The Most Important

Yesterday we bought THIS: (We fondly refer to it as "Baby Heaven".)

(Since I'm the one writing I get to choose the picture.)

For at least five years I've been thinking about what kind of "rocking chair" I'd want for rocking my babies to sleep. I'm a fan of comfort and a traditional rocking chair just never appealed to me. I'm also a fan of tucking my legs up under me when I sit down. For a while I pretty much assumed that we'd be getting some sort of recliner. I hadn't seen anything out there was as comfy as I wanted. But we hadn't really looked at anything seriously until just a few weeks ago when we were approved and officially waiting for baby.

That was when my mom gave us the most appropriate card with a picture of a baby on the front and lots of little baby items surrounding it and a caption that read "What time is it?" Inside she wrote "It's time to get that rocking chair..." I'll admit I let a few tears come out on reading it. Was it really time for me to get my rocking chair? Really? I'm so used to things not turning out how I'd hoped and for waiting longer than I'd ever thought possible. Somehow my mom knew the perfect time to help me stay excited and feel like things were going to be real with this baby thing.

When her first grandchild came along Mom started a tradition where she helps buy the rocking chair for the mommy-to-be. I'm glad to say that I'm no exception.
Zack and I went shopping a few days later, walked into the store and literally walked straight to the perfect rocker. It's roomy enough to tuck my feet under myself, it reclines, it's cushy and comfy and it's ridiculous how well it matches the crib and furniture we picked out 5 years ago. We might have walked away with a rocker that night except for the fact that they had none in-stock. So we waited until there was a sale and then we ordered it.

Our rocker and ottoman came last night and we set it up in the baby's room. As I sat down and was enjoying it's heavenly comfy-ness, Zack said "This is probably the most important piece of furniture we'll ever own."

I don't know if it will be the most important piece of furniture that we'll ever own, but I love knowing it was given to us by one of the most important people in my life. Thanks, Mom!

We're Approved!!!!!!!

And we're online!!!!!!

https://www.beta.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/22364754/ourMessage.jsf

Any second, day, week, month, or year now.....

As I said to Zack, "It's like we're pregnant.....and we have no idea when we're due!"

Caseworker Meeting

On January 21, 2009 Carrie and I left work early to go visit with our caseworker. The purpose of the meeting was to make sure that everything was in order before we are approved. The meeting was very nice. Kate gave us a lot of suggestions on our birth parent letter, the "get to know us" section, and a couple other minor things we needed to fix. The only thing that would have made the meeting better would have been to have it like a month earlier, so we could have used the time to tweak our letter and such. All in all though it was good.
Since then we've changed nearly all of the things Kate suggested. Carrie practically rewrote the entire birth parent letter after we had a little mini-revelation about the format we wanted. It has been a week since we sent the revised letter to Kate, and we haven't heard back from her yet. She's probably trying to work up the courage to tell us that this letter won't do, either ;o). Actually, we're sure she is working on wrapping up all of the information and writing the final home study for us to be approved, which might even happen this week! We'll be sure to send you all a link to our profile when we are online. Then you'll all be able to see why it generally takes a year or two to adopt (because there are like 60 couples out there exactly like us!)
One last point I want to mention; Earlier I said that we had changed NEARLY all that Kate suggested. I could say the same about the changes suggested by a friend. They were all good suggestions However, Carrie and I have decided to leave some things in the letter that may not be what you'd expect an average letter to say, but that show our personalities...for better or for worse ;o) We just want to be ourselves in our letter, and we think our future birth mother would want it that way :o)

A Little Advice...

No, not advice from me. I have no advice on babies or infants and such like that. I do have advice on how to survive years without kids. It's very good advice. You should ask sometime. But only if you need it.

I'm digressing.

I need advice, or rather a list on what you need for a baby. Not clothes. Clothes I know. Clothes we have. What I want to know is, what do you need the first, let's say, 72 hours after you bring a newborn home? And don't say "diapers". I have it on good authority that babies don't poop until they're about 6 months old. Right? Right? right? Not right? :(

Zack and I have spent the past, oh, 4 or 5 years or so getting ready for baby. We have a nursery, we have a crib and we are now the proud owners of a car seat and stroller. They've even been tested! (Thanks Emma and Beth!) We have clothes. We have many many clothes. (Clothes have been good therapy for us.) We have a dresser full of said clothes. I call it my "Hope Chest".

Here's a nice shot of my hope chest:

Here's the crib full of stuffed animals. You can never have too many, right? (How will the kids play "Smother" when they get older if you don't have a ton of stuffed animals?)

Here's our sweet new stroller. Beth-tested, ZaCarrie approved. It's in the spot where the rocker will go someday.

And here's the car seat and bookshelf. We even have some cool childrens books about adoption!

So what I'm saying is we've got lots of things. And we feel as prepared as you can be when you might have a baby next month or you might have a baby in two years. But we're not prepared for the day to day stuff. Sure babies need clothes, but what kind of clothes? What about bath stuff? Food, diapers, blankets, diaper bag, etc. What do you really need? I think I'm starting to panic just a little because as of this weekend, we could have a baby at any time. Literally, ANY TIME. (But nobody's really expecting that...)

So I'm asking all you experts out there, what do you NEED when you first bring that baby home?

Is it True?!?!?

