Adopting Pumpkin Muffin

Pumpkin Muffin is born!

2010-10-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

Our story is ongoing, and has moved to the family blog.
CLICK HERE TO READ
Pumpkin Muffin was born Oct 20 and placed into our home the next day.

Families Supporting Adoption Conference

2010-08-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

In case you don't read our other blog, I wrote about going to the National FSA conference. Click HERE to read.

We have been chosen!

2010-07-11T15:10:00.001-07:00

Picture those little aliens on Toy story being picked up by the claw...

We have been CHOSEN!

(I am totally getting one of THESE Onsies for the baby- as a gift from Paul who is obsessed with the Toy story aliens).

It's been three years since we were inspired to adopt, and our time has come. The right time. The right baby. The right place.

The young woman who is carrying our baby is so beautiful. She is also smart, sensible, and amazingly pulled together for what she is going through. I would say, much more pulled together than I would be! I am amazed at her strength. We LOVE and ADORE her!

Meeting a potential birth mom felt like the craziest thing I have ever done in my life. There was no way to prepare for it, really. Although we were so nervous and we said really dorky things, we connected and I can't even describe the connection. It all just felt right and we knew.

And, when she told us, I just bawled.

We told Paul that he is going to have a little brother in October. We told him that the baby is coming to our family, but growing in someone else's tummy. He thought that it was the most normal thing, ever! I love it. Ironically, we had a few of Tom's cousins staying with us over the weekend, and one of the families had a tiny baby, so we had time to reassure ourselves that Paul does, in fact, peacefully and happily co-exist with newborns for extended periods of time.

I could write a thousand pages about what is going on in our heads, but this announcement will have to do, at least out in the public forum. Thank you for all of your prayers, and please continue to pray for health and strength and many many blessings for the sweet girl who is willing to go through this experience for us.

A few things a Birthmom Might Want to Know...

2009-07-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

A few things you might want to ask but don’t know how:

(this is a re-do of the outdated Q&A we did more than a year ago)

I want to provide information on this blog so that women who are looking for adoptive parents will get answers, not cheesy fluffy stuff about how our house is as cute as a button or how we think babies are soft and yummy. Real stuff! Here is a list of questions that birth-moms and dads might have when they want to interview potential parents, along with our answers.

Why are you interested in adopting? This is a complex question. It's more than just looking around and thinking, “someone is missing!” We have a place in our home and hearts for another child. We did fertility treatments to conceive our son, Paul (age 3 now), but the same treatments don’t work anymore. We just feel like not having more kids is a waste of our existence. It’s so weird because we never PLANNED on adopting, but we feel like we are being inspired to go for it.

How long have you been married? Next December is our 11^th Anniversary

What makes your marriage successful? We love to serve each other and keep each other’s best interests in mind. For example, we’re always trying to lighten each other’s load in life- whether it’s Tom doing the dinner dishes or Becky jumping out of bed to rush to pack Tom’s lunch when he is running late, we like to make each other happy.

What kind of contact would you like to have with the birth mother?

We would keep updates on our blog, so that you could choose to log on and see how things are going whenever you want to see it. We want an arrangement where you (the birthmom) initiate the amount of contact you feels is most comfortable. Of course, it would depend a lot on where you live, geographically. We would want to keep in contact with you, know how you are doing, too. We hope that we would become friends, above all, and build a good relationship of trust.

What type of relationship do you have with your extended family? Becky has four brothers and one sister who all live in Arizona. We visit them whenever there are important events or holidays, which ends up being about twice a year. They are all married, except for one brother. All of her siblings have college degrees. She is really close to her sister, who is a physical therapist, and mom, who teaches junior high.

Tom’s parents live in Utah and Oregon, and most of his siblings live in Arizona. Tom has four sisters and two brothers. One brother is an architect, and the other is in the army, living in Korea with his wife and three daughters. His whole family is very playful/energetic/hyper? silly? :)

How many children do you have/are you planning to have? We will probably stop after we adopt a child (so, two kids is probably all we will have unless something special happens like twins). We would like to have as many children as God wants us to have, but realistically, the child we adopt will probably end up being the baby of the family.

What future do you see for your adopted child? We want our children to be well educated, social, and successful in all aspects of life. We will teach them good manners, provide financially for an education, teach them the benefits of hard work, and allow them to be exposed to many options in life. Then, after they choose which way they want to go, we’ll always support them.

What is your educational background? Tom went to a private college-prep school in high school, then got a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He also has worked a lot with computers. Becky graduated in the top 5% of her class in a public high school and was able to do her college on scholarship. She got a Bachelor of Art Degree in Creative Writing with a minor in Art History. Later, she went back and got a Masters Degree in Education, with focus in Teaching and Teacher Education / Secondary English. Also, Tom served a mission in France and speaks French. Becky served a mission in Russia and speaks Russian.

What is your occupation? Tom works as a Mechanical Engineer for a fortune 500 company. He put himself through school doing Microsoft Technical Support and fixing computers. Becky worked in a photography studio during college, then became a newspaper editor, taught high school (Art and English) for 3 years and all subjects Kindergarten-7th grade in a special charter school for a year and a half, and then left education to pursue a career as a Technical Writer, which she was able to do from home for awhile until Paul stopped napping.

Where do you live? Jenks, OK in a red brick house with lots of flowers and trees in the yard. We can walk to a few ponds, live near a large aquarium, in a great school district.

Are you planning on moving in the future? It is a possibility that we could stay here in Oklahoma forever. However, Tom’s work has locations all over the US where he could be transferred.

What are your religious beliefs? We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). This is why we went through LDS Family Services for our adoption home study. We love our church and work hard to live Christlike lives in all our imperfection.

How do you handle conflict? Love, logic, and forgiveness! Heavily weighted on the forgiveness aspect.

What are your views regarding discipline? We like to use language of “choice”, meaning, instead of saying, “You are a bad boy,” saying, “That was a bad choice, how can we make a better one?” Sounds cheesy, but it does work. Also, we like natural and logical consequences. For example, if you draw on the wall, you have to help clean it up, not go to your room or get spanked or anything. We find that consistency is really the key. Just spouting off empty threats is no good.

What makes you good parents? We appreciate the privilege of being parents in the first place. It’s a huge responsibility, and we don’t take it lightly. Parenthood isn’t about buying cute clothes and toys and going on fancy trips all the time. It’s about cleaning up messes and staying up all night. It’s about planning nutritional meals and thinking hard about ways to foster developmental growth in a young mind. It's about figuring out how to discipline and train so a child knows what to expect. Also, we try hard and don’t give up. So many parents these days have just given up on their kids (given up on teaching manners, or teaching them beneficial social skills, or even on discipline). We won’t give up on our kids.

Motherhood is a calling

2009-06-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today I am thinking about what motherhood means to me. I'm so grateful to be a mom because it is such a privilege, yet it is so much work at the same time.
Our bishop came up to us today to give us a quick how's it going chat and what do you know, something inspirational to ME came out of my own mouth when I was talking to him! Strange how that happens sometimes. Anyway, here is what I told him:

"Motherhood is a calling, and if or when I am called again, I am ready to serve."

I think comparing motherhood to a church calling is a good analogy for me right now. The way church callings work, you don't get to CHOOSE what you want to be and when. Just like many of us don't get pregnant whenever we "decide" to.

Sometimes I have wondered why I was so "lucky" to not get a calling for a certain time period. Some people turn down all callings no matter what. They don't want/don't have time for/don't feel adequate, etc. This is like people who say, "I'll have kids when XYZ and ABC are all figured out in my life, and when I feel like everything else is all perfect." Ha ha, I think back to when we were first married and wanted to "wait" a few months before getting pregnant. HA! We didn't know we didn't need birth control.

Other people really, really want to serve in the church, they get excited about it, they ask how they can help, they volunteer to do whatever is needed. Yet, they don't necessarily get called to certain callings even though they would be very good at them. And so it is with many of us who are infertile. We're there yelling, "PUT ME IN, COACH!!" And, we are benched for the whole game. Hopefully, not the whole game, but we are waiting. . . and waiting. . . and we keep showing up for the games. We're talented players. . . the coach is saving us for the right moment.

Some callings are incredibly challenging. Those challenging ones are meant to make you grow and learn. Some callings are so that you can be there to help other people. They remind you that life is not about you, it is about the other people you are helping. Sometimes you try to help others in the gospel and they don't want your help. But, you still are doing your calling by trying! These challenging callings in infertility are the challenges we go through to try to adopt, to go through the many torturous --- YES, torturous--- fertility treatments, difficult emotions, miscarriages, and seeming failures month after month. Not to mention paying lots of money for all of these challenges. It takes emotional sacrifice, the sacrifice of an incredible amount of time, just like many difficult church callings that have made me lose sleep over the years.

I remember learning that if you turn down a calling, that someone else can and will be called to do it instead. That is how it works. We have to work for our blessings, but if we are not ready for the challenge, we are welcome to let someone else step up to the plate, do the work, and get the blessings instead. I'm not sure how this relates to adoption or infertility, but maybe I'll make the connection here in the future.

I was also inspired by this blog post from the blog Feigning Fertility. She talks about how going through the trials that are facing you in order to just bring kids into the world counts as being a good mom to your future kids. LOVED IT.

I'll get back to my regular notes to birth moms soon. In the mean time, I needed some notes to self and our friends who are going through the same thing we are.

Today's note to birthmom. . .

2009-06-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hi. . . I was thinking that you might be totally frustrated trying to navigate all of my rambling on this blog. Trying to get to know us could be easier. Here are some links to things you might want to read about us.

All about OUR INFERTILITY (feel free to skip unless you are interested in becoming a gynecologist- it's pretty detailed)

Everything I would tell my best friend or sister about PREGNANCY (if you are female and pregnant, this is good stuff)

Our thoughts on OPEN ADOPTION (because it's natural to think about what kind of relationship you want with us and your child and how it might change through the years)

As I'm reading through some of our other older informational posts, I think they are already outdated. We moved here to Oklahoma from Arizona last year, and our surroundings and the things we do are all different, so next post I will re-do some of our FAQs, etc. We didn't have grass, fireflies, froggies, an aquarium or snow in AZ. . . but we don't have our extended families here. . . so this might be good to re-do my old posts.

The Male Factor (my notes to Birthmoms series, continued)

2009-06-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

This is really weird to be writing this to the birthmoms who are reading my adoption blog, but now at least you know that I'm not afraid of any subject.
I'm not quoting any scientific facts here, but, statistically, quite a few (not all) of unwed men become suddenly freaked out and disappear into the night when they find out that their sweetie is pregnant. Some guys don't even hang around long enough to find out that there even is a pregnancy, and others just need to be dumped for various other reasons. There are those few that will stick with a gal through her pregnancy, and they are rare gems and should be hugged often, so if you have one of those, you can skip this post all together.

