10 Months Old

My posts are getting further apart. I guess this is for two reasons. One: that I have a very active 10 month old boy to look after. Two: that this blog is about our adoption journey and that is a part of our lives that is winding down. We have gone from prospective adoptive parents, to adoptive parents and now just just parents. Richard is 10 months old today. It is also his father's 47th Birthday.

In October, we were informed by our adoption agency that we could contact an adoption attorney and start the official adoption procedures. This included signing documents for the attorney so they would have access to the adoption agency's reports on our progress as a family. Not knowing how long any of this would take, we just waited. Then, in November, we got an email from our attorney's paralegal saying she had not received the agency's paperwork. Come to find out, someone at the agency had just filed away the letter requesting the home study, etc. After an email to them the agency got right back in line with sending the proper paperwork.

Fast forward through the holidays. We got word through the attorney that the paperwork for our adoption had been filed with the local circuit court. Hunter called them to see if we had to wait for the circuit court session in January. In this small town, the court only meets once every 3 months. But the staff assured us that the judge would get the paperwork and could sign off on it at anytime. Hunter checked with the clerk last week and they said that the judge had only signed one of the three documents sent. We checked with the attorney and she said this was absolutely right. So we have two more documents that need to go through the courts which include paperwork passing from the agency to the circuit court judge. I can't believe how slow it all happens.

In the mean time, Richard is getting so big. He has 8 teeth now. He has gone from crawling to walking around the furniture. He got a big boy haircut last week. He went from this

To this

And now he's doing this!

Adoption Tax Credit

I saw this forum post on Adoptive Families magazine's web site today. It's a link to a petition supporting not abolishing the adoption tax credit in 2013. I don't know everything about the adoption tax credit bill. I just know that as Hunter and I await the circuit court judge's signature on our attorney's request to finalize our adoption, this tax credit is something that will help us with our adoption costs. We were lucky, our agency bases its fee on each household's income. So, that was already a big help. But then we have attorney fees on top of that. It adds up.

Apparently the adoption tax credit will disappear in 2013. I think this is a terrible shame. There are so many ordinary families like us who could give a child a home. We're not all like "Brangelina"! Adoption is already filled with so many emotional up and downs. This tax credit can really make the difference for people out there who want to help a child.

I've installed a link on the side bar. If you care about adoption, please go and add your name to the petition.

Things to be thankful for...

One year ago on Thanksgiving I posted this. At the time, we had been matched with a birth mother and had so much to look forward to. It didn't work out. I don't want to rehash what happened. But I am glad I read this post again today. So much has changed in the last year. But the thoughts in last year's post have not changed. I am still so thankful.

I am thankful for our family of three.

.

I am thankful my mom has beaten breast cancer.

I am thankful for my in-laws who look after Richard whenever we need help.

I am thankful for my husband who has had the biggest change in his life these last 8 months. He has passed childcare 101 with flying colors. Yeah, I might get mad at him for quoting WebMD a million times a week. But, at least he has his child's best interest at heart. Thank you, Hunter, for being a fabulous Dad!

And mostly, I'm thankful for this little guy. By the way, he just started crawling last night!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!



Thank you, Veterans!

In honor of Veteran's Day, I am reposting this from 2 years ago. My mom and I were fortunate to help welcome home the USS Bainbridge back to Norfolk after it's successful pirate-hunting deployment. My cousin, who is now a veteran, was one of her crew members. Thanks to all the veterans and to those who are still serving!

Open Adoption Roundtable #30

Do you remember the first time you heard about open adoption?
If you need some further prompting: What were the circumstances? What was your reaction? If you grew up in an open adoption, do you remember the first time you heard the label applied to your relationships?

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don't need to be listed at Open Adoption Bloggers to participate or even be in a traditional open adoption. If you're thinking about openness in adoption, you have a place at the table. The prompts are meant to be starting points--please feel free to adapt or expand on them.

Write a response at your blog--linking back here so your readers can browse other participating blogs--and share your post in the comments here. Using a previously published post is fine; I'd appreciate it if you'd add a link back to the roundtable. If you don't blog, you can always leave your thoughts directly in the comments.

We were so confused about adoption. After our fertility treatments failed in 2006, we looked towards adoption. We knew we wanted to become a family through adoption. But it took us 3 years to decide how to make it happen.  We concentrated on foreign adoption because, quite frankly, that's all we could find information on back then.

We decided to go to an adoption orientation for an agency in Northern Virginia which advertised both foreign and domestic adoptions. They went on and on about the foreign adoptions. Then spent 10 minutes explaining domestic adoption. I swear the social worker rolled her eyes throughout the whole explanation. It was absolutely no help. They made domestic adoption sound impossible and there was no mention of open adoption.

Then, in 2009 when foreign adoption became much more complicated by the Hague Treaty, we decided to look into domestic adoption again. Long story short, we were lead to the Childrens Home Society of Virginia. We attended yet another adoption seminar and it is there that we first encountered the term "Open Adoption" and we truly did not know what to think. Their presentation was all about openess in adoption. Although we were not sure about an open adoption, we loved the staff and decided to take the adoption plunge.

During our home study the question about openess finally came up. They wanted to know if we would be willing to meet with the birth parents plus what kind of contact to have after the placement of the child. All kinds of scenarios were placed before us. Would we want contact with birth siblings, birth grandparents, etc. It made our heads spin. We were very conservative in our answers to the social worker's questions. Because open adoption is the norm for today's domestic adoptions, we later found out our answers to these questions kept us from many placement possibilities for about a year.

During that year I started reading adoption blogs. I can't remember which one was first. But one lead to another and another and another. And eventually I found the Open Adoption Roundtable plus Heart Cries and Amstel Life. Through all of these bloggers I was able to get a big picture of open adoption. We finally asked our agency to amend our home study to include a completely open adoption.

One year later we were matched with our son's birth mother and we couldn't be happier. We are so thankful for the time we got to spend with R and her mother. We initially agreed to send pictures and letters through the agency. And we certainly started out that way. But now we have each other's email addresses and can communicate through Facebook.

I haven't yet digested how this will all turn out. But, I am so thankful to have an open adoption. The possibilities for the future are there and I can't wait to see what happens!

Open Adoption Roundatable #29

Heather at "Production, Not Reproduction" has opened a new Open Adoption Roundtable discussion. This roundtable was inspired by her visit to the BlogHer conference. She attended a session where bloggers actually got up and read their own favorite blog entries. She has encouraged the rest of us to share our own favorite blog posts and explain why it is our favorite.

I have chosen "Come Monday, It Will Be Alright". When I posted this, we were at a crossroad. We had just experienced the loss of a failed adoption and six weeks later experienced the high of being asked to meet with our son's birthmother. We were still healing, yet we had a glimmer of hope at finally becoming parents.

9/11 Ten years on

A lot happens in 10 years. Hunter and I watched the United 93 movie last night and I reminded him that 10 years ago today, we hadn't even met. We met in November of 2001. And now we are a family of 3. He's too young to know what today is all about. But Hunter and I will make sure he understands what happened in NY, at the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA.