Prune Hands


(photo by SuperFantastic, cc)

Well, this is not a happy post to write. It has officially been one year since we entered the waiting family pool at our agency, and it feels like we are starting to prune up. We knew that it could easily be a year before we were matched with a birthmother, but we were hopeful that it would not take that long.

Unlike our Vietnam disaster, nothing is shutting down. Things are still working, just painfully slowly. Our agency is doing what they know how to do to get all of their families matched, but the fact of the matter is there are not very many birthmothers and there are a lot of waiting families. In the past year we have not seen nearly as many birthmother profiles as we thought we would. Along with a general shortage of women choosing adoption for their child, we have chosen not to show our family book to some women because it just didn’t feel like a good fit for us. We have shown to probably 8 women in the past year, none of whom decided to work with us. And while we are happy for the families that were matched this year, we are feeling pretty blue about the whole situation.

We have not lost hope, we will eventually bring our child home. It is just taking so much longer than we ever imagined it would. We are ready to bring our child home now, but we have not found them yet. Here’s hoping our next blog entry will bring happy news.

Faithful Readers. . .

Or, should I say checkers, as there has been nothing new to read since January. Sorry about that. There just hasn’t been anything to write about since January. I guess you could say that no news is good news, but in our case, it’s just no news. The process is still moving at a snail’s pace and nothing new or interesting has happened in a great while. Keep checking back periodically though, you never know when something might happen!

Any news on the adoption?

This is the question people have been asking us lately.  I think our friends and family are feeling as impatient as we are!  Well, not much is going on, but here’s a quick update for those inquiring minds.

We’ve shown our book to 2 expectant mothers so far, and neither one chose us to parent their child. We were officially “in the pool” in early July, that puts us at about 6 months in right now. So if we are consistent with the agency’s timeline of 3-12 months to be matched, we should find our birth mother within the next 6 months.

We are constantly feeling a strange mix of excitement, anticipation, hope, confusion, and disappointment. What a wild journey this has been so far! We are still feeling optimistic most of the time and are looking forward to meeting our mystery child. We’re also very anxious to know when it will actually happen.

I want to thank all of you who inquire about our progress and have given us support through this whole crazy thing. Here’s to good news in ’09!

Spread the word: Little Bird

The internet is an amazing thing. Completely by accident, I connected with an artist/mother across the Atlantic Ocean who is starting her own business. I happened upon Joanna’s flickr page one day and was immediately drawn to her wonderful artwork. Among other things, her art is reminiscent of images I’ve seen in children’s books of the 50s and 60s. I really liked it, so I bookmarked her.

Flash forward a few weeks Continue reading

Baby clothes

It’s been a while since our last post.  Sorry about that.  Nothing much has been happening in the adoption part of our lives. We are simply waiting for that perfect match to come along and change our lives.

We did, however, spend some of this time shopping for our “instant baby” bag. In the event that we get a midnight phone call that there is a baby available and we get chosen by the birthmom, we have to be ready to go and pick the baby up at a moments notice.  If this occurs, we have an emergency baby kit. Thanks to our friends Rian and Amanda, we have a great infant car seat. We also have diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, blankets, and clothes.  And of course, my favorite piece to shop for were the clothes.

I LOVE baby clothes!  It’s not just the fact that I’m in baby fever mode right now, I have always loved baby clothes, even back when I was going to be a rebel and not have kids.  It’s just that whole miniature thing. So, for your viewing enjoyment, here are the outfits we bought the baby for the emergency kit.  Those of you who know me best will understand the gray outfits, and why I actually squealed in Old Navy when I saw them. These are the first official clothes we have purchased for the baby.