But, this time I am going to write to you first about when a guy ditches you and breaks your heart. This has happened to me, let's see, MULTIPLE times before I met Tom the great. I wanted to touch on it because it could be happening to you (I hope not, but my non-scientific statistics are still there). One time, I cried so much that I got an infection in my one of my eyes. I'm not kidding, it was similar to pink eye, but different. I think I cried for three days. And sheesh, I wasn't even pregnant so I can't imagine how much more intense it would feel if I was carrying his DNA. I think the biggest and hardest thing when a guy does this to you is wanting to know WHY. Is it another girl (some of the time, yes, it was in my case)? Is he just scared of the relationship? Is he just avoiding having to act mature and is in denial that he's not 10 years old anymore? You know what you should always remember. . . it's NOT YOU. He didn't take off because of you. He couldn't have, because you are wonderful and he doesn't deserve you. He took off because he can't live up to what he needs to become to make it work. It's over because it's just not right anymore. He has moved on because it was just one of those things at one of those wrong times and maybe in an alternate universe (that you wish you could create but just doesn't exist in our reality) it could have worked out.

And now how to TRY and get over it.
I'm not an expert at this. . . I'm just spilling out things that are inside my brain on the subject. Through the years there has been heartbreak in my life from sources other than men, so maybe I can extrapolate a little, too.
I think when getting over a relationship the first thing it takes is acknowledging that it is over. It's to stop trying to win him back. It means not reaching out to him anymore because he just keeps pushing away, which will cause you to keep hurting. It's hard to move on, especially for you because you are a genuinely nice person who doesn't like losing friends in general. My second tip is distraction. Replace the guy with something else. . . and I don't mean just a new haircut, some shopping, and a really great pedicure. I mean an entirely new revision of your life that becomes life without him. It's more than keeping busy, it's almost like filling a hole in yourself with something wonderful that you may not have thought of before. Sometimes, calling upon a girlfriend that you may have neglected for some time will help. Other times, it's taking some new classes, finding an extra job, or doing some volunteer work, or even just finding people to serve. Volunteering to babysit, to help out with someone else's project, or serve others in any way possible does more than just put a band-aid on the situation.
I found that healing from a broken relationship took time. I found that I kept thinking about the guy about twice as long as we were together. If were together for 6 months, I would finally stop thinking about him after a year. It was a strange thing. I wonder if that's just how long my brain took to clean out my thought processes and re-connect some synapses.
None of the guys who broke my heart were all out jerks, though, they just moved on in their own ways. If you have to deal with an ex who is an absolute nightmare, I would hope it would be easier to get over him in some regards, but I know harder in other ways because bad relationships leave different kinds of wounds.
I hope this latest random note finds you well, and hopefully your heart is well on its way to repair if it has been broken.

Dear mystery friend with the baby inside

2009-06-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that to say that we are "looking for a baby" is actually kind of weird.

Right now we are actually just looking to find the woman who is carrying the baby who is meant to come to our home. That sounds more like what I mean to say. And, if you are this magical person, I have decided that I need to write to YOU more often on this blog. Not just one "Dear Birthmother" letter in an official profile, but maybe you would like a few little notes, a little more often.

My note to you today, my mysterious friend, is that pregnancy is beautiful. Please don't forget that YOU are also beautiful, no matter how gross you feel, how tight your jeans feel, and especially on those days when you look in the fridge and think that nothing looks good to eat except the oreos you wish you had bought at the store. Your morning sickness is especially lovely to that tiny person you are carrying because it means that you are just properly pumped up on progesterone and making a happy home inside of you. Getting bigger makes you gorgeous because it means you are a success at what you are doing- taking care of the baby you were chosen to carry. That exhausted feeling of pregnancy is symbolic of the race you are running and running inside of you to keep that baby alive. . . and winning.

Not on hold-- we're still looking for a baby!

2009-05-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

Nevermind, we're not on hold any more. False alarm.

There are lots of variables working in the world, this is the one thing that is sure in life.

You may now proceed in choosing us as adoptive parent if you feel so inspired!

Really enjoying foster parenting classes!

2009-04-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I would be getting so into the foster care classes. I have seven more to go. I really came into them thinking that I pretty much knew how to be a parent. They keep emphasizing, however, that you have to be above and beyond the parent you are to your biological children in order to be a foster parent. And, it's not just because the kid might have been abused or neglected. There are so many other issues to deal with even if the foster child doesn't have health or overt emotional problems.

Here are some things that stood out to me personally.
We learned about the history of adoption, kinship, and foster care. For example, not too long ago, kids were fostered or adopted so that they could help with work on the farm! Actually, the term, "put up for adoption" came from when orphans were actually "put up" on an auction block. We've come a long way since then.

Being a foster parent means so many things. It means you have to not overbook yourself so that you can keep your stress level down enough to be there for the child. Also, you are required to work directly with the birth parents. It's interesting, because for some people open adoption seems like a new concept, but when you start in with foster care, it broadens even the most broad perspective of openness with the birth parent. You are actually there to mentor them, to help them learn how to take care of their own children. Even despite the terrible things they have done to their own children, you have to be forgiving and believe that they can and will change. Of course, we really want to get lucky and be allowed to keep a child and grow our own family, but ultimately, the birth parents can earn them back through their own actions. I can't think of anything harder or that could test Christ-like attitudes more than being a foster parent. You really have to be brave, adventurous, forgiving, generous, selfless, and be able to go with the flow!
Even if the foster children go back to live with their birth parents after being in your home, you are encouraged to keep in touch with them and in some cases, you actually become a part of their family in a way.
Another thing that is actually in your contract as a foster parent here in OK is to keep a "Lifebook", which is a scrapbook of the child's development, people close to them, etc. I asked if it can be done online, and they said sure as long as it is not public. I think I would do part online, part in print, because I've heard that sometimes these life books get lost when kids sometimes go back and forth to their biological parents and foster or group homes, so I would definitely keep a copy somewhere.
They also talk about keeping the child's ties to kin and culture, which can mean a lot of different things. For example, extended family would be nice to include in the child's life if they are willing. Also, things like food, clothing, friends, religion, activities and sports, etc that the child would be interested in is encouraged. I think that there is a misconception about culture sometimes- that foster parents think they only have to figure it out if the child has a different skin color. But that is an incorrect assumption- even people with the same skin color can have vastly different cultures. I think that my husband and I came from pretty different cultures, even though we are both kinda white. Tom even has two entirely different cultures between his dad's side of the family and his mom's. I guess my mom's and dad's family cultures are also very different from each other as well. A lot of it has to do with different religions that people are, where they live, what they eat, how they deal with stress, how they spend money, how they talk, how they express affection, how they buy gifts for birthdays, how they celebrate holidays, etc.
The same thing goes for any two family cultures, so the fun is in bringing them together.

Oh, and I'm totally not trying to say that I AM all of these things that a foster parent should be. They are my goal, though.

Our first FOSTER parenting class!

2009-04-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned, we decided to up the ante on trying to get another kid or two to join our family and chose to get involved with our state's foster care system. All we had to do was fill out a little "I want info" form online and they sent us a tiny packet of information. It was mostly warm fuzzy stories from the points of view of case workers, birth parents, foster, and adoptive parents, all part of the Oklahoma "BRIDGE" program. Soon after we got the info packet, we got a phone call from a caseworker who asked if we wanted to go ahead and sign up. He mostly just asked if we had any questions and whether we wanted to proceed. Since I said, "sure", he sent us a few background check forms to fill out.
After the background check was done, he called again to set up a "home assessment", where he basically just made sure we had a room and bed for a child. We just had a crib and futon, but he said the kid can't just sleep on a futon, he or she will have to have an actual bed with a frame. But then I pointed out that our crib can be turned into a toddler bed, and that was good enough for him since we are only taking kids under age three. We explained that we could also use the queen sized bed in the guest room if we needed to. At the home visit, he gave a huge stack of paperwork and did a little orientation. What was interesting (and kind of nice, actually) was that Tom didn't have to come to that because I'm the "primary" parent. The paperwork included budget worksheets, doctor's exams, forms about what kind of medical conditions we would accept, etc. Luckily, our doctor sees us regularly, so I just took the forms to him without an appointment and he was a total doll and filled them out from existing info rather than do yet another full physical.
After our case worker got all those forms, he sent even MORE FORMS! This included a list of foster classes to pick from and paperwork to start another home study. Since we've already done two home studies, it will be interesting to see what the state one is like as opposed to the ones we had at LDS Family Services.

Last night we went to our first foster class. It was so wild because for the first time I realized that foster care is really kind of a low budget operation. We met at a public parks building, the people doing the training were all doing it as a second job, and it hit me how much this is really a labor of love and huge volunteer experience. At first I was thinking the whole thing was "kind of ghetto," but at the end of the training I felt that I was really touched by the passion the trainers had for the work. Also, most the other people in the class already had kinship foster kids (kids of people they knew) that had recently come to them. Even they have to do the classes! So, we all bonded and signed up to bring refreshments to future classes. One thing that was weird was when one of the trainers said that she had a "problem" with adoptive parents. She thought that they come to the parenting classes and usually don't listen because they think that none of the things apply to them because they are not doing foster care. (There were a few parents there just for adoption who were not interested in also fostering). So, I thought that was quite presumptuous, but hey, I like when people speak their mind.
We got a huge thick book to share and even have to do homework to send into our case worker at the end. Thank goodness for the Cramers down the street who are going through the same process and are willing to trade babysitting when we do the classes. Without family in town, this could have been a lot harder without their support!

We are ready. . . still. . . again. . .

2009-04-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

If you've been a frequent reader of this blog, you know that every so often cosmic forces cause me to act in a certain direction (really it's the spirit telling me that something is about to happen and to get ready) and then nothing happens. But, when we keep a sense of humor and not get too wrapped up in guessing what-if's about our future child, it's also kind of amusing.

A couple of days ago, Paul kept insisting that he was a big brother. This was totally out of the blue (there weren't any shows on that talked about being a big brother on TV, nor had we been reading any books about it). At one point he told me that he had a brother. Then he said, no, a sister. He has a hard time knowing what the difference between a brother and a sister is sometime and calls all kids, even his cousins and friends at church his "brothers". But he decided it was so this week. So, we have that to joke around about. Too bad Paul doesn't have any other insights into how or where his brother/sister is coming to us.

We have no control whatsoever over what is going to happen, which is a great symbolism for life in general. We can't predict the future, no matter how hard we wish it were so, but we can be led by the spirit and feel peace that we are on the right path.

Tom has been very compassionate about all of this weirdness and lends support (and humor) whenever he can. He was opening a fortune cookie yesterday and read: "A baby will soon come into your life." Then he tossed it away. I had to dive in the trash after the fortune, which, of course, said nothing of the sort. Silly Tom. He is actually very patient and at peace with turning over our future to the universe and letting it all just "be."

It got so bad that I was filling out some forms yesterday for Tom to take to a new chiropractic visit and under "number of children" I actually wrote "2". It wasn't until I got further down the form that I realized what I had done and scratched it out and wrote "1."

