Perceptions of Adoption

Everyones opinion about adoption is different and their own. Over the last few weeks I have been noticing alot more previlance of adoption in the news, on TV and just in conversation. While along time ago adoption was more of a taboo and wasn't widley accepted, its alot more common now. We see celebraties like Brad and Angelina, Jillian Michaels, and Katherine Heigl sharing their adoption stories. While that is just a few of the celebraties out there that have adopted there are thousands of people who adopt and for many different reasons every year.  Their celebratie status help show that acceptance of adoption.

ABC Family television station has launched a new tv show called the Fosters that is a drama seires based on a same sex couple who have adopted, foster, and have a biological son. It shows the ins and outs of situations families who adopt and foster can deal with, such as birth parents, bio children getting along with adopted siblings, foster children wondering how long they will be with this home and just how they manage their lives with all these different issues. All of this is done but still portray a  loving and happy family.

You see many movies out there now that give a portrail of adoption such as Annie, Stuart Little, Meet the Robinsons, Lilo nd Stitch, Blind Side, Juno, Matilda, and Superman, are just a few. In a way these all have given our generation a different understand of Adoption and Foster Care. I feel lts looked less at as a way for a infertil woman to have a child and more about a family who wants to help a child.

I know in our experirence we have really encountered many people who would love to adopt some day or who feel its important that these kids find a family that will love them and take care of them. While Chris and I understand that most people do "prefer" there own children we know so many people who would be amazing adoptive or foster parents as well.

All in all I feel fortunate to be going through this process with people surrounding Chris and I who have a open mind, open heart, and are just truely happy for us. Again, if you are intersted in adoption or foster care or just want to educate yourself more. Please check out. Adoptuskids, Iowa Kids Net, or Creating a Family. All of these sites can give you so much information. I know they have helped us out a ton. Have a great day everyone.

Lots of Love C&C

Nesting...and not pregnant?????

I thought this was a interesting topic. As everyone knows most pregnant women go through a period where they are cleaning and organizing everything in the house, awaiting arrival of baby. While I'm not sure if this is an emotional thing that comes along with pregnancy or if its just the sudden maternal instict to make sure everything unsafe is gone or put away, but I have been on a cleaning and organzing kick over the last 3 weeks. I know I'm not pregnant, but can those same emotions be felt through adoption? Maybe its just a feeling of OMG I need to get rid of stuff cause I know what kids accumulate. Maybe its my anxiety over our homestudy and to make sure the house is well organized so the social worker can see we are a good home for any child. I'm not sure, but one thing is certain my husband LOVES this.

Over the last 3 weeks I have cleaned and organized our closed, master bedroom, guest room and now working on our office, garage and basement. You can ask my parents I'm not a cleaning type of person and so I'm interested to know if its possible to have that nesting instict when your going through other alternative ways of starting your family...aka adoption. We are still months away from actually adopting, but maybe its just the fact I know it will be here before we know it and I want it to be clean or maybe I'm just going crazy. What are all your thoughts on this? Id love to hear.

Happy Friday!!!

Lots of Love C&C

HeAt WaVe

 As most of the country is going through a heat wave, I find it a good day to sit in the cool airconditioning and write. I do alot of research with just about everything I do. I want to be the most informed person I can be in our adoption process. Plus one of my biggest pet peeves is ignorant people. I research all kinds of topics from how to deal with emotional destress with adolecents and how to prepare children for an adoption. While researching I stumbled upon this really awesome website called Creating a Family, they sepcialize in infertillity and adoption. This site is full of amazing resources from how to create a lifebook in your adoption, how to talk to your children about there adoption, how to deal with PCOS and having a baby and so much more. The site has a podcast they also do and publish on Itunes and Stitcher. These podcasts always have a great topic to guide you in your journey and they always have a guest speaker who is typically a professional in the field giving their opinion on the topic. They have topics like Helping Kids Who struggle in School to Moving from Infertility Treatment to Adoption. I listened to one today about how to talk about adoption with your child.

They gave a great outline about ages and best way to explain their adoption at those time. I've given a breif summary of that outline below.

 0-2 years old it was best to keep it short and read books about adoption.

3-5 years old talk about how happy you are that they are with you. Short and sweet at the younger ages, becuase they can't fully understand what their adoption was about.

6-10 year olds it gets more tricky. This is the point where they are realizing racial difference and they are dealing with kids at school who know they are adopted and are asking questions. At this point the podcast encourages you to sit down with your child and ask them things like "do you think about your birth mother or father?" this leaves it open for the child to answer Yes or No. If they say No then best to drop it till they are ready to talk about it and if Yes then engage more with them about what they think about, if they want to know more about them. Most importantly not to rush them into anything.

