Validation

Hey all!
Since I last posted, two cool things have happened, and even though they're not actually related, they feel enormously validating for Paul and I.

First of all, we are COMPLETELY done with our home study (thank goodness)! Because we're working on grants now, we needed a letter that essentially says that we have a completed home study- it's easier than sending these million-page home study packets to every single grant we apply for. At the bottom of this page, the final sentence was:

"Therefore, I recommend and approve this family to adopt a child as described in this study."

I stared at that for a few minutes. I maybe cried. I realized that there had been a part of me that wasn't sure we'd be approved- not because I don't think we'll be good adoptive parents, but because it feels like there's so much we don't control. We let these adoption workers in to the intimate details of our lives and then see what they say- it's nerve-wracking! It was so important to let go of that last burden (for the moment), and in a weird sense, it gave us more confidence- like, heck yeah, we're approved!



The second thing that happened had very little to do with us, but has made all of the difference.

We have some lovely friends named Justin and Katy, and they just brought home their baby girl!

Celebrations

The last week and a half has been all about celebrations for us, and so today I'm going to focus on those, with some updates interspersed.

! Today's (more or less) the last day of school! I could not be more excited- it's been a long school year. Adding the adoption paperwork to working full time has been even more difficult than my last two years of working full time and going to grad school full time. I could use a week or so of sleep right about now.

!! No more garage sales!! After five garage sales over 6 days, we are exhausted. Not only are we celebrating being done, but also raising just over FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Seriously, that's our combined total from the Craigslist, Ebay, and garage sale items that were donated and a part of our purging. Incredible! Interestingly, we got to meet the most wonderful, heartwarming, encouraging people through the process. We are thankful to be done, but so grateful for the experience, your donations, and getting closer to bringing Baby J home.

!!! Today is our anniversary!!! Nine years ago today, we began the adventure of marriage, and it has been such a gift. I am so thankful that we ended up together- I couldn't have gone through this process with anyone else (nor would I want to)! Pictured here is us about eleven years ago, when we first started dating. 

!!!! Our home study is done! We are waiting on the signatures, but it has been approved by both agencies! This means several things, not least of which that we can start applying for grants. We will next be working on our dossier, and besides a MASSIVE amount of paperwork, we're not sure what to expect. I'm sure adoptive parents can/will enlighten me, but I'm sure we'll also figure it out as we go along. We are also thrilled to have our sweet friends coming home with their precious adopted daughter right now (like, literally right now) and it feels like such a great thing to be able to celebrate as we're in the middle of our small victories. While we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we're getting to see what actually at the end of the tunnel, and it's so remarkable!

Thank you all for your love, support, encouragement, help, time, donations, prayers, and patience. We couldn't do this without you and we're happy to have you all around to celebrate these things with us! We will update again soon- until then, we love you!

Garage Sale FINALE!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we're almost at the end- we are having our LAST garage sale on Friday (5/30) and Saturday (5/31)!

We still have a ton of great stuff and a BUNCH of new stuff (especially baby stuff!) that's been recently donated. We have promises of even more big-ticket items on the way in the next few days as well, so mark your calendars! We are priced to sell- we will be pricing clothes and books by the bag, so there will be some REALLY great deals to be had. Even better, I will stop bugging you with garage sale-y posts!

1. If you have items to donate, please schedule this with us ASAP- we would love love love more donations, and we'll take anything up until the end.

2. We need grocery bags- over the last month, we've given out more than we've taken in, so we definitely won't make it through the weekend.

3. We need help manning specific areas, handing out bag, etc.- we have had INCREDIBLE helpers, but we're going to be (hopefully) very busy and we would like to get this squared away sooner rather than later.

4. We need to borrow tables, if you have them. The ones we've been using won't be available on Saturday.

5. We need SHOPPERS! Each time someone drives by without stopping, I am absolutely shocked- we have everything under the sun, so I can't imagine what they're not finding. Come see for yourself :)

HUGE thanks go out to everyone that has donated, purchased, encouraged, and helped at these events- we are so looking forward to being done, but it has been an enormous blessing! Please contact us if you're looking for anything specific or if you'd like to donate/help. I'll include Paul's Craigslist post later so you can see photos to the best of our abilities. Hopefully we'll see you on Friday and Saturday, 8 am -3 pm!!!

Updates: Our home study is undergoing some small revisions and is then being sent to our placing agency in Minnesota- one more step forward! Thank you for your encouragement and love- we love you all!

Support

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because May is a pretty hectic time of year for teachers and things have been bonkers.

Even more than the school year coming to a close, however, we have been busy fundraising- a task we could in no way accomplish on our own. Pictured is a group of friends we've gotten close to over the years- and while there are a few people missing, we're thankful to have this particular group of friends because they have been SO supportive in a variety of ways. This group (including a few notable others not seen here) have gone over and above with their outpouring of love for us and Baby J, so they're getting a dedication post. :) 

These friends have helped at every.single.garage sale (and they've donated more than half of the stuff we've sold), they've donated financially, they've prayed for and encouraged us, they've brought meals and treats when we were exhausted, they've been our cheerleaders- there is nothing that hasn't been done by at least one of them. They've organized garage sale previews, listened when we were stressed, kept a good sense of humor when we've been down, and even started gifting for Baby J. (I also think two of them are going to paint the nursery for us- if you've ever seen me paint, you'd know what a huge blessing that is- we can't afford to replace the carpet.)