I called the LDS Family Services office here in town to check on some things. Everything was in order so far. Hmmmm. . . they are probably used to neurotic potential adoptive parents! I promise I'm not usually like this. We're trying everything in our power to remove any road blocks a child might have to finding and joining our family. If we have to drive through the night, or jump on a plane, or camp out in the wilderness and wait for him/her, we would do it. Actually, that last one might be a little too fun for Tom. So, little mystery baby, if your mom or dad or grandparents are reading, we are ready for you now. And we will be, whenever you are ready to come to us.

Thoughts on Paul becoming the big brother

2009-04-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

Child spacing is a big issue for a lot of families. Ha ha, that is if you can choose when to get pregnant ;-). But, when you're waiting to adopt, you get what you can get. Kids might be spaced further apart than you would originally have thought to be ideal.

Since I'm a "count your blessings" type of gal, I wanted to write about why Paul, at age 3 1/2 is actually at a great age to be a big brother now. I'm not saying he wouldn't have been at any age, but in retrospect, maybe I'm grateful that he has reached the age he is without a sibling yet.

He is fully potty trained, and has been for awhile. He won't need to compete for diaper changes with a little guy. I don't have to check if he needs a change, leaving more time (and money) to care for a new baby bottom.
He understands that he has to wait for things. Kids under age three usually can't do that.
He sleeps through the night. When babies are born close together, sometimes both kids don't sleep, leaving heavily sleep deprived parents.
He doesn't put everything in his mouth. This keeps the new kid a little more sanitary since they won't be sharing the same toys for awhile.
He understands, to some degree, what a big brother does, what his role would be, and that mommy has other responsibilities.
He can walk everywhere and follow me without me holding onto him. This leaves my hands and shopping cart available for a younger kid who needs me to carry him everywhere. He understands most safety boundaries.
He actually recognizes our extra room as the "baby room", talks about the future when he's a big brother, and thinks babies are special and cute.
He likes to mentor younger children now. He's always using their names, making sure others are included, etc. He didn't do that when he was younger.

About Babies. . .

2009-03-23T07:07:00.001-07:00

In case our last post was confusing. . .
We ARE still officially waiting and ready to adopt an infant if a birth mother chooses us. We are just going to be opening our hearts to children in need who are in the foster care system and hoping we are blessed one way or another. We look at it as branching out :). It will take us 3-6 months to get approved in that system, as we'll have to take 27 hours worth of classes to do it!
There is a child who is meant to come to our family out there, we can feel it. We want to make sure that there isn't a single closed door in this kid's way.

Time for Foster care

2009-03-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

We decided we wanted to add to our family through adoption in July, 2007. We were officially approved to adopt in Arizona in February, 2008. We thought that we'd try going the route of waiting for a birth mother to choose us through LDS family services for about a year. Well, we moved since then and are now approved to adopt in Oklahoma. We originally thought we would wait for someone to choose us for a year, and then look into other options if nothing happened. Of course, if we were endlessly wealthy (or felt like fundraising or asking for donations in some uncomfortable way), we could head on over to China and pick up a little girl. But, that's not feasable right now. Since nothing has happened in the way of contact from birth mothers or fathers, and it has officially been more than a year, we are now looking into foster care.

Foster care makes so much sense because part of our whole drive to adopt is so that we can help a child. We just feel like not having more kids is a total and complete waste of a good home. There are literally TONS of children in the foster care system who desperately need good families to take care of them. We realize that these kids may come and go and there is only the occasional chance that the placement could become permanent, but we are thinking it is just plain time to do it. We really worry most about Paul and his ability to adjust to change. In the end, we don't think he'll be damaged by having kids come and go in our home. We plan to request that only children younger than he is be placed with us, which will make it easier in some ways (he'll still be the oldest), but harder in others (little kids take away lots of attention).
Part of me is afraid that it might feel like I'm providing free 24 hour babysitting, but I hope not. Another part of me doesn't want to deal with any drama from these poor kids' lives. Still another part fears getting way too attached and having to deal with loss after the kids go back to their original families. We'll see how it goes. We are just barely starting the process and it can take 3-6 months to get all of the homestudy, training, approval stuff done. We'll have to go to 27 hours of classes, so I am beginning to think that this may end up being our only hobby for a long, long time.

Great Writer and Birth Mom

2009-02-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people are just plain good writers. I've read a LOT of writers work because I have a writing degree, have taught writing, have loved a lot of writing, and have been a writer and editor for a long, long time. This sweet girl is not only a great writer, but a birth mom. Even if you've heard a million stories about adoption. . . just read this one more! You won't be sorry. It makes me sad, and it makes me happy. In the end, it makes me jump for joy for everyone involved!

Andee's Story

It's on a stellar blog that deals with adoption, called The R House. The good news is, that there will be a part two coming!

A New Church Adoption Website Beta

2009-02-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Click Here to view the new information on LDS Family Service's new adoption website beta.
The new site is great because it gives way more organized information about adoptive couples and much, much bigger pictures! After they work out a few of the bugs, it will be moved to the main itsaboutlove site.

Our profile ID on the new site is: 8160816

Or, you can search by choosing Oklahoma as the state and I think we may be the only adoptive couple in the state right now with our profile online.

Now that the weather is getting spring-like, you can expect more fun pictures soon.

Waiting to get on new website

2009-02-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

It'saboutlove.org has a new site that is in beta testing. We're trying to get that all set up because we hear that some agencies are sending moms who are searching to the new beta site instead of the existing one. So, we have been a little out of the loop!

Our new magical blanket

2008-12-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Tom's mom, Fran, who we call "Franma"(her husband, Randy, is "Randpa") made us a wonderful Christmas present:
The softest little white baby blanket EVER! She made it for the baby that we might someday adopt. What a wonderful thing. It is so snuggly. And maybe it will work it's magic like the one my sister made more than three years ago.

Let me tell you the wonderful story of the last blanket someone made for us. Tom and I had been trying to get pregnant with Paul for FOREVER (meaning 7 years). Everyone knew we were trying. My sister, Carrie, had knitted handmade blankets for my nieces, and when she was done, she decided to make one for me. In short, LITERALLY the week she finished the blanket we found out we were pregnant (with much medical intervention) with Paul!
Now that Franma has made us a blanket, perhaps someone will choose us to place their sweet little baby in its snuggly warmth.

IF I were a potential birthparent

2008-12-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

This is just for fun- hopefully you will think it is fun. I'm actually serious here! Gotta pass the time while waiting somehow, after all.

I have thought about what I would want if I were a potential birth parent looking for adoptive parents. I thought that this would help you learn more about me. I'm not saying I am all of these, but I'm talking about what would be my ideal situation if a perfect world existed.

I would want to find a young mom, because they would hopefully have the energy to chase my kiddo around and besides, having a young mom was fun for me (my mom still looks and acts quite young and energetic at times). My mom was quite young when she had me. Okay, I'm 34 now, so my youth is fleeting, but I still think I'm 15 inside my brain.
I would want to find adoptive parents who believed in healthy living, but who aren't totally insane health nuts. I always cringed when kids I knew were strictly forbidden to eat what I considered "normal" food. But, I am appalled that many surveys say that the only vegetable most kids eat during a normal day is a french fry. Ack! Anyway, this means that the mom would have to cook and like cooking, because if she didn't, hope for my baby eating healthy would be slim.
I would totally be so nosy that I would want to drive them crazy. I wouldn't go so far as to hire an investigator to check them out (or would I? Hmmm), but I would want to know everything possible about them. I would want them to be impeccably HONEST about everything and not try to "sell" themselves to me. I would want them to just be who they are and not photoshop all their pictures, etc.
The parents would have to be super, super smart, but not total geeks. They need to be well educated, not because an education alone turns you into a smart person, but because it shows effort and dependability. They also have to have common sense type of smarts, and also be socially active. Have parties, go to parties, have a good circle of friends, etc.
A stay at home mom, and a dad with a steady career who is somewhat ambitious. I remember dating so many guys in high school who had no ambitions to improve their lives and they frustrated me. That's why I married Tom because he was different. He tries to further his career, but doesn't go overboard. The stay at home mom part is so important because a stay at home mom can create a home environment that makes it the ideal place for kids learn and grow. . . and be happy without added stress.
I would want the couple to have a good financial cushion and be smart about money. I would expect them to have saved up themselves for the adoption and not go into debt for it. I would want them to have enough money to be generous to others, but not enough for them to spend on crazy unnecessary things that are really just meant to impress other people.
I wouldn't really care if the parents looked just like me and the baby's dad, but it could be a plus. I would want the child to know that he or she is adopted and know that I was his or her first mom. So, if he or she doesn't have the same skin or hair as the parents, that's fine. You never know what they will look like until they start growing up.
I would want the adoptive parents to have a great relationship with each other and go on fun dates, but be willing to admit that their lives would change drastically with the arrival of a child into their home. For example, parents whose main hobby includes hiking in third world countries would have to be willing to suspend that hobby until pumpkin muffin grows up.
The parents would have to read to the child and have TONS of books. I think kids need to spend a lot of time reading.
The child would have to have a spectacular extended family. Not a family that isn't speaking to so and so over such and such. No separate parties with relative X because relative Y isn't speaking to him or her.
The adoptive dad would have to not be someone who sat around playing video or computer games all the time. Unless he was playing them with a kid under limited circumstances, I have little respect for men with children who plug themselves in and leave mom hanging. Thankfully, Tom gave up computer games when we got married. He gets to have LAN parties on his birthday every year, though.
I would not want the parents to live nearby. I wouldn't want to just run into them at the store, because I know I would get totally emotional and freak out. No matter where they lived, I would want them to keep in touch so that I always knew where they were in case I wanted/ or felt I really needed to make contact. I don't know how often I would want them to send me pictures- I would want to play it by ear to see how I handled it. I know I would think about the baby I gave birth to every single day.
I would want my kid to have siblings, because I had siblings! I would also want him or her to be a younger child, because I think the parents get a little practice with an older child, and older kids have to break the parents in a little so the younger kids get to have more fun!

Add your ideas for your "perfect" adoptive parents in the comments (even if you're not a potential birth parent, you can play along).

Christmas and Babies

2008-12-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or does all the focus on Baby Jesus this month make everyone think more about babies?

Happy National Adoption Month

2008-11-17T06:09:00.000-08:00

I love this year's theme: "You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent."

I am glad it's National Adoption Month. I've heard a lot of inspiring stories. I even celebrated by re-doing this blog!

Are we really being ambivalent?

2008-11-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

We're not the average set of adoptive parents. I sometimes think we may not even fit the potential adoptive parent mold very well. We don't have a profile set up on Parent Profiles (a.k.a. adoption.com). We don't have names picked out for a future kid. We don't have a baby room set up and fully decorated in a gender-neutral pottery barn design like some of the adoptive parents out there. We don't have a toll-free number.

I was thinking yesterday. . . we should do something to feel like a baby is coming to our family. Something to perhaps make it real, or to show our faith at least that we are expecting this to happen. Adopting a child is in the back of our minds all the time, but bringing it to the forefront only happens on and off. Honestly, I just don't think that willing it to happen is going to make it happen any more than wishing for Santa to landscape our yard in the night is going to occur.

