Since the Start

 

Would you believe it?  We started this blog just over a year ago...a year!  Time flies.  Since then, we've moved across the country, finished a marathon of paperwork, completed a home study, built our profile and begun reviewing cases.  Throughout it all, we've been the blessed/amazed/thankful recipients of so much love and support from our friends and family.  Thanks are in order - this would all be impossible without you!  Speaking of support, we thought we'd take the opportunity to once again break down all we've accomplished with your EXTREMELY generous contributions:

     $1,000 - Pre-adoption Training Fee and Formal Application Fee
     $3,000 - Adoptive Family Assessment Fee (Home Study)
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Counseling Fee
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Expense and Outreach
     $17,000 - Child Placement Fee

     Total - $25,000  $17,000

We submitted our profile to a case in TX just last week, we'll keep you all updated on any progress!

Plans

A couple of weeks ago our consultant passed Em and I a great looking case - super nice couple, very reasonable agency fees and adoption-friendly state regulations.  We submitted our profile and followed it up with a get-to-know-you chat over facetime.  It felt so right!  We tried not to, but we were EXCITED.  Sure there were other families in the running, but we felt confident.  Besides, how many times had we heard from friends and family what an attractive adoptive couple we made. Young, no kids, educated, madeline: practically a done deal, right?  That's probably why it was so hard to read the email a few days later that began "I'm sorry, but...".

What had we done wrong?  What didn't we say?  What piece of information had we left out that might have tipped the balance in our favor?  Rejection is tough.  Diane (our consultant) was great. After 15 years in the business, she wrote us, I always find that these kids go where they're meant to be.  Despite being disappointed, we knew she was right.  And, after a couple slices of humble pie, we're back to reviewing cases - hopeful as ever, trusting God, and looking forward to welcoming kids into our home.                  

 


     

Movin Along

I know it's been a while since we've posted, so we wanted to write a quick note saying that we're alive and well.  Busy, but still alive and well.  More updates coming soon - profile is finally all the way done and we're reviewing cases! - but in the meantime, just know that we miss and love all you fine friends and family out there.  And a happy Easter to you too!

Pajama Dinner

As I was leaving work one day last week, I read a text from my neighbor that said "Come to dinner, we'll have fish so you can eat too...and Friday is pajama night so don't come overdressed!"

This family adopted a 2 1/2 year old boy named TJ from Ethiopia three years ago.  He is smart, funny and obsessed with our dog.  He has also made a friend in 'Mr. Sean.'  It's times like these that I simply have to say yes, you were right God.  Moving across the country was all part of the plan.  God knew we needed adoption encouragement - we just didn't know they would live 30 yards from us.

So I knocked on the door later that night and their son answered in his adorable, too small spaceship PJ's.  He looked me up and down, then said "Yes, those are pajamas.  You may come in."  As we were eating, our adoption journey came up and TJ entered the dialogue by asking if our kids will be brown like him.  "I'm not sure what color they'll be," I told him, "but I know they'll be great just like you TJ!"

I don't know who our kids will be, where they'll come from, what color skin they'll have or what type of pajamas they'll like to wear.  But I do know that we'll teach them all about adoption and their unique heritage.  And my hope is that our kids will be embrace their differences and love their story just like TJ does.

After dinner I walked across the lawn to our house holding onto this family's love and encouragement.  I made a mental note to myself that Friday Pajama Dinner is a tradition I'll be sure to start with our children.  You're all welcome to join us, just don't come overdressed!

Adoption Encouragement

I often find that the internet has less than encouraging stories about adoption, and that is something to avoid when your wallet and heart have already been opened to the journey.  God calls us; I just think we need a bit of encouragement at times to propel the process forward. A dear friend of mine who is spreading her social work love in Portlandia recently sent me this video clip about a beautiful adoptive family. Ours may look way different, but adoption is adoption. Emotionally spent and feeling low on hope, this video cured my spirit. Thank you dear Yoolie! And I hope you all find a nugget of encouragement in this family as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rztYMMhMT2Y

With Love, Emily

Spring Cleaning

Hello all, and happy Wednesday to you!  If you're like us you've had some unusually warm weather lately.  In fact, it's been so balmy around these parts that, if you add in a general (and in Em's opinion glaring) lack of snow, you couldn't be blamed for thinking spring was on its way.  We thought we'd get with the spirit, then, and do some spring cleaning.  You know, all that stuff you've been meaning to do...such as saying THANK YOU!  Thank you to all those friends and family out there who have seen fit to donate some of their hard earned take home to our cause.  We'd like to take this moment to extend gratitude especially to our CO family.  We hosted a going away last June in the Springs before we set off for DC, and we're blown away by the generosity of the community that came out to say goodbye.  We love and miss you all terribly!

