Here's the proof: https://www.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/17159216/ourMessage.jsf
I'd love to have feedback on our letter and website. There are a few typos in the letter. How come James and I both missed those during our proofreading sessions? (Maybe because it was 10:00 at night and we were in a hurry?)
I've been waiting to write about our adoption journey because I wanted to see how it would all play out. Sometimes during the past year I wondered if it would happen at all. OK, I knew it would happen eventually, but I sure didn't have a timeline of any kind.
Shortly before Christmas time in 2007, we felt like we needed to get moving with adding to our family. Sariah was almost 18 months old, and even though she was still far from sleeping through the night, I was actually able to think about the possibility of another baby with happy anticipation instead of dread. We decided that after the holidays, we'd get started on our paperwork. In January of 2008, we quickly filled out our initial application. In February, we attend the required orientation meeting at LDS Family Service. In March we had our intake. In April we went to the weekend adoption education classes that were also offered. In May we did... nothing. Somehow that mile-high moutain of paperwork just sat there. Oh, I dabbled at it here and there. I filled out most of the "easy" forms. But then I got caught up in preparing for the BYU Organ Workshop that summer and adoption took a back burner. Once the workshop was over, I just couldn't get into paperwork.
There were a lot of reasons. We were busy! We now had two children to parent, demanding church callings, James was insanely busy at work as usual. James was job-hunting and we were nervous about having a baby and new job happen all at once. We didn't have any strong feelings that a baby was on its way NOW. We didn't even feel absolutely certain that LDS Family Services was where our next child would come from. We considered other options, but never got very far with anything. We even considered further fertility treatment when we had some leftover FSA money at the end of the year. But that didn't feel right either. All we knew is that we should finish this paperwork because we ought to be doing something, and we'd already paid $1000. But all of those shoulds and oughts weren't particularly motivating either.
Mostly, I've had a lot of "stuff" to work through. This past year has been one of great progression in wading through what has remained of my infertility grief. Infertility isn't something you just "get over" once you have children. When you adopt after infertility, you will still be different. You will be on a path that diverges greatly from that of most of the other mothers you know, and you have to learn to live in that fertile world. Being an adoptive parent requires a lot of self-confidence and spunk as you grapple with defending your experiences in public and in private. I've been surprised by some of the thoughts and emotions that have surfaced and resurfaced over the years, and I knew I needed to deal with those head-on in order to actively pursue another adoption with the level of hope and joy that it requires. I wanted to be as excited to adopt this next child as I was the first two! I didn't want adoption to be just the default option, I wanted it to be our chosen path.
Turning 39 was a big deal as it hit home that pregnancy and birth will never be my experience in this life. I love my kids with all my heart, and I treasure the miraculous journeys we had to get each one of them. Yet being a woman, it's hard to not want to experience those womanly things. Now, some might say, but you could still get pregnant, you never know. Of course you never know. But I simply cannot dwell on that possibility, no matter how remote. I needed to close that door once and for all, and not have it be anywhere in my consciousness. I was not at that point a year ago. I am much, much closer to that point now. I can now say, "Adoption is our path, our only path, it's a wonderful path, and I'm excited to be on that path!" I also had to know, for certain, whether or not I would induce lactation and breastfeed our next baby. I had to work through my feelings about nursing and be able to embrace one choice or the other before I could really think concretely about another baby.
I can identify several distinct points along the way where significant healing and progress took place for me. One was back in November, the other was just after my birthday in March. Both events were catalysts for me to dig in deeper, deal with the realities, and heal.
Even despite the great healing that I've experienced, life was still busy. My church calling in the stake Primary has literally been one thing after another the past five months. I've had numerous projects of my own choosing and by assignment that have piled up. Again, adoption has been so easy to keep on the back burner, especially since we've still had no huge promptings about any particular course of action.
This has been a marathon! At times I've sprinted, getting gung-ho for a few days or weeks and getting some things done. A doctor appointment here, fingerprints there. Finally, toward the end, we needed a bit of a push from a coach. Enter our caseworker! She was our fourth caseworker. (We never even met the third one.) One day, completely out of the blue, she called and introduced herself. And asked if she could come at 5:00 pm that day to do our home visit. (It was 3:00 pm when she called, and our house was a total disaster.) Of course I told her no. But having her right there on the phone, it was really easy to schedule our next interviews. Within a week we were sitting in her office talking all about ourselves. I was also relieved that I could talk with her about my struggles and progress with infertility and receive no judgment, only encouragement and understanding. I think it really helped to have a social worker validate what I'd been feeling, like she was saying, "It's OK, you're normal, and you're still a good candidate to adopt." Then she scheduled our home visit, which went well.