It's True!
That's right, we are signed up and RSVP'd for our adoption classes! They are just a week away! Woohoo!
I never thought I'd be so excited for 20 hours of class in a two day period. 9-9 on Friday and 9-5 on Saturday. There will be caseworkers and birthparents and all sorts of people there ready to help us be the best adoptive parents we can be. I'm most excited to hear birthparents tell their stories and talk about how they feel. I've read a couple of birthmother blogs and I always come away from them thinking about something I'd never considered before. I want to better understand the emotions and feelings of a birthparent so that I can be appropriately empathetic rather than ignorantly offensive.
Next Wednesday we have another visit with our caseworker as well. We'll be going over our final documentation and making sure everything is in order to go online as soon as we finish the class. Again I say, Woohoo!

Actively Inactive

We have a confession. And by a confession I mean we have 3 confessions. We haven't been quite as inactive as you may have thought. We just wanted to find out which of you were true followers of the blog by not writing for 3 or 4 weeks. So if you are reading this, Congratulations! You passed! (yes, even those of you who have notifications e-mailed to you).
As a reward, you get the confessions AND the information! Not to mention more exclamation points than I've ever used in such a small amount of writing!!!!!

Confession #1: Michigan
In November (exactly one month after feeling prompted to adopt) we received an e-mail about a sick little baby boy in Michigan who needed a family willing to adopt him. Carrie and I haven't put any restrictions on our adoption (e.g. looking for a healthy baby boy with big ears and brown hair with at least two cowlicks...no tiny ears accepted may consider single cowlick children) because we want a chance to be led by the spirit for any possible adoption. Even if it is a hard one like a baby boy who might only have a year to live.
We didn't have much time to decide, but thanks to instant messaging and prayer we decided to do what was necessary to get a profile sent to the birthparents. I took the rest of the day off and as I was driving home I did a little soul searching. Was I really ready to adopt? Was I really willing to adopt a sick little boy? The answer to both came back as a resounding yes (though, really, who is ever READY?). I got home, started a fire, and began writing a birthparent letter and putting together a picture collage (which later morphed into the title block for our blog!). We sent it off and never heard anything back, but I was especially grateful for the whole rubber-meets-the-road thought process that has helped me ever since to truly know that we can do this no matter how daunting it seems at times.

Confession #2: Provo
We got another e-mail in December about another special needs baby boy. Carrie and I both spent the rest of the day learning about the details of his condition and what would be required of us to care for him. We wrote another birthparent letter, but when we finished it, neither of us felt right about sending it. The birthparent had a list of "requirements" and let me tell you, we were dead ringers for every single point, but it just didn't feel right.

Confession #3: Ogden
Carrie called to tell the agency that we wouldn't be submitting any paperwork for the Provo baby and the agency director told her about a little girl in Ogden who was just a few days old and had been born to a mother who had done crack the entire pregnancy. Our hearts went out to this little girl who had already overcome incredible odds, including being stillborn. On Christmas Eve I left work early (in spite of being in the middle of some really cool experiments!) to pick Carrie up and drive to McKay Dee Hospital to visit with the little baby girl with the big question mark for a future. For about an hour and a half we visited with the baby, her social worker, her caseworker, her nurse, and her doctor. We even took turns holding the precious miracle baby. We left hopeful that our prayers would be answered and we'd be blessed with a real Christmas miracle. We prayed that day and night, and spent a long time talking about all sorts of related topics. The result of all that talking and praying was that Carrie and I grew even more united in our quest to adopt. Amidst the joys of Christmas morning was the sorrow of calling the caseworker to tell her that the precious baby girl who had smiled for us the day before must be someone else's miracle. I hope someday to know the end of this story, because at the time it seemed perfect for us. We are confident though that she was another family's little girl, and out there somewhere, is our own little miracle.

If any of you find him or her, please have the birthparents contact us :o)

Home Visit

I just realized that neither Carrie nor I took the opportunity to donate an update about our home visit to the blogosphere.

Our home visit was scheduled for the evening of December 1. I was worried about it just because I didn't really know what to expect. As it turns out, I should have been about as worried as my boss (who was also my boss at SHPI, but that's a story unrelated to adoption). When I explained to him that our caseworker would come over and look through the house to make sure it looked like a place that would be okay to raise kids in, he just started laughing. He has been to our house and has known Carrie and I for a few years now, so he knew that we keep things more or less in order and that all of our house decisions have revolved around having kids someday. Between laughs and through tears he'd manage to peep out something about hiding some dangerous item, or he'd mimic a caseworker in horror as she looked through our home.

So yeah, the tour went remarkably well and the caseworker had nothing but positive comments. I guess I, like Mark, shouldn't have been surprised. I'm sure that it helped that we found out Carrie was pregnant about a week after moving in to our house, but we have all of our cleaning supplies and such high and out of the way. We have a nursery with all the fixings including a fancy paint job. We're clean enough and orderly enough to have things look nice without being so OCD that we aren't capable of having a mess around. We also have two dogs, so we have to keep things away from their reach. Not to mention that we both love our house and we like to do projects and make our own decorations and such.

After the tour we sat down and looked through some of the documents we've submitted. Our diligent caseworker made sure that we understood the impact of some of our answers and made sure that we understood as well as we could what it meant to have a baby around.

Her: "They smile and are cute all the time and they never make messes or add any financial burden. Are you sure you're ready to accept a simply beautiful bundle of joy into your lives?"
Us: "Sure, that sounds easy enough"

But seriously, She did a very good job and I'm glad they ask the kinds of questions she did. It's always good to get someone else's viewpoint and insight. As long as you are never ignorant enough to think you know everything, you just might learn something useful.