The Wait is Over… {Adoption}

After 5 long years of waiting, we made a big decision. With heavy hearts, we let our adoption home study expire yesterday and closed the door on waiting to adopt an infant. We don’t know if we will consider other options for expanding our family in the future, but for now, we know this is the right decision for our family.

We want to extend a big thank you to our friends and family for keeping us in your thoughts. This process has been so much easier knowing that we have others supporting us.

Rather than thinking about what could have been, we are going to focus on what we do have – we have a fantastic son that we love more than anything. We will celebrate our little family.

Another (unwanted) Anniversary {Adoption}

Here we go again. Today, March 1st, marks 4 years that we have been waiting to adopt #2.

Four years.

Four.

There is no way to make that sound like a short amount of time. We also can’t say that the waiting has been easy. We have a 7-year-old who is dying to become a big brother and all we can do is tell him how much we want to make that happen too.

Earlier this month we finished up our annual round of paperwork and made the trip to the adoption agency to update our home study. Hours of time spent on paperwork and meeting with the adoption agency and checks written to maintain our status of ready and waiting. At the meeting to update our home study, we found out there is only ONE family who has been waiting longer than us. One. We asked for feedback (again) and they couldn’t give us any ideas about why we haven’t been chosen yet, it’s just a matter of a birthmother deciding we are the right family.

At this point, we are all set to wait another year.

Think Positive - 7 years ago today we received our first phone call about Anthony! School was canceled because of snow, and I just happened to be home when his birth-grandma called and started the process.

We are so thankful for that phone call and the craziness our family has endured in the 7 years since we brought him home. We will be celebrating Gotcha Day later this month!

Please know that we appreciate the love, support and prayers we receive from everyone. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you hear about a potential situation.

When we have updates, we will share them.

Until then, we wait.



More about our family waiting to adopt here.

Celebrating Gotcha Day

Tomorrow will be 6 years since Anthony joined our family.  Whenever I think of that day I am filled with so much emotion.  Reminders of the nerves and excitement that came with the first phone call, driving to northern MN to meet him, to the actual transfer in Minneapolis just a few days later. 

(Photo taken Feb 2013 by Midwest LifeShots Photography)

Six years ago we the became parents of an amazing 8-month-old.  Anthony, we love you so much and we are so thankful that your birthparents chose us to be your forever family.

We love you Anthony!


Want to read more about our adoption experiences?
Adoption Home Study
Fingerprints
Annual Christmas Ornaments for Birth family
Waiting for the right one
Still waiting to adopt
Gotcha Day
Waiting to Adopt is Hard
Starting school

Adoption Home Study {Again...}

Once again it was time to make our annual trip to Minneapolis to update our home study with our adoption office. This is just part of the process of keeping us "legal" as a family that can be considered to adopt. We recently completed tons of paperwork updates, had new fingerprints done, and wrote out a few more checks.


Today, March 1st, is 3 full years that we have been waiting to adopt our second child. Not only has it been 3 years, but we also found out where we are “in the book”. At this moment we are #3 in the book. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean anything good. This does not mean that we are 3rd in line to be chosen. This means that there are just 2 families that have been waiting longer than we have. Two. Considering our agency places 60+ children with adoptive families each year, this means that we have been passed by birthmothers/birthparents at least 180 times. It’s all part of the process, but wow, waiting is hard.

We have always been extremely open with the staff at the adoption office. Any suggestions for us? Is there something offensive in our letter? Should we change out our pictures (again)? Is it time to completely re-vamp our letter? Do we need to create a website? What can we do?!?  The counselors have assured us that there really isn’t anything that we need to do, but there are some things we can try.

When we get back from Disney next month, we will be completely updating our letter. Hopefully we will have some fabulous fun pictures to include and some great inspiration to show the world that we are great people and deserve to be chosen during this process.  We are also planning to create a website that we can regularly update with photos and info about our family.

Here’s to praying that we are chosen sooner rather than later!

Bow and Arrows

The weather in Minnesota today was not great for playing outside – freezing rain/sleet/snow. So how do we make sure Anthony gets a little exercise in on days like this? When he’s lucky, he gets to play active games on the Wii!

The photo below was taken after the sports games – when he could play a “sit down” game (Super Mario Wii).



While playing Wii Sports Resort, he was having a blast playing the Archery game.  Then he said, “I’m an expert with the bow and arrow. It’s because I’m part Native American. They have bow and arrows.” 