Now, all we had left to do was write our letter and create our website. Again, life was getting in the way. I was writing lifebooks for both children and trying to get them done by the end of May. I was teaching at the organ workshop again. Adoption paperwork just wasn't what I felt like dealing with!
But our caseworker came to the rescue again. I don't know if she knows just how much we've needed her little "pushes" to get us over the finish line, but if it wasn't for her, I am certain we would not be at this point. She's a saint, and I think most caseworkers would probably just leave the couple alone in our case and figure they weren't ready. She called and said, "Hey, I'm getting ready to go out of town, and if you want to be approved before that happens, you need to have your website done so I can present it to our committee this Thursday." That left us about five days. I took the bait! A deadline! Yes, a deadline was just what I knew we needed!
So I set aside my other projects and forced myself (and James, too) to get this letter done. I made myself sit down at the computer, prayed and prayed for inspiration, and tried to write. How inspired is it? I'm not sure. It's not as creative as our other letters have been. I love writing, and I feel like this one is more straightforward and less eloquent. Who knows, maybe we'll get a birth mother who needs that. Or, more likely, we can redo the letter in a few months after we've been able to let it sit for awhile.
But anyway, it was not a particularly fun process. I have to admit I spent a lot of time staring at the computer frustrated that I couldn't think of anything really cool to say and feeling resentful that we had to do it at all. But knowing if I could just push through this last thing, we'd be DONE. And we are! We are DONE!
I'm excited now! OK, I know really, we aren't done. The agency wants us to create a paper profile and make just a few copies for birth moms who don't want to use the internet. And now comes the finding. I know realistically we can't just sit and wait for this to happen. But at least we crossed the paperwork finish line, and now we can really start thinking about this new little person and who they might be.
I'd love to have feedback on our letter and website. There are a few typos in the letter. How come James and I both missed those during our proofreading sessions? (Maybe because it was 10:00 at night and we were in a hurry?)
I've been waiting to write about our adoption journey because I wanted to see how it would all play out. Sometimes during the past year I wondered if it would happen at all. OK, I knew it would happen eventually, but I sure didn't have a timeline of any kind.
Shortly before Christmas time in 2007, we felt like we needed to get moving with adding to our family. Sariah was almost 18 months old, and even though she was still far from sleeping through the night, I was actually able to think about the possibility of another baby with happy anticipation instead of dread. We decided that after the holidays, we'd get started on our paperwork. In January of 2008, we quickly filled out our initial application. In February, we attend the required orientation meeting at LDS Family Service. In March we had our intake. In April we went to the weekend adoption education classes that were also offered. In May we did... nothing. Somehow that mile-high moutain of paperwork just sat there. Oh, I dabbled at it here and there. I filled out most of the "easy" forms. But then I got caught up in preparing for the BYU Organ Workshop that summer and adoption took a back burner. Once the workshop was over, I just couldn't get into paperwork.
There were a lot of reasons. We were busy! We now had two children to parent, demanding church callings, James was insanely busy at work as usual. James was job-hunting and we were nervous about having a baby and new job happen all at once. We didn't have any strong feelings that a baby was on its way NOW. We didn't even feel absolutely certain that LDS Family Services was where our next child would come from. We considered other options, but never got very far with anything. We even considered further fertility treatment when we had some leftover FSA money at the end of the year. But that didn't feel right either. All we knew is that we should finish this paperwork because we ought to be doing something, and we'd already paid $1000. But all of those shoulds and oughts weren't particularly motivating either.
