Hello ICLWers!
-I'm 31, married to Neal for almost 5 years.
-PCOS w/ insulin resistance and severe male factor. 3 years of TTC, 4 failed IUIs, 5 rounds of Clomid, IVF w/ ICSI turned into our son, Kasen, who was born in June 2009. He's awesome and we are totally ready to add more to our family!
-Co-worker of Neal's knew we were talking about adopting in the future and put us in touch with someone he knew who was considering adoption for her baby. (aka Situation #1) Though she decided to parent, this got us started on the private adoption path and showed us that home studies can be done in two weeks for $300.
-Started networking on our own and were called this month about a Situation #2: Newborn girl in Texas. Currently waiting for more news but not feeling very hopeful that it's all going to work out at this time.
For those who don't know what ICLW is, it stands for International Comment Leaving Week and was started in the Infertility/Adoption/Loss blogging community as a way to get to know one another and lend support. It happens once a month and anybody can join in! (See link in sidebar!)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
142 Days: beautiful blogger award
No new news on the adoption... I still haven't received a call back so, um, yeah. More waiting and seeing!
But - thank you, Baby Interrupted, who nominated me for The Beautiful Blogger award! How fun!
The rules of this award are:
•Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
•Copy the award and place it in your blog.
•Link the person who nominated you for this award.
•Tell us 7 interesting things about you.
•Nominate 7 bloggers.
•Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.
1. I can't do accents. No matter which ones I try to do, they all come off sounding slightly Southern, and even that sucks. Heck, I can barely speak English sometimes. My words come out all jumbled... luckily, my husband totally knows what I mean. At least he claims to...
2. I'm one of those people who is terrified of the dentist. As in, I have to have valium before I go in to chill me out thanks to a few really bad and painful experiences. I even called my insurance company recently to find out if they would cover anesthesia and was very bummed to find out they will only cover it for surgeries. So - valium it is!
3. I got Neal into the Twilight series. He fell in love with it and was always all randomly, "Every time I look at our dog, I think of Jacob." or "When I see Kasen doing -fill in the blank- I imagine Renesmee doing that." Just today he pointed out that the lady fitting us for our new glasses had very Alice-like qualities... and he was so right! I love my husband. He's got a girlish bone in his body somewhere and he's not ashamed of it!
4. I love The X-Files. Me and my friend were even extras and ended up on one of the episodes! Yeah, totally awesome.
Here's a shot from our scene. That's the back of David Duchovny's head taking up the left part of the shot. I'm the blonde right next to his head and my friend is next to me!
5. I love reading and have already read 6 books this year. I'm so thrilled that we live within 5-10 minutes of two separate library systems. If one doesn't have something I want, the other one usually does! I'm also excited to start going back to story time... Kasen really liked it but we stopped going during flu season because he wasn't old enough to be vaccinated.
6. I've started liking going to the gym. It really is addictive if you stick to it! I've been going three times a week to Zumba, yoga and Body Pump but am now working on adding another Body Pump into my routine. My parents come 2-3 times a week to watch Kasen so I can go... and so they can get their Kasen fix!
7. I can't wait for the weather to get better because we have really nice parks around here as well as a bike trail. Poor Max misses his walks and hasn't been for a bike ride in almost 2 years. (Yes, we taught him to heel to a bike - he loves it!) For Christmas, my parents got us a bike trailer to pull kids in, so once it warms up, we are all hitting the trail for a ride and a picnic!
And the nominations are...
Egg Drop Post (private adoption)
Losing the Baby Wait (agency adoption - just matched!)
Heart Cries (parenting after adoption)
Life According to Leah (international adoption)
Birth Mom Missions (birth mom)
Full Circle (foster adoption)
No End in Sight Except Heaven (childhood cancer)
But - thank you, Baby Interrupted, who nominated me for The Beautiful Blogger award! How fun!
The rules of this award are:
•Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
•Copy the award and place it in your blog.
•Link the person who nominated you for this award.
•Tell us 7 interesting things about you.
•Nominate 7 bloggers.
•Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.
1. I can't do accents. No matter which ones I try to do, they all come off sounding slightly Southern, and even that sucks. Heck, I can barely speak English sometimes. My words come out all jumbled... luckily, my husband totally knows what I mean. At least he claims to...