11+ years old the children know most likely they are adopted and could be struggling with things like "why did my birth parents give me up?" "did they not love me?" and "who are my birth parents?" At this point its best to sit down and really have a long conversation about the adoption. While every family is different a child's adoption will always be a part of their life and its our job as the parents to make sure its looked at in a positve light by being informed and asking the right questions and have appropriate answers.

I encourage everyone to check out the website to get more informed I know it has given me a list of things to think about and to talk to my husband about as well.

Well everyone stay cool and have a glorious Thursday.

Lots of Love C&C

Top of the world

This week turned out to be the beginning of a whole new life for us. This week we got the call to take the big leap in to our adoption process. This process will be a 10 week class along with our home study. The 10 week class will help us learn what types of situations we could encounter with some of the children. Everything from abuse, abandonment, or trauma that could be so unimaginable that you just don't want to know. This is the bulk of the process for us along with the home study. During the home study they will come to our home and tell us certain things we will need to do to get our house ready for a child. Such things as carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguisher and any other safety things. Then they will ask us a series of questions about our families, our marriage, our likes and dislikes. How we might discipline a child etc. All of this will better help them determine what age we might do best with, how well we work together as a team, and what we are willing to do to make sure this child lives in a safe and encouraging environment. 

Once this huge hurdle is complete they will take their time reviewing our home study and the comments made by our case worker and then make the decision whether to license us or not. While this route, through the state, is a more in-depth home study then if we were to find our own home study person, but in the end they want you to be licensed. We were told that by December we should be all done and hopefully by the new year LICENSED!!!!! This will be perfect timing for our Europe trip and then hope to bring home a kiddo as soon as we can when we get back from Europe. 

This Fathers Day has shown to be a very exciting one in the fact that hopefully the next Father's Day my husband will be able to celebrate with a kiddo around. We look forward to our class coming up in August and hope that this major aspect goes very smoothly. 

My husband and I are very lucky to have wonderful fathers that have show us so much and have given us great examples on how to raise our children. 

To end I have another great quote about adoption. "Being adopted doesn't mean no one loves you, it means that you are always loved by the one who gave you life, and you are loved by the one who is watching you go through life"

Happy Fathers Day to all those dads out there and the fathers to be (including my hubby).

Lots of love C&C

Patience...or lack of

3 weeks ago tomorrow the hubby and I dropped off our background check and fingerprints. The paper work says it will take 2 weeks when I called for more info on how we would be contacted we were told it could take 4 weeks. As most of my family and friends know I am not good with waiting, but how could anyone in this situation. So many things go through my head like will that speeding ticket 2 years ago be a factor, oops I ran a red light a few months ago. They don't tell you what they are going to look at and you have no true understanding of how they will judge your ablitity to parent a child. I have no doubt in my mind that Chris and I will pass with flying colors but it makes you sit and wonder what all they are finding out about you. Maybe they are contacting the government to get my phone records from Verizon or my search results from Google....who knows. In the mean time the pregger koolaid keeps getting spread around and while its alot easier to handle, its still sad some days. I have always said our DR's have never told us we would never have kids, just wouldn't be as easy as others.

In the mean time we are trying to pass our time by working out ALOT! I have taken up BodyPump and Piloxing (boxing, Pilates, and ballet all in one) and Chris is running alot more and going to be partaking in his first mud run this weekend. Even as we try to wait patiently its hard, Pinterest is full of so many wonderful ideas and it makes it hard not to start planning out the things you want to do with their room or what kinds of trips you would want to take them on. So many of these children have so little and have to share everything with many foster siblings, so its makes it really hard not to want to give them EVERYTHING.

Lastly in this post I want to reflect on a quote I read this morning that I feel really is important to look at. "Don't expect everyone to understand your journey especially if they've never had to walk your path"

This can be used for a variety of journeys, but I think it goes well with ours. I know that some people (luckly not many in our case) wont understand why we decided on adoption and didn't put all our money into other teatments, such as IVF (In vitro fertilization ) or IUI (intrauterine insemination) . I know many people don't understand how we could love a child who is not our blood. I know many people want take this journey to a more negative light and blame it all on my PCOS or say we are only doing this becuase we "can't have kids", which is untrue. I know many want to say well anyone could do what your doing, but I think till you take the path you wont fully understand the journey. I don't claim to know anything about being pregnant, granted I have been around MANY pregnant women lately, but I still couldn't say I know how you feel. I know that many people could adopt or foster a child and I think that would be great, but saying and doing are two different things. I would encourage anyone interested to go to a informational meeting and just learn if it sounds like something you would be interested in.

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Lots of Love C&C

Tick Tock Goes the Clock....