I mention this now mainly because we're in a holding pattern- we have had 3 of 5 garage sales and our garage is still PACKED- so we're trying to do what we can and raise funds with what we have in the meantime. Unfortunately, Paul works many Saturdays, and so thankfully, we've had these friends coming to help price, sell, and cover the sale throughout the day. We would definitely have not been successful without them, and we love them for it. We're waiting for our home study to be reviewed by both agencies, which means that we can't apply for grants yet, and so the focus has been on the sales in order to reach the fundraising goal for our next bill. (We need a completed home study to apply for most adoption grants.) 

This is important to us in part because we know that not everyone is going to adopt, but everyone can support adoption in different ways. We have had a LOT of support, and we could write blogs for the next decade about each person that's helped us, both inside this group and outside, but these guys have been almost as involved in the fundraising process as we have been! We are so encouraged by people that help even if it's not their passion- because they've shown us that they're passionate about families in every sense of the word. 

Updates:

I wish I could say that there were major updates, but we are just waiting for our home study to be approved. After that point, we will have more to share and hopefully a clearer view of the estimated timeline (although even that is a guess).

Until then, thanks for everything!  Come visit us next Saturday (5/24) and the following Friday/Saturday (5/30-5/31) for our last garage sales- there's new stuff coming in every day! You're welcome to donate stuff as well if that comes up. Thank you and we love you all!

Let's Talk About It

We knew that adopting- and writing a blog about our adoption- would open us up for conversations, both good and bad. Talking about adoption is simultaneously my favorite thing AND my least favorite thing. While it's something we're obviously super passionate about and some of the conversations are uplifting and lovely, there are also a lot of times when the conversation is at best untimely, and at worst, super offensive. Mostly, though, they're somewhere in-between… good and weird and slightly uncomfortable but worth it… kind of like adoption.

We are always happy to have these conversations, even the awkward ones. Most are pretty great, and we're glad that people care enough to ask. These are some of the common ones, good and bad.

Convo #1: "Can you have your own kids?" First of all, my adoptive kid(s) will be my own. Also, yes, let's have the infertility conversation in this group of people, Ms. Perfect Stranger.

Convo #2: "(laughing) You're not going to adopt from Africa, are you?" (Yes, this was actually said to us. Really.) There are variations of this too, all making jokes about international adoption before people realize that we are, in fact, adopting internationally. There's no good way to respond to this, either, because there's so much that we want to say, but it's falling on deaf ears. Also in this: super racist comments that people don't think are racist. Yikes.

Convo #3: "Do you have kids?" This is no one's fault, but it's rough. I get asked that A LOT, and there was a time when it would have been worse, because we didn't know if we'd ever have kids and it's not the kind of question that a stranger expects you to cry about- but now, it's awkward because I don't know how to respond. I'm not pregnant, so we can't say yes yet, but we also are going to have a baby in the nearish future, so…………….? How do we respond? Yes? No? Sort of? I heard one adoptive mom that proudly adopted the term "expectant mother", but it's still a strange feeling. Especially with Mother's Day coming around, I'm not sure how to answer, but it comes up a lot.

Convo #4: "So do you have your baby yet?" I have a student that asked me this THE DAY AFTER he found out I was adopting. This is one of the funny ones- he clearly has no idea what's going on. Oddly enough, though, Paul's been asked this too- and not by children- and it reminds us that not everyone has gotten to see this process before. We probably said the same things before we watched our friends Chad and Courtney adopt, because we didn't know, but it still makes us laugh.

Convo #5: "When will you have your baby/ when are you leaving?" If only we knew, friend.

Updates: Our home study is being written right now! This will still take a bit to be finished, but we're done with education hours ad stuff for the moment.

Our garage sale yesterday was rained out, but our garage is filled to the max again, so we're having it next Saturday, rain or shine. Anyone interested in helping hang clothes on Friday should let me know- we're trying to stage as much as possible in the garage, so we'll be borrowing ladders and brooms to create makeshift clothes racks. We have TONS of new stuff, thanks to a handful of donations that have trickled in and an ENORMOUS donation from our amazing (former) neighbors- they let us raid their garage because they're downsizing and couldn't take everything with them. Join us next Saturday (10th) from 8am- 2pm!

As always, we love you and we're so thankful for your support!

Spring Cleaning

As I'm sure everyone with kids can understand, we're in purging mode. Thank goodness for garage sales, because it's spring cleaning!

There's something cathartic about getting rid of things, and I have a hard time believing that so much of this stuff fit in our house. Even beyond that, in light of the things that we'll be needing- and babies need a LOT of stuff- I'm in awe of what we thought we needed, what has made it with us from house to house.