2. I'm one of those people who is terrified of the dentist. As in, I have to have valium before I go in to chill me out thanks to a few really bad and painful experiences. I even called my insurance company recently to find out if they would cover anesthesia and was very bummed to find out they will only cover it for surgeries. So - valium it is!
3. I got Neal into the Twilight series. He fell in love with it and was always all randomly, "Every time I look at our dog, I think of Jacob." or "When I see Kasen doing -fill in the blank- I imagine Renesmee doing that." Just today he pointed out that the lady fitting us for our new glasses had very Alice-like qualities... and he was so right! I love my husband. He's got a girlish bone in his body somewhere and he's not ashamed of it!
4. I love The X-Files. Me and my friend were even extras and ended up on one of the episodes! Yeah, totally awesome.
Here's a shot from our scene. That's the back of David Duchovny's head taking up the left part of the shot. I'm the blonde right next to his head and my friend is next to me!
5. I love reading and have already read 6 books this year. I'm so thrilled that we live within 5-10 minutes of two separate library systems. If one doesn't have something I want, the other one usually does! I'm also excited to start going back to story time... Kasen really liked it but we stopped going during flu season because he wasn't old enough to be vaccinated.
6. I've started liking going to the gym. It really is addictive if you stick to it! I've been going three times a week to Zumba, yoga and Body Pump but am now working on adding another Body Pump into my routine. My parents come 2-3 times a week to watch Kasen so I can go... and so they can get their Kasen fix!
7. I can't wait for the weather to get better because we have really nice parks around here as well as a bike trail. Poor Max misses his walks and hasn't been for a bike ride in almost 2 years. (Yes, we taught him to heel to a bike - he loves it!) For Christmas, my parents got us a bike trailer to pull kids in, so once it warms up, we are all hitting the trail for a ride and a picnic!
And the nominations are...
Egg Drop Post (private adoption)
Losing the Baby Wait (agency adoption - just matched!)
Heart Cries (parenting after adoption)
Life According to Leah (international adoption)
Birth Mom Missions (birth mom)
Full Circle (foster adoption)
No End in Sight Except Heaven (childhood cancer)
Monday, February 15, 2010
138 Days: Cryptic
So I'm going to be kind of cryptic because I want to respect the privacy of those involved and not come off as talking about their business... especially when what I'm going on is heresay at this point. Needless to say, I may come back and edit this post if I say something that turns out to be completely wrong.
I'm still waiting for a return call from my contact, a pastor in Columbus (we'll call him Pastor T), but I did talk to my neighbor after he talked to him the other day.
Baby J is in emergency foster care in Texas because both of her parents are in jail and her grandparents cannot take her. I believe Baby J is now at the point that they are looking for extended family to take her.
Having foster care already involved definitely throws up a red flag for us... we are not approved to adopt from the foster care system. I don't know when "emergency foster care" goes from being a temporary thing to actually being in the foster care system. Because her parents are in jail, they may have automatically terminated their parental rights... I have no idea how that works with those incarcerated. (I do know that if they will be in jail for two years or more, then their rights can be involuntarily terminated.) If their rights haven't been terminated, I believe there's a chance that we could do private adoption between us and them, again depending on what the laws are for inmates. My attorney suggested that I contact an attorney in the county she is in to get basic things answered,* but I don't know where she is yet. Anyone have any insight to this type of stuff?
I don't know how Pastor T knows this family, but there are other things going on that he is looking into so even if we can't get Baby J, something else may work out. I hope to hear from him today, but if I don't, I'm going to call him again tomorrow.
*I know, you're thinking "isn't that something your attorney should be doing...?" Not necessarily. With private adoption, the adoptive parents (APs) do the majority of the footwork, especially with basic things like getting questions answered. The more we do, the less fees the attorney has to take out of the retainer. So far all advice and stuff he's given us has been free!
I'm still waiting for a return call from my contact, a pastor in Columbus (we'll call him Pastor T), but I did talk to my neighbor after he talked to him the other day.
Baby J is in emergency foster care in Texas because both of her parents are in jail and her grandparents cannot take her. I believe Baby J is now at the point that they are looking for extended family to take her.
Having foster care already involved definitely throws up a red flag for us... we are not approved to adopt from the foster care system. I don't know when "emergency foster care" goes from being a temporary thing to actually being in the foster care system. Because her parents are in jail, they may have automatically terminated their parental rights... I have no idea how that works with those incarcerated. (I do know that if they will be in jail for two years or more, then their rights can be involuntarily terminated.) If their rights haven't been terminated, I believe there's a chance that we could do private adoption between us and them, again depending on what the laws are for inmates. My attorney suggested that I contact an attorney in the county she is in to get basic things answered,* but I don't know where she is yet. Anyone have any insight to this type of stuff?
