and it looks like good old Homeland Security will now be making things more complex for those of us in multiple year long programs (China). www.rumorqueen.com Hey gang- thanks for that!

Updates....

Hey there- how is it going? I am officially done with work- whoo hoo! So, my plan for now- whenever is to get major projects done around the house, getting baby room stuff ready, doing more adoption paperwork, taking some infant education classes (not where my fellow students would be infants, but where I would learn more about how to take care of them), taking guitar lessons, and who knows whatelse. I may sign up to sub for some friends at the high school I used to teach at, and maybe teach some classes along the way.

Adoption process updates.... a bit frustrating. We had someone come out today and meet with us to put a home visit in our homestudy. I thought this would be done already, but it was a skipped step, and our social worker is out of town so we wait and wait. If we are officially accepted in the program, then we can actually select some agencies in the US to work with, and THEN birthparents will start looking at our profile and then we hope to have some good news. We have previewed agency descriptions, and basically selected the ones without the 30 plus days that could go by and then have birthparents take the child back.

In the meantime, I have purchased a crib and dresser, 2 car seats, won a pack and play, painted the room, and the crib bedding. So that feels like some major progress. I am totally fine with that sitting around for awhile before we match with birthparents- since things could move quickly after matching - so we'll be ready to go, and can focus more on dealing with traveling, adoption paperwork, etc.

I've been reading a couple of books, "I'm chocolate, you're vanilla" about raising African American children with a positive self-image, and "Black baby, white hands. A view from the crib". And I suppose I should finally pick up "What to expect- the first year".

So that is the news from our corner... progress, but still waiting. Oh, and China is still moving slow, Quelle Suprise!!

This could have been us...

http://www.king5.com/video/north-index.html?nvid=247707

Today on King 5 news, a story was shared about a pregnant young waitress who was offended to receive a card from a couple that left a card in their restaurant bill that stated they were seeking a child to adopt. The woman was offended that the couple seemed to think that her baby was up for grabs because she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, and was working as a waitress. The film crew taped the woman and her husband at home saying they were horribly offended. The reporter called the numbers on the card, that instructed to ask for Joan at the lawyers office (aka chris and my lawyers' office). The reporter explained that there is no Joan, that is just a code word that alerts the lawyer's office that this is a potential birth mother calling in. The potential adoptive parents were not answering any of the reporter's phone calls.

This so easily could have been us. And I really feel for the couple that is being portrayed as greedy, rude and judgemental people. Our lawyer has told us that those who tell everyone they know- strangers even- have a better chance of finding a birth mother who could match with them. All the stories that we hear that are successful begin with "a friend of a friend of a neighbor who told someone we were adopting met this women who...." it is all about networking and word of mouth. So this couple left a note saying they were looking for a child for this waitress. They probably gave a note to the teenage boy who parked their car, the woman who rang them up at the grocery store that day and the person who bagged their groceries. The note does not say "Hi, I see you are pregnant, and you probably don't want that". The note said, "we are looking to become adoptive parents. If you have any information please contact us at...".

Adopting is hard. And I really feel for anyone who has gone through this heartbreaking process (either creating an adoption plan for your child, or for going through the long roller coaster process of seeking a child to adopt). I wish others knew what it was like to walk in our shoes and see that things may not be what they seem. I hope that the potential adoptive parents speak up and tell their story on the news, but they have been through so much already, I would totally understand why they would not want to go through one more tribulation in this journey. I wish them all the luck in the world.

5


.... is the number of Jolie-Pitt children that have either been conceived or adopted since Chris and I started trying to have children. Sigh.