Everyday seems one day closer to our adoption, and while the excitement is plentiful the impatience is unbearable some days. Yesterday Chris and I got all our fingerprinting done and today we dropped off all the paper work all filled out. Now we wait....they tell us it should only take 2 weeks, but we all know how the government can work sometimes. We hope it all comes back on time so that we can start our PS-MAPP   class and home study in July. 

We hope this journey not only enjoyable for others to read but we hope it brings inspiration to others to take a look at adoption/ Foster Care. Not only infant adoption but older child(ren) adoption/ Foster Care. There are a lot of questions to ask yourself before you take on the process of adopt or Foster care.

  

Are you ready to take on the different special needs?- Some of these children have special needs such as mental or emotional distress. Or they have been abandoned, abused or have medical needs such as down syndrome or something more serious.

 

Are you able to get over the fact they aren't 'Your Blood'?- If you sit and think to yourself that you prefer your own children, but if you were 'unable' to have kids, I guess I would adopt, well maybe its not for you. If you can say you prefer your own child(ren) could you really love that adoptive child to the fullest?  Going through this process you need to be able to love that child as your own, not as anything less. 

Are you doing this for the money?- Well if you think your going to make a ton of money being a foster or adoptive parent, think again. While you do get a check to help with somethings its not going to make you rich by any means. 

While these are just some of the things to think about there are always a lot more. We enjoy sharing all of this with everyone. Feel free to ask us any questions along the process we would be more than happy to share. The last bit I'd like to leave you with is to remember that while bearing your own child is special, giving a child a family and a home who doesn't have one is just as special and very selfless. Oh and you don't have to not be able to have children to adopt/foster. Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day Weekend. 

Lots of Love C&C

Family Hierarchy

As many people know PCOS is not a pregnancy death sentence, its more like that experiment where you suck a egg into a bottle, it seems impossible, but with certain situations it will happen. While over the last 4 years there have been many depressing times and plenty that brought my marriage to alot of impasses. My husband is very supportive but there are only so many things a man can say to make a woman feel better in those types of situations. The things that go through a women's head at those times are almost certifiably insane. While I couldn't love my husband more for going through those tough times with me, I think more about the emotions and feelings we are experiencing now. As many would think joy and excitement, which many couples go through when they are planning a family. I don't want any one to think that I think our feelings trump or are more than those expecting a child, but never being in that situation I wouldn't know how the bonds of marriage change, all I can give you is our experiences.

Many people who know my husband know that he isn't really a baby person, and while many have said that would change if it was our child (which I'm sure is true), my worries were, could he love a child that isn't biologically his? If/when we would have a child of our own would that change his feelings for our adoptive child? So many questions and feelings arose when deciding to star the process of adoption. I know in my heart no matter the child, biological or blood, I will love the child(ren), but how do I really know what my husband is thinking???? I was worried I would never know and one day it presented itself and all my worries went away.

As we talked about the process my husband had alot of question and concerns, as anyone would. I took those as a good sign that he was really processing this in his head. Then one day he came home and said he had saw a picture on a person desk, he knew through work, of his daughter who was of Asian decent. This work friend was not Asian and my husband was going to ask him if he had adopted his daughter. At first I told him not to, thinking well maybe his wife was Asian and you don't want to offend anyone. To my surprise they had done an international adoption and Chris came home that night and told me all about their families journey.  Chris also contacted a friend who has a child of special needs to ask her about their journey. You might think, why is that a issue? Well alot of children in the foster system are their because of a strong medical need or have a special need. Some as sever as 24 hour care to as little as a mild learning disability. I was kind of shocked to know that he had contacted and talked to these people about our journey, for this isn't really like my quiet, shy husband. The more I looked at these situations I saw he was going to be OK with any child(ren) we adopt. Just for a reference my husband and I are planning a Trip to Europe next May and he has yet to sit down and really research places with me, I tell him cool things to see and what we need to start doing and he looks and me and says OK....so this sudden impulse/ need to contact and get more information and other peoples experiences had me very excited.

I have had many people who have had children tell me that while they love their husbands to death, they would go to the ends of the earth for their children, over their husband.That their children are on the high pedestal  and their husbands, while not far behind the children, just don't make the cut for #1 in their hearts anymore. Now this might not be the feeling for everyone, this is just what I have heard from some people. How does the family hierarchy change and can their be a tie for #1 in our hearts? I don't know how I could ever drop my husband down a peg after seeing all that he has done to educate himself about this adoption. I again can't say what the feelings and emotions are like with having a baby, but this adoption has brought my marriage to a level of happiness, openness, honesty, and love that I didn't know was possible. He will always be #1 to me and will be an amazing father.

I know that was pretty mushy/gushy, but thought it was appropriate with our 4 year wedding anniversary next week. Please feel free to post your feelings while either pregnant or adopting if you wish. Everyone have a amazing day.

 ~Lots of Love C&C