And now, to advertise...

So, good news!  It turns out that neither Danielle or I are wanted by the FBI or any police force in Washington State!  I’m sure everyone is completely surprised by this fact.

            Last night, we met with our social worker.  She had a few final questions for us, and, with the information provided by our references, she will be sending her report, recommending us as adoptive parents to the lawyer we have chosen to hire.  What a process it’s been so far!  The FBI and state background checks were just the start.  We both filled out very extensive biographies, had physicals, disclosed all our financial information, and had questionnaires filled out by four references (1 relative, 3 non-related).  Now on to the next steps…

            So, what’s next?  To put it slightly roughly, we get to start advertising.  We’ll be compiling a portfolio, which we can distribute through any means possible, which will be used to introduce our family to birthparents.  We can advertise in newspapers (like in Juno), through some doctor’s offices and medical clinics, and different routes like that.  Our lawyer will keep a copy of the portfolio to give to any birthmothers he is in contact with.  My mother, who works for a school district, will bring a copy to the high school councilors.  And, as it turns out, one of our most important resources is you, all of our friends and family.  If anyone out there knows a girl who is pregnant, and who is considering giving their child up for adoption, please feel free to contact us.  We realize, of course, that this is not a decision that is to be taken lightly for the mother, and we definitely don’t want anyone to pressure a girl to give a child up for adoption if that girl isn’t absolutely sure it is the right decision.

            We have been so blessed by all of you, and we thank you for your continued support.  I don’t think I can truly express the emotions - joy, excitement, even a slight bit of fear - at taking this next step.  I am happy to have so many to share this journey with.  Hopefully, as things start to become more of a reality, I will be a little better at keeping you all updated.

little stories

            I’ve been listening to a radio program lately called The Moth.  It’s an hour long program of storytellers, some comedians or other stage professionals, some just random people off the street, but everyone has to tell a true story about their life.  Basically, the premise is that a good storyteller draws listeners like moths to a porch light.  It’s actually very interesting.  There are stories that run the entire emotional gamut.  Some are hilarious, some inspiring, some sad.  One story is from a journalist who is an ex-cocaine addict.  His story is about how he took his twin girls, when they were infants, to a drug house in the middle of winter, and because it wasn’t cool to bring babies with him to buy his drugs; he left them in the car while he went in.  He, of course, gets high inside and loses track of time.  The story revolves around his walk back to the car, realizing how long his girls have been out there in the cold, and the likelihood that he’s allowed them to freeze to death.  Fortunately, the story has a happy ending.  If I hadn’t been sitting at my desk at work when I listened to this one, I may have teared up.  Other stories include a somnambulist (someone who walks in his sleep) who actually jumped out of a second story hotel window (which was closed) in his sleep, and an undercover cop with a hilarious arrest story with too many coincidences involved to try to describe here.  The point is, everyone has a story to tell.  Everyone has something to say that is worth listening to.

            A couple of weeks ago, I finished my biographical information for our adoption home study.  Danielle included one of the questions (out of 15) from this in a previous post.  If you read that, you can understand how in depth this biography was.    Writing my biography was kind of tough.  It’s hard to know what to put in there.  This isn’t like writing a story for The Moth.  There’s no point, really, in talking about my bachelor party, where a group of us went backpacking, and spent a large portion of our time trying to ward off a bull moose that was unhappy with the fact that we were camping in his territory.  There isn’t a place in this biography to tell stories about me and my friends in high school discovering why it is a bad idea to poke a dead, bloated skunk with a sharp stick, sneaking into the woods on the campus of the mental hospital to track mule deer, or the time a late night game of tag ended with a police chase (it’s a long story, but let me just say, we didn’t do anything wrong).  It’s weird to see your life summarized and distilled down to a couple of pages.  If I didn’t know any better, it would make me think I’d had a boring life.  But, I do know better.  I’ve had a great life, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.  It’s these little stories that make life so great.

I ♥ sunshine!

Well since my last post May has come and gone. I can’t believe it. My.. how time flies!

I’ll start by letting you know how our first visit with Ruth Moe went. Ruth is that woman who is conducting our home study. She was very nice and we found it very easy to talk with her. She has adopted in the past herself and was very encouraging to Jeremiah and I and had wonderful things to say about her experience.  Basically the first meeting was what I had expected it to be. Ruth went over all the paper work with us and explained the different things we’d need to do before she can approve us for adopting. We both had to get our finger prints taken and sent to the FBI for a background check. May was a VERY busy month for the two of us so we weren’t able to get down to the Court house until this past Thursday to get that step done. I’m gonna be honest… getting my finger prints taken WAS everything I thought it would be. SO exciting! ;) I felt like I was in a movie!