Yes, he is part Native American. However, this was a reminder that we need to educate him a bit more on his background. Where should we start??

Fingerprints {Adoption Home Study}

It’s that time of year again. How did that happen? How did we make it another whole year already? When is it going to be our turn to add to our family?  We are in the process of updating our adoption home study (AGAIN), which includes tons of paperwork, fingerprints, more $$$, etc. When I let myself think about it, it just feels so unfair that we have to go through all of this to become parents, when others can just “make it happen”, sometimes even when they are not ready or interested in becoming parents. 

Today we made our annual trip to the next county over to have our fingerprints done.  We never use our own county because the wait is always ridiculous to get in, so we just took an hour, drove over, and got it done.  It's really hard to not feel like a criminal when you are in the Sheriff's office...



Last year I was lucky, and they did my fingerprints with their digital system – it was much cleaner than using the ink. This year, it was back to the ink…

If I think positively, I know that we are going through all of this because we are making a very purposeful choice to add another child to our family, and our children will always know that we worked hard and really wanted to become parents.

As we work our way through the mound of paperwork that needs completed and write out a few more checks, we also get to schedule our annual visit to meet with the social worker at our adoption office.  Ready or not, the process awaits us and must be completed before March 1st.  Here we go…

Annual Christmas Gifts {Photo Ornaments}

We have sent photo ornaments to a few special people every Christmas since Anthony has been with us. I always pick up a few photo ornaments (sometimes an ornament set like the one below) and find a nice picture of Anthony to include inside. We have been sending these ornaments to Anthony’s birthmother, birth-grandmother, and godparents each year. After a couple of years I realized that they would all have a photo ornament of Anthony from each year, and I hadn’t even been making one for us! This year I decided to make one for us to keep too.  (I’m also going to make a photo ornament for each of the years that we "missed".)

Here are a few of the ornaments for this year, although Anthony’s godparents will get a different one (they follow the blog and I’m not sure when we’ll get it to them, so I had to make sure to not reveal it online!):

I love the classic red and white of this ornament set!

One of these will go on our Christmas tree this year.  Any suggestions for which one we should keep?

Adoption {Waiting for the “right” one}

We first decided adoption was right for us when we were on our way home from what became our last appointment at a fertility clinic in downtown Minneapolis. With that decision, the dark cloud of infertility lifted and we were ready to move on to building our family through adoption.  It felt so good to make that decision!  Early on in our waiting period, after our letter went “into the book” for the first time, a teacher I was working with at that time stopped by my classroom to provide me with some words of encouragement.  He and his wife had adopted a few years earlier and he personally knew the angst we were experiencing while waiting for a baby.  That day he told me something that I will never forget.  You will get the child you are supposed to get.  That seems like such a simple statement, but the more I thought about it, the more I hoped that he was right.  I kept thinking about that statement – “You will get the child you are supposed to get” and in some way, it brought me some comfort.  In order to get our child, we were just going to have to wait until the timing was just right.

Summer 2011
Anthony making a wish for a sibling near Lake Superior, shortly before his 5th birthday.

Our wait for Anthony was just 6 months.  At the time, it did not feel like just six months, but considering we have been waiting for over 2.5 years now for #2, looking back, it now feels like just six months.  After we brought Anthony home, I thought again about what my teacher friend had said, “You will get the child you are supposed to get.”  Looking at the little 8-month-old we had welcomed in to our family, I knew he was right.  Over the last 5.5+ years, since we first brought Anthony home, it has been fun to watch him grow and change.  We see parts of each of us within his personality, even without a biological connection.  He has a spunky and silly personality, which is such a blend of the two of us.  He is definitely our son.

I cannot tell you how many times someone – friends, acquaintances, even total strangers - have told me how much my son looks like me.  Many say it’s more than our dark hair.  Usually they comment on our eyes.  I really don’t see it, but he definitely feels like a part of me!  He is my son.



I love how Anthony has picked up so much of our personalities. It has been a little joke in our family that after Anthony has done or said something great, one of us might say, “He gets that from me.” 

My teacher friend was definitely right, we just had to wait, and the child that would join our family would be the right match for us. 



Anthony, I sure hope the right sibling comes along soon for you.  We love you!

