Our Adoption Letter

David and I decided on open adoption.  This means that we will be establishing a relationship with the child's birthmother.  The birthmother "picks" us from a pool of potential parents.  This way, she has control of an otherwise, difficult situation.  She decides whether or not we will be the perfect parents for her child.

We do not have a preference on whether the baby is a boy or a girl.  We believe that we can give the child a good home, a good upbringing, extensive support from family and friends, and our values of tolerance, honesty, and resilience.  Most of all, we can share our love to both the child and the birthmother.   We can't wait for someone to call us to meet and see if we are a good fit for each other.

Open adoption paves the way for the child to have an understanding of his or her origin.  It also removes the mystery of "why they were given up" because adoption will be openly instilled to the child so that there will be no question about his or her origin, and how much he or she is loved by us and her mother/father.  The birthmother also has closure toward the process.  She will be placing her child in a home and family of her choosing.

Our agency made us print our adoption letter.  David did a great job in designing it! 
We had to find pictures of us interacting with children and our families.  The pictures below are included in our birthmother letter.

We also had to fill out our profile on our adoption agency website.  It is a simple website that birthmothers use to find potential parents/families.  It contains text from our birthmother letter which can be downloaded from  Our iheartAdoption Website
 

We are truly excited to have this opportunity.  And we can't wait!

Lowe's will never be the same.

We went to Lowe's yesterday to look for safety hinges for kitchen cabinets.  The adoption agency informed us that we needed to install these before they come to our home visit.  We were looking at the building materials section and found nothing.  We went to the doorknobs and kitchen section and we did not find them, either. 

We asked a salesperson if they carried "those safety locks for kitchen cabinets for babies?"  He pointed out a single shelf with a small selection of safety locks and safety gates.  He then said "I knew what you were talking about because I had to buy those, too".

Thank goodness that we were lucky enough to find the right salesperson.  Before, we only went to Lowe's to buy paint, hardware and plants - - - items that "normal" people buy. 

From now on, we will be going to Lowe's to buy non-leaded, low-odor, water-based paints, baby-proof, tamper-proof, lightweight, plastic hardware, and non-edible, non-poisonous, baby-safe plants!   Are any of these things going to be good enough?

This is going to be harder than we thought.  Thank goodness for salespeople who are parents, too.

Almost there!

We are almost finished with our paperwork for our adoption.  Since "waiting" periods to match with a birthmother vary in length, we decided to fill our already busy schedules with this blog.  We think that sharing our thoughts, feelings and experiences would be good for us and maybe somoene else in our shoes.

Yes, we have done tons of paperwork already.  We attended an orientation, made a downpayment, attended a weekend intensive course about 90 miles away from home, and made more downpayments.

Our paperwork consisted of our autobiographies, resumes, health history records and physical exams, reference letters, tax documents and FBI fingerprints.  We have collected pictures, took some more pictures, finished reading two books, made some more downpayments,  and composed our "birthmother letter".  We were able to do all this in less than 45 days.  This just tells you how serious we are!  Or, maybe... we are over-achievers.

Now, we are just waiting for our home visit, where the agency comes to further scrutinize us, our pets, my Batman collection and everything else in our home in the flesh.

We are not done yet... there will be more down payments, paperwork, support groups, meetings, and waiting.  One thing's for sure... this is going to be a fun and interesting ride!