But, this is what I know: I know that there is someone missing in our family. My mom would sometimes say that, too. Even though there were six kids in my family, my mom would often look around and say that she thought someone was missing. Her first baby was stillborn, and after a few of us she'd had a miscarriage.

I often call it a mother's "urequited love" for our missing babies.
Babies that were lost,
babies that were never conceived,
and babies that have yet to be adopted.

A couple of days ago I got busy. I cleaned out our spare room and got rid of all the moving boxes. It's a perfect baby room location. The window faces the quiet side yard, it's away from the garage and entry doors at the end of the hall. That room is so clean and so very empty now. I had Tom set up the crib again. Paul saw it and said, "That's my bed!"
"No, you're too big for that bed, that is for a baby."
"It's not for baby, it's for Paul!" (He wanted to play in it! He's going to have to get used to it being there again!)
"No, we will leave it empty until a baby comes to our house."

I've never heard of this happening, but I guess it does

2008-11-04T12:43:00.001-08:00

I don't want to give a lot of details, but I do need to write about this. It's just so unexpected that this happened to us. Our caseworker called yesterday and said he had a potential child that had come available for us. We talked about the situation at length on the phone, and I told him I would run it past Tom when he got home.

We talked over the situation. We talked about the impact on Paul, the changes it would make for us, and how we could get ready quickly for the adoption. Initially, I just assumed that it was what we were going to do. After all, we want another child, otherwise we wouldn't have made it this far in the process! I even called my sister to run some things past her and get her advice.

Usually, with something as BIG as potentially adopting a child, I would expect to feel something. . . something like confirmation that it is right, or excitement, or some sort of spiritual direction. I know what it feels like to have the blessing of the spirit in a certain decision. As a mom, there are just some things you KNOW. However, with this, all I felt was "this child is meant for another family." OVER and OVER. It was seriously not what I would expect to happen at all. But, I didn't tell Tom that I had already decided that it wasn't a go in my mind because I wanted him to decide somewhat separately. Late last night, he came up and hugged me and said, "I don't think I'm ready to do this this time." I told him that I felt I'd received an answer that the child is supposed to go to someone else. It's interesting how we both got the same "no" in different ways.

We prayed for confirmation that we had made the right decision. It was then that I felt peaceful, so extremely comforted that the little guy was going to find a family that was meant to be his for eternity. And yes, it's sad that it isn't us, but it just isn't. Not this time at least.

I called our case worker this morning and talked to him. He totally understood and was reassuring.

The strange thing is that there is a part of me that wants to feel guilty, and another part that wants to mourn what could have been and just feel sad as if I've let something very valuable slip through my fingers, but the biggest part of me feels incredibly happy for some other family who is going to be adopting soon.

New Photo Collage

2008-10-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Tom and I threw together a new photo collage at breakneck speed for our case worker to take with him. After just a year, our old one was so outdated- Paul looked so baby and he's actually quite boyish now. So, in an attempt to give a current view of ourselves, here are our new pictures to put in the local LDSFS books.

New Homestudy

2008-10-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's been a year since our last homestudy? Since we moved, we had to re-do ours, but in Oklahoma you have to re-do everything once a year anyway, so we are due to have a little bit of paperwork.

Our new case worker came to our house today to check it out. It wasn't bad to clean because I had cleaned everything last week (but he couldn't come and rescheduled for today). So, today, I just picked up some clutter. He didn't have to ask us any probing questions because he had a copy of the entire home study from Arizona, which was 12 pages long. He just looked around our house, got to know us a little bit, and answered a bunch of questions that we had. Here, they combine FSA (Families Supporting Adoption) meetings with Arkansas. There aren't a ton of adoptive families, but there are a handful. Also, the limit of financial help that adoptive parents can give birth moms here without going to court is $500.

We need to do physicals again (I guess you have to have a physical once a year here to keep your adoptive parent status current). Paul also has to have his, which is convenient because he has his 3 year-old well check in a couple of weeks. Also, Tom's work has to verify that he still works there and list his salary.

All in all, not a big deal to go through.

New Dear Birthparent Letter

2008-10-06T15:08:00.000-07:00

Since we've moved, we revised our letter to potential birth parents. A lot of it is still the same, though.

Greetings,

Welcome to the pages of Becky, Tom, and our young one, Paul. We hope that these few paragraphs will be a good use of your time and provide an honest representation of our family so that you are able to make a well-informed decision about us. The space here is very limited, so if there is anything else you would like us to share, please don’t be shy about contacting us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. . .

Even if you haven’t made your mind up, we want to thank you for even considering adoption for your precious child. We want you to know that we are ready to jump on board to help you however we can. Please let us know what level of openness and communication is important to you so that we can help you feel that your child is secure and well cared for. We want to accommodate your feelings and needs and be sure to never betray your trust.

Our philosophy as parents. . .

We want our children to know of our love for them. We believe strongly in encouraging our children’s developing individuality. Our common parenting goals are: to bring our children up in the gospel, spend lots of time with them and attend all of their childhood functions, teach them good manners, provide them with an excellent education, and expose them to many different experiences so that they can be their best selves and each choose a unique path through life.

Becky’s thoughts on Tom as a dad. . .

Most importantly, Tom is a positive spiritual influence in our home. He was born to be a dad. He always encourages Paul’s exploration by taking him out to jump in mud puddles and teaches him to hold on tight when he climbs on his play set. He has enviable night-time endurance for calming a sleepless infant, a high tolerance for messes, and marathon story reading stamina. It also seems like he can build or fix anything.

He is a patient, selfless, generous, gentle, dedicated, providing father; proficient in belly-button beeping, piggy-back ride giving, toy assembling, playground building, toe tickling, block building, game playing, diaper changing, hall walking, stroller pushing, fishing items out of the toilet bowl, obsessively kissing, story reading, “I love you” saying, hug giving, silly song singing, cuddling and rocking, stink detecting, car seat carrying, toe counting, and always being there for the family.

Tom’s thoughts on Becky as a mom. . .

Becky is a sophisticated, culturally refined influence in our home who keeps everyone organized, productive, clean, fed, and out of danger. She is extremely creative, witty and sometimes sassy.

She is a protective, peace-making, smile smiling, patient, multitasking mother; skilled at swiftly swaddling, making up nicknames, diaper changing, burp coaxing, barf dodging, doctor appointment making, story reading, “I love you” saying, hug giving, pacifier finding, onesie snapping, lullaby singing, snuggling close holding, temperature taking, photographing, teeny tiny nail trimming, always teaching, and single-sided conversation holding.

A very short resume. . .

Tom:

Education: Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Mission: France Bordeaux

Employment History: Mechanical Engineer; formerly an IT Specialist and Computer Repair Technician

Becky:

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, minor in Art History;

Master of Education in Teaching and Teacher Education, Secondary English

Mission: Russia Moscow

Employment: Full-time mom, occasional Technical Writer; formerly an Art, Creative Writing, and English Teacher; Newspaper Editor/Writer; and Photography Studio Manager

Feelings on adoption. . .

We have been praying to know what to do about the future of our family. The prompting came to both of us that we are to adopt a child. The feeling came again and again and was so strong that we couldn’t deny it.

Tom:

It has been an honor to be able to be parents to our son. Realistically, parenthood has been a lot of work for us, full of sleepless nights and sacrifice, but despite this, having Paul has been blessing and a wonder. We would embrace the opportunity for our family to grow and for him to have a sibling. I feel that there is a child out there who is meant to come to our family.

Becky:

It took seven years of trying and the science of fertility treatment for us to bring our little son into the world. My pregnancy with him was unusually difficult and I was on bed rest for four months with pre-term labor. Still, I would be willing to do it all again if I could just get pregnant. However, I am unable to continue fertility treatments because I have developed allergies to fertility drugs. For awhile we thought that maybe Paul was destined to be an only child, but I feel inspired that adoption is the right path for us to take.

Hobbies and interests. . .

Our “artsy” side takes us to plays, musicals, museums of any kind, and art galleries. If there is any type of festival or fair, we’ll go and check out new goofy fair food like fried twinkies (not that these are good), towers of onion rings, or caramel apples. We like to try a new restaurant almost every time we go out and sample cuisines from other cultures. We also like gardening. It’s so cute to see the little kids picking and eating cherry tomatoes straight off the vine. In our laid back family time we make homemade ice cream, sing songs, pop popcorn, read stories with Paul, go swimming, walking, make videos, and take lots of pictures.

Tom:

Every so often, I hear the call of the wild, which leads me to take the family camping or picnicking. I loved participating in scouting and earned my Eagle Scout award. I also like hiking, mountain biking, and swimming. I am an amateur guitar player, do some woodworking, and a lot of building things and tinkering. I build computers and fix mechanical things for fun. My favorite books are Tom Clancy novels, Harry Potter, and other mystery/spy books.

Becky:

I like playing the piano- it is very relaxing for me. My passion is writing: non-fiction stories, poetry, and I write in my blog almost every day. In high school, I loved drama and had the lead in a high-school musical. In college, I spent my time attending poetry readings and wandering around art galleries. I also toured Italy to further my studies of classical art. I love reading cookbooks and cooking organic gourmet dinners for the rest of the family. I like to take time to study nutrition and healthy living. I enjoy planning social events, dinner parties, and entertaining guests. I make elaborate birthday cakes and like to help my mom decorate wedding cakes. I take pride in organizing the family budget, balancing the checkbook, and making sure we have our food storage in order. I have collected Dr. Seuss books since I was in high school and now have branched out to other children’s authors. My favorite author is E.M. Forster. I love old black and white movies, especially Audrey Hepburn ones. I have a huge collection of fortunes from fortune cookies.

Paul, the potential big brother. . .

Paul, three years old, is a loving, social child with tender feelings who would make a super big brother. He is growing up fast and always changing. He loves to say his prayers and sing primary songs. He is our little marathon runner and loves to run for the joy of running. He goes outside spontaneously throughout the day to run barefoot in the grass and kick his soccer ball. He also loves swimming, riding elevators and escalators, playing computer games, trains, puzzles, climbing, sliding, and playing in the mud. His favorite thing to do at home is pop popcorn. He loves books and likes us to read about ten to him each day. His favorites are: “Corduroy” and “Thomas the Tank Engine”.

Our big families. . .

Becky:

My family is very scholarly. I am the second oldest of six children. I have four brothers and one sister- they all live nearby. All of my siblings are well educated and have bachelors or advanced degrees.

My parents are gifted in many ways: intelligent, intuitive, and level-headed. They live in Arizona and are fabulous grandparents to all four of their grandchildren. They read stories to the grandkids and use all the characters’ funny voices. Grandpa takes the grandkids on rides in the red wagon and teaches them all the funny silly things that grandpas should- like how to make drums out of container lids, and how to bark like different types of dogs. Grandma is cuddly and gives lots of hugs and kisses and treats. Aside from being a gourmet cook, she makes wedding cakes.