Because we know everyone appreciates a visual, check out the progress you're donations have helped us achieve in bringing an adopted child into our home.

     $1,000 - Pre-adoption Training Fee and Formal Application Fee
     $3,000 - Adoptive Family Assessment Fee (Home Study)
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Counseling Fee
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Expense and Outreach
     $17,000 - Child Placement Fee

     Total - $25,000  $21,000

We're not there yet, so if you haven't donated please consider it!  And thanks again, we mean it.  


        

Rested and Ready

Happy New Year all!

We've had a busy holiday season, what with Em finishing her first semester of graduate school and Sean gone for a month in Africa (more on that later...).  But rest assured, we've got our eye on the prize more than ever these days.  In other words, we're closer than we've ever been to bringing an adopted baby into our home!

We're rested, ready and looking forward to an exciting 2013.  We wish you all a year full of God's blessings!

Home Studied

Maddy makes herself comfortable

We're done!  ...pretty much.  We met for the last time with the social worker administering our home study earlier this month to hand in a bit more paperwork and cover some final topics.  The rough draft is in production now, we'll get a chance to read through it and comment.  Once it's been published,  A Step Ahead will use it to introduce us to adoption agencies.  It's our calling card, our foot in the door.  It says that Sean and Emily are a well adjusted, loving couple who can't wait to accept a child into their home.  We're paraphrasing of course, but you get the idea.

Now we move on to the profile, we'll keep you posted!

Here's to Family

 

We've met with the social worker administering our home study twice now, one more to go.  Almost there, and it feels good.  The paperwork is still a headache, but it's well worth the effort when you consider the objective! 

During this last meet we discussed our family histories.  While reflecting, we both realized again how grateful we are to our families for their love and support.  Can't say it enough really.  You have informed our identities in so many important and positive ways!  

    

Driving records, child abuse and neglect registry checks, medical records, state and federal background checks, fingerprints, birth certificates, reference letters, tax returns:  adoption requires tons of paperwork!  It can be frustrating sometimes, but for every phone call to an agency in search of such and such form (of which no one seems to have ever heard, but can I transfer you to another department?) is one step closer. It's a nod to the level of commitment it takes to see adoption through to the beautiful end.  All that being said, we're also down one meet with the home study social worker!  Two more to go.

Thanks to those who continue to come back here and check in on us, we appreciate it more than we can say!  

Open Adoption

Open adoption is a form of adoption where the birth family and the adopted child maintain some kind of ongoing relationship.  Phone calls, email updates, face to face interaction.  The terms of these relationships vary but the concept is the same; child-centric adoptions involve consideration by all parties involved for the adoptee's needs first.

We like open adoption.

Follow this link for an interesting article by the WSJ on the growing trend towards open adoption in the US.    

     

Made It

Hey everyone,

Sorry for slacking on the updates.  Sean and I made it almost without incident to the right coast. We've been sub-leasing the home of one of Sean's coworkers until our place becomes available...which happens to be tomorrow!  Our stuff is due for delivery on Friday.  If anyone needs some brown cardboard moving boxes, we're about to have a ton of empty extras.

As for the adoption, we sent away the initial paperwork and check for $1,500 yesterday to get our home study started.  Another huge shout-out to all those who have thought/prayed/donated of/for/to us, we are blessed to have such wonderful and loving family and friends!

  

On Our Way

These past four years in the Springs have been great.  That's thanks to the amazing people we've come to know; our friends and family have been a huge blessing.  We love you all!  We'll miss you badly too, come visit us if you can.

We've got some short visits planned with more family across the midwest, looking forward to it very much.  Will drive into DC in about a week or so!

Come Say Goodbye!

Help us celebrate our short but wonderful time here in CO!  Dan and Abby Mortenson are kindly hosting a party for us on saturday starting at 5 pm.  We'll have plenty of food to go around.

It's going to be great!

Finishing Up

Em and I have wanted to visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park since just about when we got to Colorado.  As our time here is running short, we took the opportunity to do so this past weekend. Em's second cousin from Denver, Brian Daly, told us we could look forward to a lot of sand.  Lots of sand is exactly what we found!