From what we heard from Ruth it sounds like the results of our background check from the FBI may be back as fast as 3 weeks… or as long as 14 weeks. Apparently they don’t keep that very consistent.  But that’s fine. We have quite a bit more to get done in the mean time. Jeremiah and I both have to have physicals and we need to complete our biographical information. There are a lot of questions and I have a feeling it will take me a while to finish it. There are 16 “questions” (more like categories) in all that we need to answer in depth.  Here’s an example of one.

# 4: Give a history of yourself from birth to present. Include information about your parents – their occupations, nature of their marriage, quality of your childhood relationships with them, present relationship with them, and present locations of them. Discuss your siblings, their birthdates, how you relate to them and where they currently are. What was your childhood like – school and social activities, activities with family and friends etc. what was your school experience and what has been the nature of your work experience? What was your religious upbringing?

That is just ONE of the categories. When I’m done writing about all of that… I’ll have a small book. And there are 15 more sections almost as long as this one. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I’m actually excited about doing this. I think it’ll be a great challenge. And I don’t mean a challenge in a bad way. I think everyone should sit down and write a small biography about themselves at some point in their lives. It’s a good exercise and it makes you look back at your life with a different perspective. Jeremiah and I are going to be taking a Vacation in a week from tomorrow to go down to California for a week. It’s been a long winter and we’re both excited to be somewhere warm to recover from the cold. I think the plane ride down there and back will be the perfect time to work on our biographies. We’ll be stuck in small uncomfortable seats for several hours with nothing better to do than look at the airplane’s magazines repeatedly or try unsuccessfully to get some shut eye. So why not do something useful? We can be writing our biographies and dreaming about the day when we’ll finally have a little family all the while our heads will literally be in the clouds thousands of miles above the ground. Brilliant! ;)

I just mentioned our vacation above. I am very excited about it! We’re going to Disney Land! Seriously… getting my fingerprints taken AND going to Disney Land all in the same month! I must be in heaven! For our vacation this summer we decided we definitely needed to go somewhere warm. This past winter (and spring so far) was way too cold and miserable. Can I get an “Amen”?! We’ve really been enjoying taking trips over to the Oregon coast for our vacations but we both felt like that just wouldn’t cut it this time. We need to get sunburns… and FAST! (Just kidding Jeremiah) I promised Jeremiah that I would wear sunscreen everyday we’re down there and I intend to keep that promise. Skin cancer isn’t too appealing anymore. When I was younger… sure. I mean who didn’t want skin cancer? But Jeremiah has shown me the light. SPF 50 here I come! ;)

My Birthday was May 8^th. I’m still 22… however my body is now 26. My sister Lacey is an amazing photographer and for my birthday present she said she’d take some fun pictures of me. My very own photo shoot! I’m very excited. Lacey is a genius in her work and I know she’ll take some amazing pictures. I’ll be leaving my house in about an hour and a half to go on this adventure. I had better go and pretty myself up. Maybe I’ll share a few when I have them. ;) I can’t wait until she can take our family pictures!!

Thanks for following our blog!

Love you all!

Home study time!

I’m starting to think Jeremiah is a better blogger than I am! I didn’t see that coming. ;) Just kidding! I love you, Jeremiah. I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. You’re a fabulous husband and you’re going to be an amazing Dad one of these days! J

So since our meeting with the adoption attorney, Mark Iverson, I was able to contact the home study lady that he recommended and I schedule our first meeting with her. Her name is Ruth and from the few times I’ve been able to speak with her on the phone I've found her to be very helpful and she seems to be a great woman. We’re going to be meeting with her on Saturday morning at 10:30. I’m not really sure what to expect from this first meeting. I’m assuming most of it will be going over paper work and forms and her explaining to us what they are and how to fill them out. From what she’s told me… there is a LOT to fill out. Basically Jeremiah and I will have to write a lot about our lives. The way we were raised, disciplined, what our childhood was like, how our marriage is and etc… And then the flip side… how we intend to raise and discipline our children and so on and so forth.  It’s definitely a lot to think about.  I’m sure Jeremiah and I both have ideas in our heads of how we’d like to do this but it hasn’t been a common conversation for us yet so it’ll be good for us to sit down and figure it all out.

I had asked Ruth if there was anything she expected or that needed to be done before we have our first meeting with her... like does the baby’s room need to be finished or anything like that. To my great relief she said, no. She said that there’s going to be plenty of time to get all the little details done while all of our paperwork is getting processed. We both have to have criminal and background checks, as well as our fingerprints ran. (uh oh!! j/k) Another thing she mentioned was we both have to have physicals done unless we’ve had one in the past year.  That surprised me at first but after thinking about it for a while it made sense. Of course they would want the potential adopters to be both mentally and physically stable.