Tom:

I am the oldest of seven children. I have four sisters and two brothers. Both of my brothers and one sister are married and most live in Arizona. There are five nieces on my side of the family. My parents divorced when I was in my teens and they are now remarried and live in Utah and Oregon. My grandparents have served many missions and are currently temple workers in Utah.

Our home and neighborhood. . .

We live in a beautiful green and friendly small town outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The schools in our area are great. Our house is a single-story red brick home, surrounded by trees, grass, and flowers.

If we connect . . .

We hope to be able to meet you, to listen to your story, and to learn about your personal goals and wishes for your child’s future. Feel free to read our blog about our adoption journey: http://adoptingpumpkinmuffin.blogspot.com/. If you select us to become adoptive parents, this blog is where we will post pictures and stories about your child who comes to be with us. That way, you can log on any time to keep up on his or her important milestones in life.

As you are learning about us and other prospective parents, we hope you will find the desires of your heart. If you feel that we are meant to parent your child, we promise you that we will give him or her love, adoration, and the best life we can. Every child is an important little person and we would treat him or her as such.

Thanks for reading and best wishes in all regards,

Tom and Becky

We got fingerprinted again!

2008-10-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

The small town where we live is sooo awesome. The tiny police station lets you come in ANYTIME, 24 hours a day and get fingerprinted for FREE. This is the life! We went this morning and we were the only ones there. The officer who fingerprinted us was really friendly.

We did have to do 2 fingerprint cards each for Oklahoma, though.

Our homestudy was rescheduled for this upcoming Monday, so I'll write more after that. Having to re-do adoption stuff in two states after moving has been interesting, but not too bad so far. Every state is so different.

Only LDS Adoptive Couple in Oklahoma?

2008-09-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

I was looking to see if we had any company (or competition, however you want to look at it) with other adoptive parents out here in Oklahoma. I searched on just OK on itsaboutlove.org and we came up as the only adoptive couple. I wonder if it's really just us, or if the other couples were updating their web info at the time so it just seemed like we were the only ones in the whole state. Then I looked at adoption.com and there were only two couples from OK on there. How are we going to bond with other waiting adoptive parents if there aren't any? Well, I guess we won't have anyone inviting us to LDS adoptive parent support meetings.

We'll, it may bring us success. For example, if someone is choosing adoptive parents by the throw-a-dart-at the- US-map method, we might have a chance since we're kind of in the middle now.

Our new OK home visit is scheduled for Sept 29th. The case worker will bring us some new fingerprint cards then. So, we should be all set pretty soon. Birth moms can still choose us, we're not totally "on hold" or anything.

We moved!

2008-09-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

We're here in OK and we have still been thinking a lot about growing our family and honestly wondering if the adoption thing is ever going to actually happen, if it's meant to happen, and if we even want to continue pursuing it. Neither of us are very excited about going through the process again. I guess this would separate us from any adoptive parents that you would label as "desperate." Would we still like to adopt? Sure. Are we obsessed with it? Nope. I don't see many people write about how blah waiting to adopt is, so here you go. . . the reality is that it's not very exciting.

We also were not obsessed with our infertility when Paul was finally conceived through the miracle of science. It just goes to prove that wishing alone does not make things happen. One thing we do have is faith that we'll be led in the right direction.

The fact is, we just can't be obsessed with adoption all the time. My brain would explode. Having another child would be wonderful, but having Paul is also wonderful. Our lives literally revolve around his right now.

People ask us how it's going all the time and we just shrug and say, "Eh, just waiting for someone to choose us." In fact, we are so blah that I set up a huge bunch of account stuff on adoption.com and then never activated it. It just seemed completely not "us" to join the insanity of that web site. Can I say that it actually seemed. . . wrong?

The concept of birth moms choosing off a website is necessary, but it is also c r e e p y. Adoption, although wonderful and beautiful has a side that is very sad. Believe me, if a mom chose me to parent her baby I would FEEL her pain, and yes, part of me would feel somewhat guilty. I mean, I'm really no better than she is, no smarter than she is, don't have better ideas or more energy than she does. . . I'm just in a different sphere of existence at a certain time and place that is more conducive to productive parenting. Of course, I'm writing this post while Paul plays video games and I should probably be thinking about making dinner.

I called the local office today and will have to start filling out paperwork again. The person assured us that it's not as intense to get certified in OK as it was in AZ, so that could be a relief. We'll have to do new background checks (including getting fingerprinted) for Oklahoma and get a new reference from our new bishop, whom we haven't met because he is in Iraq for awhile. Heh, heh, maybe I can get my fingerprints done when I take the cub scouts to the police station next week. We'll also have to have another home visit, which isn't a big deal because at least we aren't in the middle of remodeling this time!

Well, I guess not everyone who is trying to get pregnant is obsessed with pregnancy either. For some, it just happens. Maybe adoption for us will just "happen" as we go on with our lives.

We're moving!

2008-07-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

It's official! We're moving to Oklahoma mid-August. I have no clue what we'll need to do to re-certify in another state. I'm going to check into it after we're done with the move. Luckily, LDS Family services is nearby in Tulsa.

We made sure that we are moving to a school district that is one of the top ones in the nation. It's ranked 10 out of 10 on greatschools.net. We'll have a bigger, newer house, and the demographics of the town we're moving to show that there are lots of kids, crime is really, really low, and other than the occasional tornado, we'll have some decent weather and a taste of all seasons.

30% of my friends are pregnant

2008-06-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did the math for some reason. 30% of my friends are pregnant. Two had babies in the past three weeks. Two of my sister-in-laws are also pregnant. 25% of the people whose blogs I read are currently pregnant. Another 10% are waiting to adopt.

It is good that fertility is high among my peers. It is strange that it has been almost a year since we gave up on fertility treatments.

We are in limbo-land because Tom's job will probably be transferring him to Oklahoma soon, so we will have to re-do some of the adoption certification process. I don't know details yet, maybe next week. It's kind of funny that I didn't think we'd ever move. The good thing is that schools are way, way better in the area that we are moving to than they are here. So, if you are looking for adoptive parents in a child-friendly community, I think the child-friendliness of our community will only improve. However, they do have tornadoes there, but we'll get a house with a shelter.

Updated pictures

2008-05-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know that we've been approved to adopt long enough to have our pictures actually become outdated, but we had some pictures done recently so you can see how Paul just keeps on growing and maturing.

Saw Juno - loved it (warning- spoilers)

2008-05-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

So, I'm a little behind the times compared to the rest of the potential adoptive parent crowd and finally rented Juno. I thought it was a super well-written movie. Of course, I LOVE all movies about teenageness because I think that deep down inside, I am still age 16 at heart.
Anyway, I think I cried about four or five times during the movie. The big one is where the Vanessa is feeling Juno's baby kicking at the mall.
Anyway, I have heard a lot of opinions about the movie from the adoption crowd. One was that there was a lot of swearing. I thought it wasn't bad. Of course, I taught high school for five years and compared to that, Hell's Kitchen uncensored would be pretty clean. But, I didn't notice any offensive language.
The other opinion I heard is that Juno didn't show enough terrible emotional pain like birth mothers should after she had her baby and placed him for adoption. I would have to disagree--I thought she showed tremendous heartbreak, but she did have unusual strength. She looked like she was hurting to me. Crying in her hospital bed isn't good enough for some people, I guess.

Anyway, the fact that the adoptive couple split up really did stink-- but maybe that's because I know that life as a single mom would still be crazy hard, even being as established as Vanessa was in the movie. When Tom goes on business trips I am really glad when he gets home and I have someone to tag team with again.
I liked that Juno stayed with her boyfriend and how they portrayed him as truly nice, but kind of out of it like most boys are.

Background on my other blog

2008-04-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be wondering what the difference between my different blogs are. Well, in this blog I just write about our adoption experience and things that might be of interest to potential birth moms, such as getting to know us and stories and thoughts about adoption in general.

I also have our regular blog about our family-
Adventures of Becky and the Danger Boys

Tom and Paul are the Danger Boys - so named because Tommy Danger was really accident-prone in his childhood. It's his anti-superhero name. Luckily, Paul has avoided the emergency room thus far (knock on wood), but we still call him Danger Boy because he is spawn of Danger Man. I tend to be very protective of them, but usually, they prefer activities that I would consider a bit on the adventurous side. I'm not so adventurous (or is it manly) as they are. I'm the one who is always putting sunscreen on them, chasing them with hand sanitizer, keeping the sugar away from their sparkling teeth, and making sure they remember to take their vitamins. But they are boys, through and through, and will play barefoot (or worse, in their white socks) in the dirt all day until I make them strip down at the door before coming in.

Birth moms are welcome to read the main blog to see what we're like on a daily basis. I just like to keep the blogs separate because you might not be interested in how Paul's potty training is going at the moment, or how our garden is growing, etc. But if you see a lull in this blog, chances are I am writing in the other one.

Totally what I have been trying to say. . .

2008-04-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

I found this in the Marriage and Family Relations manual. When I read it, I thought, Yes! Yes! This is totally what I have always been trying to explain about how I feel about kids and their individuality. I think it is especially good to remember that whether children are adopted or not, they are all such individuals that they need to be treated uniquely.

From a lesson called: "Children are an Heritage of the Lord"

Many children are quite different from their parents. Their temperaments may be different, and they may have different strengths and weaknesses. These differences can be frustrating for parents, who may find it difficult to guide and help children through experiences they never had themselves. But parents should remember that Heavenly Father has entrusted these particular children to them and that He will help them know how to guide each child toward the fulfillment of his or her divine potential. Sister Michaelene P. Grassli, former general president of the Primary, said:

“We need to discover who our children really are. We need to know what interests them, what worries them, and what they would do if they had their fondest dreams come true. Nearly always, their fondest dreams are wonderful. We can let children be their own selves and not expect them to be reproductions of their parents. Give them varied experiences so they can discover what interests them, and then encourage these interests and talents—even if they are not the same as yours” (“Teaching Our Children,” Ensign, Apr. 1994, 62).

Our Missions- Tom in France

2008-04-10T15:48:00.001-07:00

Tom's mission in France was not as cold as mine, but it had some good times and hard times. Tom took French in high school (he had a great teacher as he went to a private school) and didn't have too much trouble with the language. I might add that Tom is actually really good with languages- I think he knows more Russian than I do French and doesn't have much trouble speaking Spanish when he travels for work.
I'll let him fill in the blanks when he has time.

Our Missions- Becky shares about Russia first

2008-04-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

I think we've had enough contemplative writing for awhile, so I think I'll go back to writing more about us. One think I don't know if I've mentioned anywhere is that Tom and I are both returned missionaries. Tom went to the France, Bordeaux mission, and I went to the Russia, Moscow mission. Since Tom is not the writer in the family, I'll write about my mission first (I'll try to keep it interesting because I could seriously write a novel or two), then fill in what information I can get about his mission later.