I don't know how Pastor T knows this family, but there are other things going on that he is looking into so even if we can't get Baby J, something else may work out. I hope to hear from him today, but if I don't, I'm going to call him again tomorrow.
*I know, you're thinking "isn't that something your attorney should be doing...?" Not necessarily. With private adoption, the adoptive parents (APs) do the majority of the footwork, especially with basic things like getting questions answered. The more we do, the less fees the attorney has to take out of the retainer. So far all advice and stuff he's given us has been free!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
134 Days: a possible situation...?
So I got a call a little while ago from my neighbor about a 2-week-old baby who needs a home. He left a message with the birth family so now we wait to see if they call.
Yes - a 2-week-old. As in already born.
I'm going to call the attorney tomorrow just to triple check that everything is in order as this could happen very fast.
:::eeek!:::
Update
It's a girl and she is 3-weeks-old now.
Yes - a 2-week-old. As in already born.
I'm going to call the attorney tomorrow just to triple check that everything is in order as this could happen very fast.
:::eeek!:::
Update
It's a girl and she is 3-weeks-old now.
Friday, February 5, 2010
128 Days: hair
I haven't had my hair cut since July. Partly because I'm cheap frugal, but mostly because I just haven't gotten around to setting up an appointment and getting a babysitter.
Needless to say, my hair was becoming quite difficult - even in a pony tail - so I planned on just going to one of the walk-in places this morning and getting it trimmed and thinned out. They couldn't do a worse job than the last time I got it cut and I just wanted it done with.
Long story short, one thing after another happened and I didn't get out of the house in time before it started snowing.
And snowing.
And snowing.
Within two hours we were under a Level 1 snow emergency. It took Neal 30 minutes to get to the Kroger that is literally five minutes away from here. Getting my hair cut is not worth the hassel of dealing with panicking people facing snOMG 2010!*
Instead, I puttered around the house while lamenting over my highly annoying hair.
Then it hit me.
I'll just do it myself, darn it!
Kasen wasn't so sure when I told him of my plans:
"You're going to do what!?"
I've cut other people's hair forever and have spent years watching different techniques and was confident that I understood the process. I hopped online to see if I could glean any tips, broke out my scissors and went to town.
I brushed. I flipped. I trimmed. I thinned.
(Note to self: When using thinning shears, make sure you actually grab the thinning shears and not the regular scissors BEFORE you start cutting a big chunk out of the middle of your head.)
And in the end...
It turned out great! And I saved $30!
(I guess we know where Kasen gets his blue eyes from!)
(Where did all those wrinkles come from? Stupid aging.)
(Speaking of aging, my birthday is Sunday. More wrinkles!)
*totally stolen from someone on twitter. cracked me up.
Needless to say, my hair was becoming quite difficult - even in a pony tail - so I planned on just going to one of the walk-in places this morning and getting it trimmed and thinned out. They couldn't do a worse job than the last time I got it cut and I just wanted it done with.
Long story short, one thing after another happened and I didn't get out of the house in time before it started snowing.
And snowing.
And snowing.
Within two hours we were under a Level 1 snow emergency. It took Neal 30 minutes to get to the Kroger that is literally five minutes away from here. Getting my hair cut is not worth the hassel of dealing with panicking people facing snOMG 2010!*
Instead, I puttered around the house while lamenting over my highly annoying hair.
Then it hit me.
I'll just do it myself, darn it!
Kasen wasn't so sure when I told him of my plans:
"You're going to do what!?"
I've cut other people's hair forever and have spent years watching different techniques and was confident that I understood the process. I hopped online to see if I could glean any tips, broke out my scissors and went to town.
I brushed. I flipped. I trimmed. I thinned.
(Note to self: When using thinning shears, make sure you actually grab the thinning shears and not the regular scissors BEFORE you start cutting a big chunk out of the middle of your head.)
And in the end...
It turned out great! And I saved $30!
(I guess we know where Kasen gets his blue eyes from!)
(Where did all those wrinkles come from? Stupid aging.)
(Speaking of aging, my birthday is Sunday. More wrinkles!)
*totally stolen from someone on twitter. cracked me up.
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