Profile Letter, part 1: Dear Birth Mother

We wanted our letter to the birth mother to impress her on all levels. Not only did we want the contents of the letter to accurately reflect who we are and what kinds of parents we would be, but we wanted the presentation of the letter to reflect our high standards and be an expression of our artistic creativity. So we decided to put together a book. Using Blurb's BookSmart builder, we put together a 20-page book for our attorney to give the birth mother.

It's a seven "part" book, and over the course of the next seven days, we'll share a part a day.

Part 1: Dear Birth Mother

A family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit. -Marge Kennedy

Dear Birth Mother,

Our names are Scott and Kelly.

First of all, thank you for considering us to be your baby’s Papa and Mama. Of all the things we are, the one thing we want most is to be parents. We have been unable to get pregnant and look

forward to the time when we will have a little one in our arms. We believe that the home and family we have been blessed with would be a great place to raise a family.

We have given it careful consideration and know that fertility treatments are not for us; not when we can open our home to a child who needs us. Adoption is something that we have always known we would do. We are excited and just a bit scared as we walk this path. Thank you for going on this journey with us and for being an answer to our prayers.

We look forward to cuddling with our baby and watching him or her grow. We can’t wait to help her learn about the world. We are excited to teach him how to read and ride a bike and take a picture.

We are creative, artistic people. Scott is a writer who works as the Video Game Director at a local store, but his real passion is writing and movie making. Kelly works at an insurance company but has created a second job for herself as a wedding and portrait photographer. Photography started as a hobby, but has transformed into a small business. Many nights and weekends are spent working on small craft projects or rehearsing for Scott's next short film.

We first met working at Christian youth summer camp in Georgia. We started dating that summer and have been together ever since. We were married in December 2005. Considering the time we dated and the 5 years we have been married, we have been together nearly 10 years now.

As Christians we strive to live a life of acceptance, tolerance and love. We do our best to live balanced lives according to Biblical teachings. We love to debate politics, religion, economics and philosophies with each other. We seek out creative art and media that speaks to the truth of human life. We like to travel and meet new people and try new foods.

Our home is warm and welcoming. We have two cats and two dogs who provide a never-ending parade of laughter.

Each Friday night we gather with friends for food and fellowship. On Saturdays we go to church and spend the rest of the day resting and relaxing with family. We both work full-time during the week and still find lots of time to spend with our family and friends.

And tomorrow: "Why Scott will be a Great Papa," by Kelly

BOOK REPORT: Successful Adoption

I had the last two days off work due to a gout flare up (something I'm thankful to not be passing on) and took hours of immobility as an opportunity to do some reading. While I have a stack of graphic novels calling my name, I was a little surprised to find myself reaching over that stack for Successful Adoption: A Guide for Christian Families, by Natalie Nichols Gillespie.

If I were to review the book in one sentence, I would say, "this is a great book for any Christian who is considering adoption." But I am not a man of few words.

The book strives to serve many purposes and chief amongst them convincing the reader that "yes, you can do this!" The early chapters dispel myths and rumors, and help the reader believe that adoption really can be for anybody with an open heart. While I appreciate the sentiment, it was the early chapters I found myself skimming through the most.

Kelly and I have already had the conversations detailed in the first two chapters of this book. When I sat down to read this, we were already in the proofreading stages of our letter to the prospective birth mother. We've already decided that we want to go with a domestic adoption. We've already spoken to an attorney. We've already started putting money aside for a home study. So the first two chapters (collected into Part 1 of the book) never felt like there were talking to me. They were talking to someone else, who was still on the fence on whether or not they wanted to adopt.

Part 2 of the book (there are six parts, total) became more interesting, but it wasn't until Part 3/Chapter 7 that I really started to receive answers to the questions I had -- or, as it was also, I was given the questions I should have. But even then, I found myself skimming sections of the book that were clearly not intended for me, which leads me to my biggest gripe about the book.

While there are large portions devoted to domestic adoption, the author seems to believe the reader was going to be involved in an international adoption. Far more time was spent addressing concerns and issues an adoptive family will run into adopting a child from another country than than concerns a family might have adopting locally.