Becky's mission in Russia
The first thing I have to say about serving a mission in Russia when I did (1996-97) is that it was an adventure from the very start. I left for the MTC three days after I graduated with my bachelors from UofA and it was like going from studying non-stop, to studying beyond non-stop. I do distinctly remember thinking at the time that I would not have missed the MTC experience for anything- and I really wanted to marry a returned missionary who had gone through the same incredible experience. Just getting to be in the same room with President Hinckley one day was so amazing... and being taught by general authorities at least once a week was something I had never experienced (not being a "Utah" church member, and someone with not a single relative in Utah after all we don't see those cute gray haired spiritual folks much down here).
I flew to Russia with a bunch of Elders, all of which had never gone overseas before (I was no expert, I had only gone to Italy before, but I seemed experienced), so that was memorable. After traveling for more than 24 hours straight, I got off the plane, was met by the mission president and his wife, and told I was going to one of the "outer cities", which involved an overnight train ride. I was a little freaked out to be no where near the mission president and be the only set of sister missionaries for hundreds of miles around. Yikes. But, my stay in Nizhny Novgorod was magical- okay, maybe only in retrospect. It was hard. Even though I'd had two years of Russian in college, I didn't understand anything anyone said for a few weeks. They had thick Nizhny accents. The culture shock was a little bit intense. When people ask me what prepared me most for my mission, I would have to say girls camp. We had to light our waterheater with a match, take cold showers for part of the summer and cook on ancient stoves in limited cookware from scratch with limited food selection. I was annoyed at not being able to find eggs some days (especially the day when I was cooking some quiche for the mission president, his wife, and president Didier and his wife who came out to our city). I became known as the mission gourmet because I was always able to make American dishes out of whatever I could find in the country. Even Chinese and Mexican food sometimes. Cooking became my mission hobby.
I think the hardest thing about my mission was the cold. It was terrifyingly cold in the winter, especially for someone like me from Arizona. I had to learn how to dress from my companions and soon embraced the thick wool clothing and furry boot culture. In Russia, people don't have cars, they have sturdy boots and thick coats- and we walked 10 miles a day in them on a regular basis. When I later was transfered to Moscow, I embraced the awesomeness of such a big city. The metro (subway) was amazing and I wish they had one in every town.
Besides the culture and surroundings, sharing the gospel with Russians was no easy task. Many of them not only did not believe in God and Christ, but were afraid of believing because it wasn't really allowed in the past. Some people quickly embraced the ideas we shared with them because they remembered that it was just what their grandparents or great grandparents had tried so hard to pass down to them. Many church members were heavily persecuted, and some were disowned by their families for even considering joining the church.
I was blessed to have incredible and wonderful companions- and very few were from America. I had Russian, Mongolian, Russian, Latvian, Hungarian, and German companions. Many didn't speak English, and I had five greenies (missionaries that I trained), some of which spoke no English and no Russian (oh, my that was weird). After a few months on my mission I was a trainer. Talk about no guts no glory! I learned a lot about cooking international food from these girls!
Serving a mission is not for every girl- it is so very hard, emotionally and physically. But, the peoples' lives that changed because of the message we brought, the things I learned, and the maturity I gained was priceless.

Why adopt another child? Isn't one "enough?"

2008-04-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

Why do we want another kid? This is a question that many have posed to us. Even our case worker made sure in our interviewing process that we were not filling some unhealthy emotional "void" in our lives by seeking another child. (As a side note, they also make sure that you have dealt with the emotions of infertility properly as well before getting into the adoption process). It seems like a lot of "hassle" to go through to adopt another child, when we already have such a wonderful son already. So, why do we bother? The answer is really simple. Kids aren't possessions. You can't think of them in the mind set of checking off a list like: "Job- check. Car- check. Spouse- check. House- check. Kid- check." I used to hate when people would say to me, "You can't understand until you have a kid of your own," but I'm sorry, it is true. Children- each individual child- can bring something to your life that nothing else can.

Here is my analogy: Saying that each couple only deserves ONE child is like saying each person only gets ONE friend, their whole life. Now, some people are fine being loners, others just have one friend and are content, but how much more enriched life is with many friends! Friends are all different; they bring us joy in unique ways. They also provide us with opportunities to learn and grow, and it feels good to serve and love them. I remember some friends that got me more interested in music, and others got me interested in different kinds of art. I think I was the friend that got my friends interested in exotic food. Thus it is with children. We have one child who has brought us so much happiness that we would love to expand our family to include yet another. Plus, just like introducing friends to other friends, sometimes the friendship is a good match and sometimes it doesn't really spark anything. That's why it's so important that birthmoms have the widest selection of families to choose from for their babies. Maybe a certain baby is meant to be in a big family with lots of kids. Maybe another is meant to be an oldest child. If all adopted children were only children, what a strange world it would be for them. I can't imagine my life without siblings- I have a sister and four brothers. They all add to my life in different ways and they are all soooo different! In fact, we are all so different from each other that you would swear that some of us are adopted. Thus is the mystery of genetics.

But what if Paul ends up being an only child? I would be okay with that. He has playmates and cousins that fill in here and there for variety in his life. I would have slightly more time to volunteer at his school and in the community. So, either way, we'll be fine.

The other question is, "Don't you feel guilty adopting a child that could be going to a childless couple?" Ouch. Yes, I think of that quite often. It's like, if my sister (who hasn't been able to conceive yet, but really wants to) decided that she was going to adopt I would totally want someone to choose her first. I actually hope that everyone who wants to adopt gets chosen, but after waiting so long for Paul to come to our family I realize that there is a special timing involved in when each child is meant to come to Earth to be with his or her family. I know that everyone who wants a child will find one -- just maybe not today or tomorrow. Maybe not even this year, but I do have faith that each couple will be blessed in their own special time. Plus, there are a lot of variables. For example, there have been times, even in the short time we've been approved to adopt when I actually felt a baby was coming soon. . . but then something changed- either the birthmom chose to parent the baby herself or made that other choice that I'd rather not think about.

Thoughts on waiting

2008-03-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Waiting to adopt is a weird place to be for someone like me who loves to plan life ahead of time. I have had several feelings lately as I've pondered about the still unknown child who might be coming to our family someday.

I had a feeling that something big was going to happen in March related to our adoption. But, here we are- it is the last day of March and as far as I know, nothing significant has happened. Maybe something was going to happen and didn't, or maybe something has happened that we just don't know about. Anyway, time has yet to tell what significance March has in our adoption journey. I have no mystical powers or anything, but I think all Moms, no matter whether they are adoptive or biological, have a sixth sense regarding their children and there are some things that you just know.

We decided that we wanted to adopt last July, so that makes it NINE months now since we decided. Maybe that is it. It's nine months since we felt that a baby is coming to us- approximately a normal gestation period. We still have faith that in the big jungle of the LDS Family Services website that someone will find us, like a sparkling seashell on a vast beach among all the adoptive couples floating to shore with every foamy wave.

Our Infertility

2008-03-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

I think people are afraid to ask couples about infertility because there are some couples who would just rather not discuss their health with others, and even a few couples out there who get really emotional about it. We don't mind sharing information about our fertility struggles-- we actually think it's pretty interesting stuff and love when other couples are open about it as well.

My fertility problems started early in life, with trips to the hospital because of ovarian cysts bursting and terrible pain when I was only 15 years old. Doctors really didn't do anything about it and made wimpy suggestions like, "take more iron, you might be anemic." I was never anemic. I later found out what was really going on.

After Tom and I were married, we thought we would get pregnant with no problems at all just like our outrageously fertile parents. When it didn't happen for a few years, we thought, "Oh, maybe we've just been stressed or busy." OR "Maybe we're trying too hard," etc. Tom went and got his sperm count tested (this is the first thing any couple can easily do to rule out male issues) and it was great. So, we didn't have to wonder about Tom's half of the job and knew that something was up with my insides.

Finally, I went to a reproductive endocrinologist mainly because of bad cramps, but also because I wondered if there was anything I could do about the fertility problems. He said at that first visit that I might have endometriosis, a disease where the inside of your uterus grows all over your reproductive organs, causing pain and infertility. First, he did some tests to see if my tubes are open, and they were. At that time, our health insurance wouldn't pay for anything fertility related, so we paid out of pocket for the tests. The doctor briefed us on all the different fertility treatments he thought we should try, but I think we were a little freaked out and wanted to keep trying on our own for a little bit longer (such wishful thinking!)

As this was going on, my period pain kept getting worse and worse, to the point where I started having pelvic pain non-stop. The pain was like sitting down with really tight pants on with a large set of keys in your pocket all the time along with a fierce lower back ache. I went to all kinds of doctors and got all kinds of scans. Some said it was kidney stones, others that it was muscular-skeletal. I even went to physical therapy for awhile until the smart therapist said, "You know, I'm thinking something else is going on."

So, I went back to the Reproductive Endocrinologist. That was interesting because when I went my main focus was to just not be in pain anymore, but we also mentioned that we really did want to have kids. He told me that figuring out the source of my pain was not rocket science. He said he was 90% sure that I had something called endometriosis and that the only way to be sure I had it and treat it was to have laparoscopic surgery. It took three months to get in for surgery and waiting for that was just awful because I just wanted it to be over with- all that anxiety that goes along with waiting for something kind of scary. During surgery, the doctor determined that I had stage 4 endometriosis, which had stuck all of my insides to each other. For example, one of my ovaries had a huge endometrioma on it (a cyst filled with blood). Another ovary was twisted and glued to my uterus. The doctor was able to burn off the endo with a laser and re-construct the proper placement of my organs. After surgery, the doctor wanted to do IVF (In vitro fertilization) right away, but I just wasn't up for that. I doubted that I would ever be back to "normal" enough to go through a pregnancy successfully! The endo makes you feel so gross that you start to think that you'll never lead a normal life again. After surgery, I felt fine for about three months (it was amazing) and the cysts started forming and twisting and bursting again. The pain was coming back so fast and I was so mad. I went back to the RE and the first thing he asked me again was whether I was serious about having kids. He was dead set on IVF or nothing. I said, "of course I am, but I don't want to do IVF." I just couldn't bear the thought of fertilizing all those eggs and then wasting them or freezing them or a dangerous multiple pregnancy. Plus, it was a big risk to gamble so much money on. The doctor had already determined through his fuzzy math that I had only a 1% chance of getting pregnant. I will never doubt that the doctor was inspired in that visit. He forgot for a moment about his ideas that our only option was IVF and actually encouraged us to do artificial insemination. He put me on the fertility drug, Clomid, which makes you ovulate lots of eggs at one time, and had me come in for an ultrasound of my ovaries in a couple weeks. At the ultrasound, I had one egg erupt from my left ovary. Just ONE! So, the nurse gave me a shot of HcG in my rear end to make the egg release and we did artificial insemination in a couple days. I remember that the day I got the shot, we went to the temple for my brother's endowments (he was getting married a week later). It was a very spiritual day because I also helped translate for one of my Russian friends going to the temple for the first time. I just knew that big things were happening and that I was going to have a baby boy. It was an amazing feeling. Three weeks later I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive. My pregnancy was not bad for the first half, but for almost the whole second half I was on bed rest for pre-term labor. I had an “irritable uterus” that liked to have full-blown contractions. I think it was probably related to all my other endometriosis problems.