I’m very excited about Saturday. We’ll have lots to tell you I’m sure! Please be praying for us! As exciting as this is… it’s still a little nerve racking. So thank you! We do appreciate your prayers and support very much!

It's a family thing...

So, a week ago yesterday, Dave and Keri were married.  For those of you that don’t know, Dave is my brother, and Keri is Danielle’s sister – Yes, my brother married my wife’s sister.  I love them both dearly, and I think they will have a wonderful life together, and I couldn’t be happier for them.  The wedding was beautiful, and, if you know the two of them, it fit them perfectly.  They have been in London for the past week, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them when they get home (they’ll be home late tonight, but after a wedding and a trip to London, I’m sure they’ll need some time to decompress, so it’ll be a couple of days before I get to see them most likely).

With all of the excitement of the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about families and family dynamics.  We had family in town for the wedding from as far away as Texas and Washington D.C.  It’s interesting to see my parents with their brothers and sisters.  It seems odd, but I have aunts and uncles living maybe 2 miles from us that we see once or twice a year at most.  I really do love my family, but there is a certain amount of awkwardness there.  I’m sure anyone reading this understands, but I’m going to explain anyway…

You have no choice on what situation you are born into.  Your family is your family, no matter what.  There is somehow a certain connection that you share, simply because a certain percentage of your genetic material is the same.  This can put you in some strange situations.  You take a group of people who see each other once or twice a year, if that, they are invariably heading down several different paths in life.  They think differently, have different goals, hopes and desires, they have completely different, and sometimes opposing, paradigms of the world.  Now, you put all of those people in a room together, and expect that, since they are family, they have wonderful relationships with each other.  Often they don’t.  It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s just that they don’t have a basis for that. 

Let me give an example.  Take my relationship with my Aunt Deloris.  Now, I love Deloris.  She is a wonderfully kind, generous, and loving person.  I know that there are things that Deloris and I disagree about, but that isn’t something that bothers me.  She is the kind of person where (and I know this from experience) you can have an open, honest discussion with her, and at the end not come to the same conclusions, and leave feeling like you were heard and understood, and not just disregarded, and that that is really what mattered.  Sadly, I rarely see Deloris.  She lives just a few miles away, but we don’t ever just drop in to see one another or anything.  So, when I do see Deloris, I really don’t know what is going on in her life, and she doesn’t know what’s going on in mine.  This means that just about any conversation I will have with her is going to be fairly superficial.  We both know this, but there is still something inside me at least (I can’t really talk for others here, but I assume I’m not the only one) that says “Hey, we’re family, we should automatically have a relationship that moves beyond the superficial.”  Of course, that’s not the way it is.  I don’t blame anyone, that’s just part of life.  We busy ourselves with our daily lives.  I’m sure we’ll see each other in a few months, we’ll give each other little sound bite updates on how our lives are going, and we’ll be content with that. 

This is what I’m saying is awkward.  It’s a kind of dichotomy – We’re family, we should know each other well, I hardly ever see you, so I hardly know who you are.  As I said, this is life, oh well.

I do have family that I am extremely close to.  Dave and Keri, for instance.  Their apartment is about 3 blocks from our house.  Before they were married, they were pretty much Danielle and my best friends.  I’m sure that bond will just strengthen.  Danielle has 3 more sisters, two of which live within easy walking distance of our house.  Candy lives just up the hill from us, and we generally get to see her a couple times a week.  Dana lives the opposite direction, with her husband Ryan and their two beautiful children, Lilly and Ben.  Lacey, and her husband Jared and their adorable daughter Zoey live on the other side of town, but we still get to spend time with them fairly frequently.  Then there is my cousin James, his wife Tanya, and their gorgeous little girl Aletheia.  James has, for a long time, been almost as much a brother to me as Dave has.  There is a certain bond I have with all of these people that, when I think of family, this is who I think of.  They interact with me on a daily basis, and truly affect my life. 

Now, I don’t know what the future has in store for all of us.  However, when I imagine my children growing up, I can’t help but picture them growing up around all of this family.  I see my children being excited to go play with their cousins.  I picture them following Lilly around, thinking she’s the coolest person to ever walk the earth (she’s the oldest by a couple of years – she’s going to have a whole tribe of cousins she gets to boss around).  I see them trying to wrestle Uncle Jared, learning to fish with Uncle Ryan, or being read to by Uncle Dave.  I see them coming up with little plays to perform in front of their aunts, and asking their aunts to sing to them.

My family may not be perfect, but then, no one’s is.  Just like any relationship, there are ups and downs.  But, I guess, there’s one thing I’m really trying to say through all of this.   I love my family, and I thank God for blessing me so richly with these relationships.  I look forward to the day when my children get to be blessed by these same people.