For example: I'm not worried about learning my child's birth language, as I'm assuming we'll be adopting from somewhere in Tennessee or Georgia (and we generally speak the same language). I am, however, concerned about living within driving distance of the birth parents. What if we run into them? Or what if, by some strange occurrence, we go to the same church?

So that was a little off-putting, as were typos. I didn't notice any in the early chapters, but as the book went on, I found more and more typos. Sometimes words were missing from sentences, sometimes sentences had extra words and once I even found the wrong "here" being used.

But those nit-picks and gripes aside, it's a good book. I appreciated the author's concern and challenge to not only prepare your home and your bank account, but prepare your heart. Every chapter ends with a checklist of questions you're going to want to address and a testimony from someone who has adopted or has been adopted. It was written to be read beforehand (so you'll know what potholes are in the road before you), so now that I've read it, I don't feel particularly compelled to keep it on hand. It's not really a go-to book.

Overall, I'm glad I read it. It gave me some things to think about and consider. I would recommend it to anyone who's ever considered adoption but isn't actively pursuing it.

-S

Sabbath Afternoon Reading and the Mind of a Crazy Lady

After a wonderful lunch, thanks to the OG*, and an extremely pleasant walk around the neighborhood I settled in to continue my reading of You Can Adopt: An Adoptive Families Guide. Soon my wonderful husband came in carrying not a comic book, not a script book, and not a book about Doctor Who, but Successful Adoption: A Guide For Christian Families. It is so wonderful to have such a wonderful husband going through this with me and invested in this as much as I am.

I vacillate between excitement and fear as we approach this process:

We have our Dear-Birth-Mother letter done and I will share it with my girlfriends for editing and proof reading tomorrow. One fear is, are we including the right information. Do we need to include less or more or something different all together? Do we really want to be this vulnerable and put ourselves out there like this? We've got nothing but positive feedback from friends and family. And I feel a peace as I think about our future child not necessarily coming from my womb. I am okay with that. But what if? . . .there are a lot of what ifs.

My excitement comes from the thought that our baby may be out there waiting for us or baking in some birth-mother's tummy RIGHT NOW and it is just a matter of making the right connection. I picked up a pack of diapers yesterday, they were on sale, just in case. Don't judge. They won't go bad. I keep saying that to myself.

This is how my mind works. Must keep busy with projects, work, and enjoying my blessed life right now. Praise God I have such a wonderful husband who is helping me work through that stack of books and puts up with my kind of crazy.

*Olive Garden

-K

Books, Books, Books

I've never been a fan of books that tell me what to do.

I've always felt that unless you know me and my specific situation, you shouldn't get to tell me what to do or how to live. When Kelly and I started dating, she really wanted to me read The Heart of the Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. She explained to me what it was about and how it could help me but . . . well, to make a long story short, that was nine years ago and I still don't think I've read it. If I have, I've blocked it from my memory.

The one relationship book I've read (and I would highly recommend) is For Men Only, by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhan. It's the companion piece to For Women Only, and both of these books really hit the nail on the head. They don't reinforce stereotypes, they simply report their findings (based on interviews and studies) and then try to explain the opposite sex in words your sex would understand. Kelly heard Shaunti speak once and came home, finally understanding the words that had been coming out of my mouth for years.

I say all this to say that I don't like asking for help from strangers (insert asking for directions joke here). I have an instant distrust for anyone who writes a "how to" book. However, I also recognize when I know nothing about a particular subject. I have some theories on fatherhood and parenting, but I honestly don't know anything about adoption (outside of what Oliver Twist and Annie have taught me). So last night I bought some books (this time from McKay, where I spent only 9 bucks on four books).

Kelly and I are going to read these books and report back to you on our findings from each of them. They are, in no particular order:

• Fast Track Adoption, by Susan Burns
• Successful Adoption: A Guide For Christian Families, by Natalie Nichols Gillespie
• The Post-Adoption Blues, by Karen J. Foli and John R. Thompson
• Two Little Girls, by Theresa Reid

So stay tuned! There's no due date (thankfully), but book reports will be forthcoming!