Practice

Emily and I have had 7 dogs over the past 4 years.  Believe it.  The only one that's actually ours is Madeline, whom we adopted from Ouray, CO in March of 2009.  We came to foster the others by way of English Springer Rescue of America (ESRA), an organization that takes in, recuperates and places abused, neglected or surrendered Springer Spaniels from all over the US.  This organization has a network of foster homes where the dogs stay until they're adopted permanently.  I like to think now that back then we were in some way practicing for this adoption.  Of course we understand the difference is stark.  To say that raising a child is significantly different then fostering a dog for a month would be an understatement.  Theo taught us at least that much.  But the experiences with our foster dogs really were invaluable.  Patience, gentleness, discipline, love: these lessons have informed us in big ways.

Pete (and Maddy) 

                 Edith                   

Jazz (and Maddy)

Tuggers (and Maddy)

Step 2

We are the proud owners of clean FBI records!  Sean and I had our finger prints taken 6 weeks ago and got the results back recently.  Not that we expected any problems, but it's another step we're glad to have done.  When we told the volunteer taking our prints what we were getting them done for she gave us a big congratulations!

Going Away/Adoption Fundraiser

For those who didn't already know, Emily and I are moving to Washington DC this summer.  I'll continue to work for the AF while stationed at Ft. Belvoir in Alexandria, VA.  Em, meanwhile, has been accepted to a Masters of Social Work program and is looking forward to being a full-time student again.  We're excited to explore a new place but will miss all the friends we've made here in the Springs.  The past four years have been great thanks to you all!  We're going to celebrate by having a going away/adoption fundraising party on Saturday, 9 June.  Everyone who can is welcome to attend, we'll get the details out shortly (time, location, etc.).

Speaking of fundraising...

  

I bought this 1976 Honda CB750 two years ago and spent my first real ride on a motorcycle tucked in close to the gas tank while navigating traffic on the 70 mi ride home from Denver.  We don't figure on having a garage in DC so I put it up on Craigslist and in no less than 30 minutes it was sold, packaged and on it's way to becoming a cafe racer build.  Maybe it'll show up on the world wide intranets again some day?    

We'd like to...

Emily and I are incredibly grateful for everyone's support so far!       

Adoption Details

Today we want to write about a few of the important details we've ironed out concerning our adoption--agency, type (domestic vs international) and cost structure. It's a lot, so sit tight!

Agency

We found the adoption agency for us after many months of prayer and searching. A Step Ahead Adoption is a small consultancy (run by two people!) with 13 years experience specializing in intra-state adoption. We're working with Diane Hogan, the founder of A Step Ahead. She opened her consultancy after adopting her two children and dealing with the frustration of working with agencies whose employees, although they meant well, had no idea what it was like to adopt themselves. A Step Ahead values our opinions and allows us to control a lot more of the process. Thank the Lord for helping us find an organization in whom we have tons of confidence!

Type

We initially had no idea what intra-state adoption meant, so maybe you don't either. Basically, A Step Ahead maintains relationships with more than 40 adoption agencies all over the US.  When these agencies have children to place, they contact Diane and she consults with her clients (us) to discover whether or not it's a good fit. Throughout this process, A Step Ahead works with their adoptive families to accomplish adoption prep such as the home study, education requirements, etc. This strategy works well for military families like ourselves who have difficulty balancing long wait times at traditional agencies and the constant possibility of a move. Because A Step Ahead works across state lines, we never have to worry about paying some fees all over again just because the AF moved us.  That also means we could eventually adopt from Oregon, Vermont, or anywhere in between!

Cost Structure

Another reason we signed on with A Step Ahead is because it allowed us to have at least some control over the cost of our adoption. For those of you who don't already know, adoption services are really expensive! After interviewing an array of agencies, we found that infant domestic adoption can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000! Here's a break down of the average cost structure:

     $1,000 - Pre-adoption Training Fee and Formal Application Fee
     $3,000 - Adoptive Family Assessment Fee (Home Study)
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Counseling Fee
     $2,000 - Initial Birth Parent Expense and Outreach
     $17,000 - Child Placement Fee

     Total - $25,000

A Step Ahead gives us some control by allowing us to set a cost ceiling.  In other words, they won't contact us about a potential placement unless the fees meet our budget.

Overwhelming?  No way!