After Paul was born, we tried to get pregnant again naturally (again, wishful thinking) for awhile before I went in for fertility treatments. I seriously thought that I’d have no problem getting pregnant again. But, something had changed. The fertility drugs had serious side effects for me this time. I had to have extra HcG shots because my progesterone was low. The first time I went through a course of treatment, I ended up in the hospital with tachychardia (my heart was racing fast for no reason and I was having a terrible time breathing). I thought it was just chance and went through a second round of treatments. Again, the same reaction happened. Both times I had good multiple follicles, so I might have had something called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, but they weren’t sure. I started doing some reading and found out how dangerous fertility drugs really can be. Also, I probably have a lot of scar tissue and every time you have surgery for endometriosis it puts you at risk for more and more adhesions (sticky scars that can get really painful). Since I already had a child to take care of, and all of my endometriosis pain has gone away now, there was no way I was going to put myself through something that dangerous on purpose. For awhile I just thought I would be raising an only child. Paul is wonderful and it makes me happy to be his mom. I was fine with having only one kid even though I would love the opportunity to raise more. Several months went by after giving up on fertility treatments and all of a sudden I got the feeling that we are supposed to adopt. Tom prayed about it and got the same answer. It was weird, but it was a very clear prompting. We both felt that a baby that is meant to come to our family was going to be born to someone else. I’ll tell more about that part of the story in another post, as this has gotten very long (and could have been longer but I cut out a lot of the medical stuff that would be boring to anyone who hasn’t gone through infertility).

Pregnancy 101

2008-03-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

I know this is odd to be writing about on our adoption website. Even though I’m wishing I could be pregnant, I would like to assume that someone pregnant is reading this and will have fun with my unsolicited advice.

I am different from some prospective adoptive moms because I have actually gone through a pregnancy and have a child. Paul is our biological child after doing fertility treatments, and it was a totally wild experience. Even though a lot of the things I write may freak people out, I have to say that if I could get pregnant I would totally do it again. It’s something that I would definitely call an ADVENTURE! Literally, you’re taking your body where no man has gone before (bad joke, sorry). I've only done it once, though, so I'm not an expert or anything.

I wanted to make a post with pregnancy advice because the advice that I got from others was sooo valuable. These are things that I was SO GLAD people told me because I didn’t read about it in any of the books I had. Some of it is just plain nitty gritty realistic stuff that women either don’t experience or don’t talk about because they want to make it seem like they are superwoman or something. I guess the gist of my missive here is that I lived through pregnancy and if a wimp like me can, you probably will, too.

EMOTIONS- Pregnancy is crazy emotional. I liked to consider myself to be pretty pulled together, but I would go to my doctor’s visits and cry for no reason at all when I talked about anything related to my concerns about my body. “My leg itches for some reason, boo hooo hoo.” I would also cry at TV shows and movies that I would never otherwise find touching. I also went through a time when I was about 2-3 months along where I just wanted everyone to LEAVE ME ALONE. It was totally irrational. I didn’t feel like going anywhere, eating anything, or talking to anyone for about a month. That was interesting because I was working full time! Then, when I was in my middle trimester, I was maxed out on perfect happiness a lot of the time. I admit that being pregnant just makes you really tired, so this might have something to do with it. If I had a choice between sleep and social life, it was always sleep that I chose! I also went through lots of times of freaking out and just plain denial (Am I really pregnant? Is this really possible? Is a real baby going to come out of this pregnancy?)
MORNING SICKNESS- I had an interesting form of morning sickness. It was like being car sick or having motion sickness for a couple of months straight. The funny thing was, I felt like barfing constantly, but had to do a mind over matter thing because even though I felt sick, I never actually threw up. So, I was a bit lucky there. But, I had horrible food aversions. I remember not being able to look at a tomato without wanting to run away screaming. There was one co-worker of mine who kept putting on lotion that made me feel terribly ill.
BLADDER SHRINKAGE- I had to pee constantly. I should have bought stock in toilet paper. I actually thought that I should get some depends one time when I went on vacation out of state. I never did, but I was constantly thinking “Where is the bathroom?”
MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ARE SOMETIMES CLUELESS- So many women can vouch for this one. I remember calling the pregnancy nurse line that (my insurance had one) because I’d had a headache for two weeks straight. The nurse told me that it was because I was going through caffeine withdrawal and to have a few sips of coffee or soda to help wean me off of it.” I said, “That’s funny, I never used caffeine before I was pregnant.”
STRANGE MEDICAL PHENOMENA- Here is a laundry list of things my girlfriends luckily warned me about so I didn’t freak out when it happened:

Extra sensitive skin- I actually thought I’d never be able to shave again. My friends suggested some special sensitive skin shaving cream that they went and bought for me at an “adult” shop that helped a lot. My skin on my face was fine, but arms and legs were a mess.
Leg cramps at night- many women get terrible charley horses in their calves and I was no exception. It helped to get extra potassium from bananas and drink lots.
Heartburn- my belly wasn’t even that big yet when the heartburn started. It got to the point where I would take one or two bites of food and the heartburn would start at the beginning of my meal. Finally I brought it up to my doctor and she had some pregnancy-friendly antacid solutions.
Feeling “puffy”- your circulation increases so much that it’s not unusually to just feel a bit more squishy than usual.
Lightheadedness – this was a scary problem because it made me feel like I was going to pass out every so often. Usually I hadn’t been drinking enough fluids or I had low blood sugar. Needless to say, I didn’t like to go places alone very much.
Hunger- I couldn’t go two hours without eating… for almost my whole pregnancy. It helped to increase my fats and proteins and I ate lots of eggs for breakfast.
Weird crampy feelings- a lot of the little pinchy mild crampy feelings are more than just false contractions (Braxton hicks) they were my body’s reaction to being stretched by the baby.

BED REST- I was on bed rest for almost three months because of pre-term labor. My uterus was irritable and I just couldn’t seem to stay hydrated enough. It was like living in an altered state of reality. All of a sudden I couldn’t DO anything! I would fantasize about going shopping, eating in nice restaurants, or doing anything outside of the house! Even going on a car ride made me contract. Hopefully this won’t happen to you, but if it does, my advice is to join some online support groups, join Netflix, and read all the books you’ve ever wanted to (try books on tape, too). Luckily, I was able to work from home during this time so I could feel productive, at least. Oh, and wedge pillows and body pillows are the BEST!
DELIVERY- This is so different for everyone. Everyone has a different level of pain tolerance and all of our bodies are a so unique. In retrospect, it isn’t terrible, but then I look back in my journal where I wrote about it, I remember not only the physical discomfort, but the lameness of waiting, wondering, and having people poke and prod me! By the time I actually gave birth I didn’t care if I was naked or a mess, or that I had an IV or a really dysfunctional epidural in my back that numbed me to my neck at times. So, it really wasn't painful because of the miracle of anesthesia, but being numb felt gross. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep. I was in labor with Paul for 18 hours and it was sometimes boring, sometimes scary, and for the most part just plain yucky. For me, pushing him out wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was tearing and getting stitched up and healing up afterward. I was so scared that I would never heal up to normal again. But I did and it only took a few weeks (the female anatomy is amazing). I would just say, especially if you tear, take as many of the ice pack pads home from the hospital as you can get your hands on. I do remember that I was unbelievably hungry after giving birth and the nurses have an amazing stash of food for the taking if you just think to ask. I skarfed their whole supply of graham crackers, I think.

Feel free to add your own pregnancy advice in comments for others if you have some.

Tom's Favorites

2008-03-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

Yay! Tom filled out his favorites list.

Favorite Foods:

Overall food- Pizza

Ethnic food- Indian

Meat- Bratwurst

Vegetable- tomato- is it a vegetable?

Fruit- peaches

Grain- quinoa

Casserole- Shepards pie

Drink- Raspberry Lemonade

Sandwich- Reuben

Breakfast food- French Toast

Ice Cream- World Class Chocolate

Fancy Restaurant- Le Rendez Vous (French)

Fast Food Restaurant- A&W

Pizza Toppings- sausage, pepperoni, mushroom

Thing to cook- brats on the bbq

Entertainment:

Novel- Tom Clancy ones

Magazine- Popular Science

Song- If You Get There Before I Do (Colin Rae)

Rock Band- INXS

Individual Singer- Billy Joel

Website- any site about computer upgrades

Broadway play- Fiddler on the Roof

Board Game- Settlers of Catan

Cartoon- Robotech

TV Series- Star Trek

Vacation spot- New Orleans

Disney Movie- Incredibles

Romance Movie- Sense and Sensibility

Action Movie- Star Wars

Shopping:

Item of Clothing- comfy shoes

Colors- blue

Perfume- none because Becky is allergic to many of them

Store- Best Buy

Dream Car- Acura NSX

Flower- Daisy

Other Favorite Things in Life:

Childhood Memory- playing with cousins on grandparents’ farm in Illinois

Memory with Spouse- Disneyworld

Memory with Paul- too many!

Hobby- building computers

Class in Junior High- Band

Class in High School- Ethics, Psychology, Physics

Holiday- Christmas

Animal- Guinea Pigs

Nursery Rhyme- Pat A Cake

Thing about spouse- Her beauty, in and out

Silly Song- Ponderous (2NU)

Quote- “Judge not that ye be not judged” (Matt 7:1)

Becky's Favorites List

2008-03-18T10:13:00.001-07:00

I'll post my favorites first. Tom's are still getting filled in. Let me know if I left any favorites categories out and I'll put them in.

Becky’s Favorites

Favorite Foods:

Overall food- Onion Rings

Ethnic Food- Greek

Meat- Chicken

Vegetable- Spinach, Acorn Squash

Fruit- Strawberry

Grain- Quinoa

Casserole- Chicken Enchiladas

Drink- Water

Sandwich- Monte Cristo

Breakfast food- Biscuits and Gravy and Hash browns

Ice Cream- Chocolate Cookies and Cream

Fancy Restaurant- All of them, including Melting Pot

Fast Food Restaurant- Culvers (in Midwest), Arby’s

Pizza Toppings- bacon and pineapple

Thing to cook- quiche

Entertainment:

Novel- A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Magazine- Ensign

Song- I always sing Madonna, B52's and Cindi Lauper ones at Karaoke for some reason

Rock Band- Aztec Camera, Police, Gypsy Kings

Individual Singer- Sting, Bob Marley

Website- anything related to planning our next vacation

Broadway play- Les Miserables

Board Game- Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples

Actor- Helena Bonham Carter

Cartoon- Charlie and Lola, Powerpuff girls

TV Series- Gilmore Girls, Big Bang Theory, Dancing with the Stars

Vacation spot- Capri, Italy; New Orleans; New York City

Disney Movie- Pete’s Dragon, anything with Hayley Mills

Romance Movie- A Room with a View; Sense and Sensibility

Action Movie- ?

Shopping:

Item of Clothing- hoodie

Color- Red

Perfume- Chanel #5

Store- Trader Joes

Dream Car- 4WD Volvo Sedan

Flower- Orchid

Other Favorite Things in Life:

Childhood Memory- Playing in the mud

Memory with Spouse- going shopping for furniture in antique shops together

Memory with Paul- taking him home from the hospital and having to put a towel under his bottom because he was too small for the car seat.