Oh, and Deloris, if you are reading this…   I hope you don’t mind me using you as an example.  I do love you.

I haven't posted in a while, so here's a long overdue update...

            Danielle and I visited a lawyer yesterday afternoon.  This, for me, was a very exciting step.  Allow me to digress for a moment.  I talked in my first post mainly about Danielle, who she is, and how great of a mother I think she’ll be.  I didn’t say anything about my desire to be a father.  I’ve looked forward to being a dad for a long time.  I look at the relationship I have with my dad, and I’m excited to have that with a child of my own.  I see fatherhood as being one of the most incredible, and most humbling, relationships that I could hope to have in my life.  I look forward to watching my child grow up, and especially watching (him or her – I’m not particularly partial) grow to have a relationship with the Creator.  I look forward to taking my child fishing, teaching my child to catch a baseball, play the guitar, or anything he or she may enjoy.  It’s actually a hard thing for me to put to words, how I look forward to, even long for, the experience of fatherhood.

            So, back to the visit to the lawyer.  In researching Spokane attorneys, I’ve only found one actually listed as an adoption attorney.  There are several that specialize in family law and divorce that will take on adoption cases, but this guy not only specializes in adoption law, it’s all he does.  He and his wife were unable to have kids, and have adopted three, and he took it on himself to take on this role so he could help others through the process.  And in talking to him, it really seems that is really what he is in it for.  To help.  He doesn’t take cases pro bono, he still has to support his family, but his rates are reasonable.  It looks like, including all state fees (court costs, home study, etc.) this process will end up costing less than $10,000.

            This lawyer was a great source of information, too.  He referred us to someone to do our home study (we’d actually been referred to this lady before, so this just strengthened that referral), and outlined the steps we need to take.  He will also work to help match us with a birthmother.  This is huge.  This is a large part of what ends up costing many people $20,000 to $40,000 for an adoption.  He won’t be the only outlet we use for this; we will be working with various other local sources.  But his help here will be important to us. 

            So, we’re off to a good start.  This will most likely still be a long process, and I wouldn’t expect to have a child in less than a year, at the very least.  But, that’s where we are, and I, for one, am very excited to be here.

           

            P.S. – Just as an update.  We’ve decided against the foster care system, at least for our first child.  With the foster system, it is actually very unlikely for a couple to have a child under the age of 18 months placed with them, unless that child has an older sibling already with that couple.  We would really like an infant.  Also, and this was the biggest deciding factor, once a child is placed with you in the foster system, the ultimate goal is still for that child to be back with its family.  That means that, even if an infant was placed with us, it could be with us as long as a year, and then a family member (such as an aunt) can decide to adopt, and the child goes to them automatically.  I don’t think this is necessarily a bad idea, it’s good to work towards keeping the children in the family if possible, but that’s not where we want to be at this time.  I can’t imagine how hard it would be to have a child for a year, and have that kid taken away.  However, this doesn’t mean we won’t foster in the future.  It’s just not the option we are choosing to take at this time.

Update!

A week ago I went to the Foster Family Orientation. I learned a lot about the foster system and how it works. They explained all the different branches involved in foster care and what parts they played in the foster and placement processes.

Their main goal is to improve the health and safety of the children and that’s why in most cases the children have been taken out of their homes. But the end goal is to reunite these children with their families either with their parents who have proven to have improved their situation or to an extended family member.

There are several ways to go about fostering…  Jeremiah and I would have chosen “Foster to Adopt”. To my knowledge they will try to place the children who will most likely need to be adopted because their family situation is not likely to get better. However even if this child was placed in our home and we’re working towards adopting them… there’s a chance that an aunt or some other relative of the child will decide to take the child. I believe at that point the family member must go through the foster application process and have their home approved to foster and if approved the child would be placed in their home. They want the child to be with family if that is a possibility. The non-relative foster family is basically a last resort.  This is actually happening to a family I know through church. It’s heartbreaking.

The lady who was leading the orientation made a special mention that the families who are looking to foster to adopt a baby (which we are) should be prepared for the worst. That was pretty discouraging. However I feel confident that if this is what God wants for us He will also give us the strength we need to get through it. With that said… we don’t know if this is God’s will for us yet.

Our church family at Northside Church of Christ has started an adoption fund for us without Jeremiah or I asking for help. This was out of the goodness of their hearts and the Holy Spirit moving them to do so. This has made me feel that God has something else planned for our adoption journey. I don’t know what that is... and maybe that door hasn’t been opened yet but I do know that I need to have Faith that God will show us the right way.  We would appreciate your prayers. We know there are decisions that we need to make and we need God’s direction to make them.

Thank you again for following our story. It means so much to us. We appreciate your support very much!

Danielle