{Still} Waiting to Adopt

Today marks 2.5 years that we have officially been waiting to bring home baby #2.  In the last few weeks many of our friends and family have asked how things are going – “Is there anything new?” “We are rooting for ya!”  It’s always interesting when people ask us about how things are going with the adoption process.  It’s almost as if you can see the nerves as they feel guilty or unsure if they should be asking.  Quite honestly, it’s absolutely okay to ask!  When you ask, we know you care and you are interested.  It’s nice to know that others are thinking about us.  When you do ask, just be prepared for us to have a quick answer – typically it goes something like, “We are still waiting… It’s been 2 years, almost 2.5, etc…”  Sometimes, we might even mention that a birthmom has considered us (we know because we get an updated count on the number of letters in our file at the adoption agency).  We joke that they are “shopping" our family but not “buying”.  More recently we may have even mentioned that there has been a situation that didn’t work out. 

Truth be told, in July, we were actually contacted by a birthmom.  She had found our profile online and was ready to move forward with placing her son, who had just turned one, with us.  The birthmom was struggling to make it on her own, and had carefully considered an adoption plan.  Unfortunately for us, this situation did not move forward, as the birthfather was still involved (ever so slightly) and appears to not be interested in an adoption plan.  So, while we were excited about the option of finally having a situation to consider for our family, we have moved on and the wait continues.  We are hopeful that things are going well for this little boy and his birth family.  Please know that while we are sharing this with you now, we have not shared this with Anthony.  We are worried about getting his hopes up, as he really, really wants to become a big brother.

Waiting to adopt a baby is hard.  It’s one of the few things in our lives that we have no control over.  We can’t work harder, work longer, study more, etc. to make it happen.  We just have to wait.  We wait until a birthmom decides that her baby will complete our little family.

Photo taken on our 4th night with Anthony – he sure was a happy little guy!

Even though waiting is hard, it is so much easier the 2nd time.  We are not waiting for our turn to finally have our first little one to care for and love, we have the best 6-year-old we could have hoped for, so as we wait, we are putting all of our energy towards Anthony.  Our laughter with him helps to displace the angst we feel with the wait.  The first time, it was incredibly hard.  After years of trying and working with fertility specialists, the 6 months we waited for Anthony seemed so incredibly long.  We watched our family and friends have babies, sometimes 2 or 3, before we could even have our first.  It was challenging, but we survived.

Adoption is a process that teaches you about patience.  It teaches you to be strong.  It teaches you to be welcoming and open-minded.  Adoption has helped to make us who we are today, and we are stronger people as a result of the adoption process.

Please continue to send us your thoughts and prayers – do not be afraid to check in with us!  Talking about the process sometimes renews our hope.  We are positive that when the timing is right, we will be chosen and our family will expand.  Until then, we wait.

Mother’s Day is Bittersweet

Today is a day all about Mom’s.  It’s a day for children to make their Mom’s breakfast.  It’s a day for children to help their Mom’s with chores.  It’s the day that Mom’s get to pick what the family is going to do (my family is going to buy flowers and plant them with me!).  Mom’s LOVE to be spoiled, right?!?



Not only is it a day (or weekend) for my boys to spoil me, but I also see it as a day where I get to celebrate being a Mom.  You all know there are so many great experiences that come with becoming a parent: cleaning up toys, washing the endless mounds of laundry, watching sports in the rain, getting woke up in the middle of the night for random reasons, etc.  All of the joys of parenthood :)

Mother’s Day also reminds me of so many things.  It reminds me of the challenges we had to even become parents.  It reminds me that we have been waiting over two years to become parents again.  It reminds me that somewhere, Anthony’s birthmom is thinking about him, and wondering about the life he is living.  It reminds me that while we wait for a birthmom to choose our family, we are also waiting for a birthmom to make a decision that will also impact her for the rest of her life.  It reminds me that there are parts of our lives that we cannot control.  Mother’s Day is always bittersweet.

Today we are thinking about all of our Mom’s. My Mom is in Wisconsin, spending the day with my Grandma, hubby’s Mom is in Seattle visiting his sister, and hubby’s step-mom is in Iowa, 4 hours away. We are thinking about our Mom’s and hoping they all have a great day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!

Gotcha Day!

Today we are celebrating Gotcha Day - the anniversary of 5 years with Anthony! We are so lucky to have him as our son! Every year we have celebrated Gotcha Day by doing something all about him. We’ve had trips to the Mall of America, the Children’s Museum, the local bounce house place, etc. This year we were dreaming up some ideas for the evening of Gotcha Day (since it’s a school day) and then the birthday party invitation arrived. So, Anthony is off to celebrate a friend turning 6 while we reminisce about the day he was handed into our care in a parking lot in Minneapolis. What an amazing day that was. One we will never forget.