Many of you know we had a garage sale two weekends ago- and it was extremely successful. For a last minute venture, we were thrilled to make over $1200! Thank you SO SO SO much to everyone for the donations and patronage- it made such an enormous difference. A special thanks to Tim and Kiersten, Courtney, Brennon, Jimmie, Rob, Jenessa, Katie (and Jorie), and Adnan for their efforts selling our things- they were pricing masters and helped to set up and cleanup so the process went smoothly.

All that said, we still have many things, and we are having another sale on May 3rd! Any additional donations of your goods are welcome and appreciated- we are happy to take your junk! We will keep having sales until everything's gone, so we expect to be professionals by summer. New stuff keeps coming in, so keep checking back. We'll also be trying to post what we have on Craigslist and Ebay in one easy to view format, but we're working on it. And by we, I mean Paul- he's the greatest.

So, visit us again for another Saturday sale- May 3rd at 8 am. Thanks for your support!


Updates!
On THURSDAY, we have our (hopefully) last meeting with our social worker- three cheers! She is lovely, but I am happy to move past this- it's an awkward phase. She'll be doing the home inspection during this visit, so we have spent a LOT of time cleaning. We've also begun baby proofing, and ironically, we've had to make an evacuation plan since the state requires that we have one posted. Yes, even for a baby. (If you were one of the people we told that we'd be meeting at the beginning of May- surprise! We got bumped up. Yay?)

After our last meeting with our social worker, she will write up our home study, which may have to go through revisions; that could take several weeks, but it will be sent to our placing agency in Minnesota, and then we'll move on to the next step, which should be getting things ready to submit to the US government and the Marshallese government.

Another good thing about being close to done with the home study is that we will be able to start applying for grants! This, hopefully, is where we'll get some more funding, and we haven't been able to apply because our home study isn't complete. I've been stressing about this because generally, the waiting is done AFTER the home study- waiting for your referral, then waiting to travel, then waiting to travel again… but in our program, it looks like the waiting will be significantly shorter. (I like to think it's because we waited so long to join the program in the first place.) We will probably still feel like waiting even a week to meet our baby is excruciating, but this also means that we'll need to work on funding pronto- we can't move on to certain steps of the process if we haven't paid for the steps we've already taken. Urg.

Another plug for Just Love Coffee, which we have been thoroughly enjoying. Our favorite has been the Costa Rican blend, but we've been trying something new each time we order. Thanks for your support!

I'll try to do a follow-up post soon, after we finish our meetings. Until then- thank you for your support and love! We love you!

Out of Control

I never thought that I was a controlling person, but apparently I was wrong- and the last few weeks have proved it.

As the teacher of 75 walking hormone fiascos, I thought I was used to accepting that I couldn't control other people, or circumstances. I also thought that I had "figured it out" a really long time ago- or at the very least, when we decided to adopt. Once my body started to go haywire, I realized that there were things out of my control, and I was done learning the lesson, right? Oh brother.

That gem is me, at approximately 2 years old, pretending I was pregnant. My mom was pregnant with my sister, and I went around with a baby in the front of my dress (or stuck in a nightgown, as pictured). I knew I wanted to be MY mom (obviously, because she's awesome), but I also knew that I wanted to be A mom. I never remember a single moment in my life when I didn't want to be a mom- I even broke up with a guy in high school because I thought he'd be a terrible dad. That was an awkward conversation, let me tell you. In all of those moments, the idea that we wouldn't be able to get pregnant never, ever, ever occurred to me. Talk about something you can't control.

Time to make some adoptive parents laugh- I somehow thought adoption would be easier in the sense that we'd have more control! I jinxed us big time.  Not only did we give so much of our control to people we don't necessarily know (our home study agency, our placing agency, social workers and lawyers in RMI, people writing our referrals, people conducting background checks, and so on), but we also have had to trust the timelines of other people.

While I was visiting family in California, we had a paperwork snafu and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt utterly helpless. We have a bill due once we are finished meeting with our social worker, and we're still $3k short. We were waiting and waiting for a phone call, only to find out that it had come in to the house line we rarely check and don't usually give the number to. URG! Can't we hurry it up? Can't everything just go smoothly? Can't we just bring our baby home, for Poe's sake?!?

Really, this is the tip of the iceberg, and I still find myself startled by how out of control we feel- shouldn't we be used to this by now? At the same time, it's so good for us in the long run- such a painful, but good, way to grow. But is it a bad sign that I feel out of control before the baby's even home?


Updates/ opportunities to help:
We've been assigned a social worker, huzzah! It's the last major step for our home study. That's our update on that front.

SUPER SHORT NOTICE! We are having a garage sale THIS upcoming Saturday at 8 am at our place- 13350 Sw Village Glenn in Tigard. Be there or be square! This will be the first garage sale of several probably, but we've got some pretty great stuff. ALSO, a friend came up with a great idea- $10 buy-in for a Friday night preview of the goods! Send Paul or I a text if you're interested.

We're still selling Just Love Coffee, and we've been getting it ourself- it's delicious! I absolutely recommend it.

Thank you again for everything- your love, support, excitement, and well wishes all mean SO MUCH.