And if there's anyone out there who's already gone through this, was there a book or a site that helped you? We're really quite open to anything, be it a how-to guide, a what-to-expect guide, or a memoir.

-S

Outweighing Fear

Went to Barnes & Noble last night.

I really shouldn't ever go into a Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, or whatever other book merchant there is. I can't enter one without picking up two or three books, bonding with them, and then paying full price for them before I leave. I work at McKay Used Books. I can buy anything in the store at cost. Which means, for a best seller, I'll pay maybe three dollars. So I really shouldn't ever go into a Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, or whatever other book merchant there is. But Kelly really wanted to go and it really doesn't take much arm-twisting to convince me.

Despite the cost, I do love an unused book shop. I love books that creak when you open them. I love pages that stick together at the corners because no-one's ever pried them apart before. I love the smell of new books. I love the colorful art of children's books. I love accidentally discovering your favorite author has a new book out. I love seeing old classics being rebound and presented in new ways. I love picking up pristine graphic novels, free of greasy fingerprints. I love the smell of coffee from the Starbucks in the back. I love the low, library-level chatter of excited customers as they compare the books or magazines they've found. But most of all, I love the aisles and aisles of potential. Who knows what new author waits for me just around the corner? That's the one downside to working at a used media store: Everything there has already been discovered -- discovered and discarded.

I found Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, a prequel graphic novel that goes into the previously untold origin story of Shepherd Book, that mysterious preacher fellow from Firefly and Serenity. Kelly found You Can Adopt: An Adoptive Families Guide, by Susan Caughman and Isolde Motley. Kelly started reading it last night and there was a particular sentence that she read aloud that really summed up my feelings on the subject of parenthood and adoption.

"There is only one good reason to adopt, just as there is only one good reason to bear a child: Your desire to be a parent is greater than your fear."

That is exactly where I'm at, which is sometimes hard to explain to people. Maybe it's hard to explain because it's hard to understand.

I am a fully functional human being. I don't need anybody to be whole. Yet, when I met my wife, I realized I was missing something. When we were married, we became one, my life became full, and I realized I was, for the first time, whole. We've been married five years now and I'm realizing that as wonderful as our life is, we're . . . not quite whole. It's as if something is missing. There's a void only a child can fill.

I don't want it to be misunderstood that something is missing from our relationship. I am very happy with our relationship and am still excited to be married to Kelly. There's nothing about it that I would change. But there is something missing. It's not from our relationship, it's missing from our life, our family.

And as scary as the prospect of being a father is, my desire to be one outweighs it.

-S

An Adventure Begins

Scott and I have been married for 5 years now. We have gathered around ourselves a wonderful network of family and friends. We've settled in our house and we are working hard in our jobs. We are now ready to grow our nuclear family. We have decided to do this through adoption.

Adoption Step 1: Overcome fears and insecurities and call attorney's office to discuss how to get started. Check. Spoke with the attorney's office and they said find a child and then call us to do the legal work. Okay we can do that.

Adoption Step 2: Prepare a "Dear Birth Mother" letter and Family Profile. Almost check. We've spent the past week gathering photos and compiling our profile. We need to revise it into an attractive document and then send it to the attorney with a cover letter specifying our desired child.

Adoption Step 3: Network with EVERYONE to let them know. This is scary. This is where the blog comes in. This is to let everyone we know and everyone they know that we are looking for our baby. Somewhere out there there is, or there will be, our little one who is waiting for us to find him or her. We are looking for an infant under 12 months old who is healthy and needing a home.

Adoption Step 4: Once our little one is found, complete the "home study." This is the state-required assessment on whether we would be acceptable parents. No worries there. Although I hope they don't check to see if I regularly dust the top of my fridge. This includes background checks, interviews, psychological testing and confirmation that we have a roof over our heads and space for a baby. This would be the first expense of the process. Once completed the home study is good for 12 months.

So keep us in your prayers and in your mind as you go about your lives. If you hear of someone who has decided not to parent their infant, please pass on our name and contact information.

-K