Mostly, I've had a lot of "stuff" to work through. This past year has been one of great progression in wading through what has remained of my infertility grief. Infertility isn't something you just "get over" once you have children. When you adopt after infertility, you will still be different. You will be on a path that diverges greatly from that of most of the other mothers you know, and you have to learn to live in that fertile world. Being an adoptive parent requires a lot of self-confidence and spunk as you grapple with defending your experiences in public and in private. I've been surprised by some of the thoughts and emotions that have surfaced and resurfaced over the years, and I knew I needed to deal with those head-on in order to actively pursue another adoption with the level of hope and joy that it requires. I wanted to be as excited to adopt this next child as I was the first two! I didn't want adoption to be just the default option, I wanted it to be our chosen path.
Turning 39 was a big deal as it hit home that pregnancy and birth will never be my experience in this life. I love my kids with all my heart, and I treasure the miraculous journeys we had to get each one of them. Yet being a woman, it's hard to not want to experience those womanly things. Now, some might say, but you could still get pregnant, you never know. Of course you never know. But I simply cannot dwell on that possibility, no matter how remote. I needed to close that door once and for all, and not have it be anywhere in my consciousness. I was not at that point a year ago. I am much, much closer to that point now. I can now say, "Adoption is our path, our only path, it's a wonderful path, and I'm excited to be on that path!" I also had to know, for certain, whether or not I would induce lactation and breastfeed our next baby. I had to work through my feelings about nursing and be able to embrace one choice or the other before I could really think concretely about another baby.
I can identify several distinct points along the way where significant healing and progress took place for me. One was back in November, the other was just after my birthday in March. Both events were catalysts for me to dig in deeper, deal with the realities, and heal.
Even despite the great healing that I've experienced, life was still busy. My church calling in the stake Primary has literally been one thing after another the past five months. I've had numerous projects of my own choosing and by assignment that have piled up. Again, adoption has been so easy to keep on the back burner, especially since we've still had no huge promptings about any particular course of action.
This has been a marathon! At times I've sprinted, getting gung-ho for a few days or weeks and getting some things done. A doctor appointment here, fingerprints there. Finally, toward the end, we needed a bit of a push from a coach. Enter our caseworker! She was our fourth caseworker. (We never even met the third one.) One day, completely out of the blue, she called and introduced herself. And asked if she could come at 5:00 pm that day to do our home visit. (It was 3:00 pm when she called, and our house was a total disaster.) Of course I told her no. But having her right there on the phone, it was really easy to schedule our next interviews. Within a week we were sitting in her office talking all about ourselves. I was also relieved that I could talk with her about my struggles and progress with infertility and receive no judgment, only encouragement and understanding. I think it really helped to have a social worker validate what I'd been feeling, like she was saying, "It's OK, you're normal, and you're still a good candidate to adopt." Then she scheduled our home visit, which went well.
Now, all we had left to do was write our letter and create our website. Again, life was getting in the way. I was writing lifebooks for both children and trying to get them done by the end of May. I was teaching at the organ workshop again. Adoption paperwork just wasn't what I felt like dealing with!
But our caseworker came to the rescue again. I don't know if she knows just how much we've needed her little "pushes" to get us over the finish line, but if it wasn't for her, I am certain we would not be at this point. She's a saint, and I think most caseworkers would probably just leave the couple alone in our case and figure they weren't ready. She called and said, "Hey, I'm getting ready to go out of town, and if you want to be approved before that happens, you need to have your website done so I can present it to our committee this Thursday." That left us about five days. I took the bait! A deadline! Yes, a deadline was just what I knew we needed!
So I set aside my other projects and forced myself (and James, too) to get this letter done. I made myself sit down at the computer, prayed and prayed for inspiration, and tried to write. How inspired is it? I'm not sure. It's not as creative as our other letters have been. I love writing, and I feel like this one is more straightforward and less eloquent. Who knows, maybe we'll get a birth mother who needs that. Or, more likely, we can redo the letter in a few months after we've been able to let it sit for awhile.
But anyway, it was not a particularly fun process. I have to admit I spent a lot of time staring at the computer frustrated that I couldn't think of anything really cool to say and feeling resentful that we had to do it at all. But knowing if I could just push through this last thing, we'd be DONE. And we are! We are DONE!
I'm excited now! OK, I know really, we aren't done. The agency wants us to create a paper profile and make just a few copies for birth moms who don't want to use the internet. And now comes the finding. I know realistically we can't just sit and wait for this to happen. But at least we crossed the paperwork finish line, and now we can really start thinking about this new little person and who they might be.
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