Following PATH

So we completed the PATH classes this month, and we completed a ginormous stack of paperwork.  Yay!  We've bothered our friends, family, and even coworkers for reference forms (and special thanks to them!).  We've bought fire extinguishers and a carbon monoxide detector (and put the batteries back in the smoke detector over the stove).  Our Spare 'Oom is ready for a tiny occupant.  But the most exciting exciting step was yesterday.  It was out first chance to sit down with our adoption coordinator, Darla (not her real name).

She came to visit us at home and spent two and a half hours with us.  We worked through a questionnaire about our parenting skills.  What we are comfortable parenting, what we feel we might need help with, and things we feel are beyond our capacity.  It was a helpful exercise that gave her a chance to get to know us.  It was a pretty casual conversation and it gave us a chance to ask the questions we've been amassing:

• How long does this take?  Another 6-8 weeks. During that time we may have two more meetings with her and she may call to speak with both of us individually. She will prepare a home study report and then we will do fingerprinting and background checks. She will pull all of that together and send to the state for approval. We will complete CPR and first aid training in early June.  We should be approved possible as early as sometime mid June.

• After a placement what kind of support do we have if we have questions/problems?  A team is available 24/7 for questions and brainstorming. Support with practical issues of transportation and doctors appointments is available as well. They offer respite care if we need a break.

• How long until we can adopt?  A placement may come quickly, but the child will be in our home for 6 months before we can complete the adoption.

• What does this cost us?  Nothing. They cover the costs of the home study, background check, and legal fees. We would be paid a stipend monthly after a child is placed with us, even AFTER the adoption is completed.

• Can our parents and friends help with occasional childcare?  Yes. They do not need to also go through a background check or home study. Omni trusts our judgment on who to leave our children with.

• Can we travel with the children?  Yes, but we need to communicate those plans to Omni. We would need to get approval for overnight stays out of state.

What is hard to explain is the feeling we got from the meeting. We came away from the conversation very positive. Darla seems as excited to be working with us as we are to be working with her.  She said that she would talk to the other Omni adoption coordinator and they will be looking out for a child who would be a good fit for our family.

--K

A new PATH

After more than a year of waiting we are now starting on the home study process! It is good to feel like we are taking steps forward.

If you have been keeping up, for the past 14 months we have listed our profile with a local attorney and have been networking with anyone we come in contact with. We have been hesitant to work with an adoption agency for several reasons. We won't go into that here, except to say that cost is a factor. But after thoughtfully and tearfully considering a surrogate pregnancy we have again reassessed our plans of how to grow our family.

We are now connected with a local foster-to-adopt agency, Omni Visions, Inc. We have completed the 4-week PATH (Parents as Tender Healers) training class. We are almost, maybe, hopefully, nearly done with a two-inch stack of paperwork. We are collecting references and are scheduling a CPR class. All this will allow us to be approved resource parents in the state of Tennessee. Once approved we can be part of Omni’s foster-to-adopt program.

We are looking to provide a permanent and stable home for child under the age of five. It is a simultaneously exciting and scary process. We just keep reminding ourselves that we are doing this to serve a child, who is probably more scared that we are. We are not sure what to expect but glad to be taking a step forward on this journey.

The home study requires the house to be baby-/child-proofed. We have spent the past 3 weeks collecting a fire extinguisher, rearranging our cleaning supply storage, and developing a system to double lock our medications (prescription and OTC). We were asked to provide pictures of the inside and outside of our house as well as our pets. The house is the cleanest and most organized it has been since we moved in 5 years ago. Here are a couple our those pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Scott's Hero themed office.

Spare 'oom -  this is the future home of our little one. It is a woodland Narnia theme.

We will share more on this process as we learn more.

We found a new podcast on the foster-to-adopt process from a California couple - here. The process will be different state to state, but the feelings are the same no matter where you are.

--KF

A Tot New Mobile

Kelly just took my Justice League tots that I collected from Sonic and turned them into the coolest mobile ever.  I had to share.

Oh, The Things You'll Do!

One of my favorite Dr Seuss books is Oh, The Places You'll Go!.  I kind of wish he had written a follow-up to that called Oh, The Things You'll Do! in which our reader is walked through their hypothetical life and shown some of the choices they'll get to make, the causes they'll take up, the projects they'll complete, the jobs they'll have, the people they'll meet and, well, the things they'll do.

As Kelly and I wait for God to reveal his plan for our family, I have found myself steeped in projects.  Some of them I've been planning for years, others I never saw coming.  For example, I'm currently working on a novel.  It's a science fiction story aimed at a young adult audience and it's a story I've been wrestling with for about six years now.