These pictures were taken last summer, but they definitely capture the spark that he is…

Photos taken by Krissy McCabe Photography

Love that boy with everything I’ve got.

Waiting to Adopt is Hard. Really Hard.

On March 1st we hit a milestone that, as a family, we were hoping we could skip. March 1st marked 2 full years that we have officially been “in the book” waiting to adopt #2. This means we had started the adoption process months earlier, in order to have fingerprints taken, background checks done and the Home Study completed so we would be ready to start waiting on March 1st. In the last two years we have had to update everything two more times, because it has to be completed yearly. More meetings with the adoption agency, more fingerprints, more checks written. Ugh.

Anyone who has adopted, or is waiting to adopt, understands the process, knows how long the wait is and how frustrating it is to prove that you will in fact be a good parent. It definitely feels like this waiting is never going to end...

Going into the process, we knew the average wait this time was around 2 years, however we also went in with high hopes. At least I sure did. We worked with the same agency a few years ago when we adopted our son, and our wait was much less – he was in our home just 6 months after going “into the book”, even though at that time the average wait was 18 months.

When we adopted the first time, we went into the book on Sept 23 and on March 1st we received our first call, from his Birth-Grandma. We arranged to drive to their hometown the following weekend (4 hours from where we live) to meet him, his birthparents and some extended family. That was an emotional day as we met both the little boy who would become our son, his birth-parents and his biological family. We were able to spend some time with him on both Saturday and Sunday and then a new type of waiting began. We felt like things had gone well, but we had to wait until the birthparents contacted our adoption agency for things to really move forward. Two days later, on Tuesday, his birth-parents contacted our adoption agency and made arrangements to meet in Minneapolis that Friday to sign the paperwork and transfer him to our care. Just fifteen days after that first phone call, we brought our son home on March 16th.

This photo is one of the first pictures we took on the way home on our very first day as his parents. We have not edited this photo – the look in his eyes is exactly what we saw. That expression just makes me melt...

During the days that followed we were blessed with some amazing moments as we began our journey as parents of an 8-month-old. Here are a few pictures from the first 4 days – he was HAPPY, but his happiness couldn’t compare to the joy we felt about finally becoming parents after trying for years.

It’s comforting to look back on these pictures and know that we will eventually bring another baby into our home, and will be able to experience these same joys again. But today, that moment feels so far away.

As we have passed our 2-year waiting mark, we are also creeping up on March 16th, a day for celebration - Gotcha Day for Anthony! On March 16th we will be celebrating 5 years since he has been home with us.

We will continue to wait until we are chosen by a birth-family, and will look forward to sharing our good news with all of you! Until then, we wait.

Time for K.... Already?!?

It seems like it has been an eternity since we began our journey to parenthood. After working with fertility specialists, we decided the best route for us was adoption. Once we made that decision is was like a dark cloud had lifted. Seriously, it was a freeing feeling to know that we would finally be parents, we just would have to work with someone else's timeframe. After completing all of the required paperwork and background checks that are a part of the home study process, we waiting 6 Short long months until our little guy arrived.

This was in the car the day we brought him home. Those eyes say it all!

At 8-months old, Anthony was nearly crawling, and we were clueless parents. We had been preparing for a newborn and suddenly we had an 8-month-old! What do we feed him? When does he sleep? He's almost crawling! We QUICKLY adjusted and fell in love with parenthood. He truly was an amazing little dude.

Now here we are, 4.5 years later and he's 5-years-old and off to Kindergarten!!! He is attending a public school that follows a year-round calendar. School started at the end of July, so here we find ourselves suddenly not just parents, but parents of a Kindergartener! How did this happen so fast?!?

1st Day of Kindergarten, July 2011

For those of you wondering how the year-round schedule works, it's really pretty slick. The year-round schedule is also called a 45/15 calendar. This means that the students have 45 days "on" and then 15 days "off". Basically they start school at the end of July, take a 3-week break in October, another 3 week break over Christmas/New Year's and the last 3-week break is "Spring Break". Summer break is still 6-7 weeks, which is plenty long for children who get bored. For our family, this schedule is going to work perfect. Not only will Anthony not have a super long summer break to forget what he learned, he's also have long breaks during the year which will help keep him ready to learn. Plus, his teacher will be nice and refreshed from her extended breaks during the school year. The extra bonus - we can take family vacations during non-peak travel times.

In addition to having a Kindergartener, we are waiting to adopt again. More about that later. Please send us your positive thoughts that it will be our turn again soon!