One thing I never saw coming was the podcast I'm currently working on.  My friends Loren and I have recorded over thirty episodes at this point and they all can be found at www.moviesyoushouldlove.com or on iTunes.  We both went to film school, so we're making our way through contemporary and classic films and analyzing them.  It's been a lot of fun, some hard work, and it's starting to pay off.  We're growing a little community over there and some really neat conversations are taking place.  And it's because of that podcast that I've come to have a small part in the documentary Until We Have Faces.

Until We Have Faces is a documentary from Leslie Foster, another one of my film school friends, that "explores the complexity of violent homophobia in Jamaica and the hope, bravery, and endurance of the amazing LGBT community there."  Leslie is now trying to raise the money he needs to finish post-production on the film and I'm doing my part to spread the word (you can read more about it here).  This is one of those fights that I would love to have had a hand in ending before my child is in the world -- but even if it isn't, even if we're still fighting this fifty years from now, I'll be proud to tell my little one "I did my best to make the world a little bit safer for you, your friends, and some people we might not ever meet."

Oh, the places you'll go . . . and the things you'll do . . .

Somehow you'll escape all the waiting and staying.

You'll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping, once more you'll ride high!

Ready for anything under the sky.

Ready because you're that kind of guy!


And will you succeed?
Yes!  You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

Things I Have Learned Through Infertility

1. It is okay to feel sad, angry, lonely, or jealous. But not okay to let those feelings consume you or define you.
2. Ice cream with friends makes things a little brighter.
3. Having friends who take you out for ice cream after failed fertility treatments are WONDERFUL.
4. It is okay to say no to invitations to baby showers or other events. The friends and family who love you will understand. Those who don’t, don’t really matter.
5. Laughter is good. Laughter about dark or sad things is even funnier.
6. My husband and God love me more than I always understand.
7. It does not make me less of a woman, no matter what the monologue in my head says.
8. I am not the only one who is or has gone through this. More people than you know or imagine have experienced being reproductively challenged. You just need to reach out.
9. It is good to be busy.
10. You will reach a point where occasionally you won’t be thinking about it or counting days since ovulation. That still doesn’t mean you will get pregnant, despite what “they say.”
11. People without children get to stay out late, sleep in, be spontaneous, go on overnight trips, go to movies, spend money on themselves, take dance lessons, go on dates, takes naps, buy Nerf guns to have battles in the living room, buy Legos just because they are cool, watch DVDs uninterrupted, and eat whatever they want.

How About It?

Some friends recently expressed that they were excited to see us as parents as they felt that we deserve to have a baby and would be great parents. I don’t say that to brag, but to say, I hope we are as good of people as these friends think we are. Their faith in us is inspiring.

We’ve not posted in a couple months because we have been thinking. Thinking and talking don’t usually go together, at least for me. Those friends got us thinking about surrogacy.

Would we consider it?

Well, we would. We did.

We had decided even before we got married that IVF was not for us. We would prefer to spend that money, time, and emotional energy on adoption. But surrogacy with the option of being a significantly cheaper and with none of those crazy-lady inducing fertility drugs, now that could be an option. Did you know the internet sells convenient DIY kits for intra-vaginal insemination? Yup. Who would have thought?

That would mean asking a woman to donate her egg and carry her and Scott’s baby. That is a lot to ask of someone. That would be partially her child. That would be her son or daughter’s half sibling. That would be Scott’s baby with another woman. Could I and that hypothetical biological mother handle it? Sara and Hagar did not handle it with grace. Would I care once that baby was in my arms? Not sure, maybe.

It might not be so hard to find someone to carry our embryo. Even that would be a huge thing for someone to do. But we won’t do IVF, remember? The cost, the gamble, the crazy hormones. If we were considering IVF we would try it ourselves first; because remember, there is nothing wrong with either of us. We should be able to conceive and carry a pregnancy. So we are left with asking a surrogate to donate her egg and body. That is more than a 9 month commitment. That is a life-time commitment. That is more than we can ask of anyone.

So that’s us considering it.

-K

That I Would be Good

that I would be good even if I did nothing
that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
that I would be good if I got and stayed sick
that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

that I would be fine even if I went bankrupt
that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
that I would be great if I was no longer queen
that I would be grand if I was not all knowing

that I would be loved even when I numb myself
that I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
that I would be loved even when I was fuming
that I would be good even if I was clingy

that I would be good even if I lost sanity
that I would be good

-Alanis Morissette

I had a realization the other day (read: a couple months ago) when I was driving home. I am tired of feeling the way I have. I am tired of being in this place where there is something I want and desire, but where I have no way to affect my ability to get it. Tired of being sad about being out of control of the situation. I am just done with it.

If I can’t change the situation, I am at least ready to start accepting it.

That I would be good even if we don’t have a baby.

That I would be good even if I can’t have a baby.

That I would be confident even if I am not the person I thought I was or want to be.

2012 is already a brighter year.

-K