Hobby- cooking, gardening

Class in Junior High- robotics

Class in High School- Shakespeare Touring Company/ Drama

Holiday- New Years Eve

Animal- guinea pig

Thing about spouse- he doesn’t need much sleep

Quote- “You’ve got brains in your head, you’ve got feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose.” (Dr. Seuss?)

Family Fun Pictures

2008-03-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of what it's like to be a little kid in our family. (Click a picture to link to our flickr album)

www.flickr.com

Becky's family pictures

2008-03-07T09:13:00.000-08:00

Finding recent pictures of my family is interesting because they are mostly at weddings or other events. Quite literally, we see each other so much that it's rare to think to take pictures (except for of the kids) So, someone is always in a wedding dress, it seems! You can click on them to make them bigger.

Here is one at my sister's wedding two years ago--
Starting on the left, there is me, my youngest brother and his wife in blue, behind them is Tom, then my tall sister in law and her brother, my sister is the bride and her hubby has the dark hair, my older brother (the one getting married in the next picture) is peeking out from behind, then there is my mom and dad, and second youngest brother on the right. As you can see, I have very tall brothers , but the girls in our family are shorter.This picture is at my older brother's wedding in Fall 07. Tom and I are on the far left, followed by my sister and her husband, my parents, the bride and groom, my middle brother and his wife, my youngest bro and his wife and my second youngest brother (he's the last remaining single brother). It's very awesome that my entire family have all been through the temple.

I'll keep looking for more- especially ones of just my parents that I don't have to scan ;-) .

Open Adoption Expectations

2008-03-07T08:44:00.000-08:00

(I’m writing this directed to birthmoms/firstmoms). This topic definitely deserves its own individual post because it is a complex and important thing to define our expectations of an open adoption. Open adoptions come in so many different flavors. We know of people with all kinds of situations, all the way from really, really open to partially closed. Since we have not yet been selected by a birthmother, we cannot delineate a set open adoption plan because it has to be decided between us all. However, it is probably useful and comforting to someone who is looking for adoptive parents to know UP FRONT what we have in mind.

First of all, we want to be completely honest. We would never paint a picture of a relationship that may never exist just to convince a mom to choose us. Nor would we make promises that we don’t intend to keep. So, I’ll be sharing some things that are part of our reality-- things that a potential birth mom would need to know before choosing us, along with some of the more warm and fuzzy reassurance that you really need.

We will tell your child that he or she is adopted. Your child will know of you and your sacrifice. He or she will know your name (and dad’s/grandparents names if they want to be included) and that you love him/her and we will show the child your picture. We will teach the child of how you gave him/her the gift of life and a body, carried the child in your womb, and chose us to be his/her parents because you love him/her. You will always be the child's first mom (and first dad/grandparents). We will probably make a special homemade storybook if we have some pictures of you and discuss the issues through conversations as they come up. We will make the child feel as normal as can be and he or she will have many friends that are also adopted. Tom and I personally will bless your name through eternity for giving birth to our adopted child. We’ll always think of you as a friend and someone who has made a phenomenal influence for good in the world.
We’ve talked a lot about the type of relationship we would like to have with our future child’s birthparents. We want to have a relationship with you (the first mom), the birth father, and even birth grandparents if they want to be a part of this. The purpose of this relationship is so that you can be constantly reassured that your child is safe and well cared for. Also, there will come a time when the child has questions about his/her biological parenthood and we will want to keep in touch so that that relationship can be facilitated when the child is grown. We hope to become friends and know how you are and where you are. You are going to be an important person in our lives, so yes, we do want open communication if that is what you would like.
You would have access to TONS of pictures and stories about your child on our blog. I’m an extremely voracious writer and pretty decent picture-taker and always update my blogs. Therefore, if you have a computer, you can choose to see pictures at least once a week, maybe sometimes daily. However, if you are not hooked up to a computer, I’ll make arrangements to send you pictures, but you would have to say how often you want them.
We're willing to have in-person visits if that would help you. This would depend entirely on your geographic location and proximity to us. We're also willing to entertain visits with biological grandparents.
Although we don’t have any plans to move, it could happen after several years. Tom works for a large company with many, many national and global locations and he may need to relocate some day in order to be promoted and further his career. In this case, we would never just move and not tell you- you will always have a way of contacting us.

Everything a Birthmom Wants to Know, But Might be Afraid to Ask

2008-03-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

Everything you might want to ask but don’t know how. . .

I want to provide information on this blog so that women who are looking for adoptive parents will get answers, not cheesy fluffy stuff about how our house is as cute as a button or how we think babies are soft and yummy. Real stuff! Here is a list of questions that birthmoms and dads might have when they want to interview potential parents, along with our answers.

Why are you interested in adopting? We keep looking around and thinking, “someone is missing!” We did fertility treatments to conceive our son, Paul (age 2 now), but the same treatments don’t work anymore. We just feel like there is a place for another child in our home. It’s so weird because we never PLANNED on adopting, but we feel like we are being inspired to go for it.

How long have you been married? Next December is our 10^th Anniversary

What kind of contact would you like to have with the birth mother?

For a detailed explanation of the type of contact we'd like, see our huge post on Open Adoption Expectations.

We would keep updates on our blog, so that you could choose to log on and see how things are going whenever you want to see it. I am open to other types of communication, but if I try to put myself in a birthmom's shoes, I think it’s best to not bombard birthmoms with letters or contact because I wouldn’t want to just open the mailbox one day and get a bunch of baby pictures because it would be like being hit with an emotional baseball bat. That’s why I want an arrangement where the birthmom initiates the amount of contact she feels is most comfortable. However, we would have to draw the line somewhere. I don’t anticipate that a birthmom would ever become such a part of the family that we’d have her for birthday parties or other events, or dropping over to visit whenever.

What type of relationship do you have with your extended family? We go to Becky's family’s house for a 12 + person dinner almost every Sunday night. Becky has four brothers and one sister who all live in town. They are all married, except for one brother. All of her siblings have college degrees. She is really close to her sister, who is a physical therapist, and mom, who teaches junior high. Her dad is now becoming a fun hang-out buddy now that he is retired. She also hangs out with her sister in law who is also a stay-at-home mom and great party coordinator for little kids. She is always inviting Becky to fun kid activities.

Tom’s parents live in different states, but they visit often enough for Paul to be familiar with them. Tom has four sisters and two brothers. He has a brother in the army who lives in Korea with his wife and three daughters. Three of his siblings live in town. He loves having everyone over when we get the chance and his whole family is very playful/energetic/hyper? silly? :)

How many children do you have/are you planning to have? We will probably stop after we adopt one child (so, two kids is probably all we will have unless something special happens). We would like to have as many children as God wants us to have, but realistically, the child we adopt will probably end up being the baby of the family.

What future do you see for your adopted child? We want our children to be well educated, social, and successful in all aspects of life. We will teach them good manners, provide financially for an education, teach them the benefits of hard work, and allow them to be exposed to many good paths in life. Then, after they choose which way they want to go, we’ll always support them.

What is your educational background? Tom went to a private college-prep school in high school, then got a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. Becky graduated in the top 5% of her class in a public high school and was able to do her college on scholarship. She got a Bachelor of Art Degree in Creative Writing with a minor in Art History. Later, she went back and got a Masters Degree in Education, with focus in Teaching and Teacher Education / Secondary English. Also, Tom served a mission in France and speaks French. Becky served a mission in Russia and speaks Russian.

Are you both planning to work after adopting? Tom is now the main provider, and Becky is a full-time stay-at-home mom. Becky does occasionally take writing contract work to keep up her skills, but when the new adopted baby arrives, this will probably have to be put on hold.

Where do you live? Tucson, AZ in a red brick house

Are you planning on moving in the future? It is a possiblity, Tom’s job likes to transfer people every few years to provide for personal job growth. We don’t have any immediate plans to move, however, but we love opportunities to grow.

How do you handle conflict? Love, logic, and forgiveness! Heavily weighted on the forgiveness aspect.

Paul pictures

2008-03-03T15:06:00.001-08:00

This is going to be really hard to pick out just a few of Paul, the potential big brother. I'll just try to show you how he's changed as he's grown.1 day old

4 monthsAround 6 months12 months
18 months
2 years

Couple pictures of Tom and Becky

2008-03-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

Here are several couple pictures, from young to old of us throughout our marriage.
This is when we were engaged almost 10 years ago- we were both 23 yrs old here
Wedding picture 1998- Becky is 24, Tom is 23

Posing as American Gothic on a trip to Ashton, IL in 2000 (Tom's grandparents' home)Christmas 2004At Becky's Grandparents' summer home in the mountains a few years ago
Just barely pregnant with Paul, Spring 2005

April 2006 - Dancing at Becky's sister's wedding reception (Paul snuck in)Summer 2007 at Becky's 15 year high school reunion

I'll post more soon.

Pictures of Tom's parents

2008-03-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

Franma (Tom's mom) at our house
Franma and Randpa Poppy (Tom's Dad)
To be continued. . .

LDS Family Services Website Profile is UP

2008-02-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

Yay! Our profile finally went live today!

Our profile name is "TomAndBecky" on itsaboutlove.org.

The space they give you on that page is extremely limited and it was really hard to choose which pictures to put in it and what words to write. One of the regional LDSFS people told us that they are going to totally re-do the profiles on the website in June, so I am not going to worry about doing anything terribly fancy with it like the animated gifs that I was toying with for making multiple pictures flash.
We've actually had the website all done for about three months, but it took a long time for us to actually see it in action.
Getting our profile up has been an interesting journey. We signed the release form for it a few months ago and it got lost in the office, then we signed another one a couple of weeks ago that also got lost in the office, so the secretary called and apologized after I emailed to follow-up and finally the third one we signed made it to headquarters in Salt Lake and it only took two days to get up and running.
My first theory was that it just wasn't "our time" to be up on line and we were supposed to wait for someone special to choose us later, not now. So I was really laid back about it. Then, I was reading something about overcoming trials in this year's new Joseph Smith study manual. After that it became very clear to me that the adversary is going to do everything he can to put a stop to the most important things in life. Therefore, I knew that adopting a child is something that we have to be really pro-active about and not just sit around and let others take care of everything. So, from now on when bad things happen, I'm not going to say, "Oh, that was just meant to be," or "sometimes road blocks go up to steer us in the right direction" because I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. Sure, trials happen and we grow, but laying down and taking the punches as they come isn't the way to handle it, instead we need to be fighting the bad things that may happen and moving forward.

10 Random Reasons I Would Choose Our Family

2008-02-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is a weird topic. Of course I would choose our family to put a baby into, what a silly, biased thought. If you know us, feel free to add comments about why you would choose us (or why you wouldn't- I think the more honest info birth mothers have, the better, don't you?)

1. We don't smell bad. Wouldn't it be awful to have your child placed with stinky, smelly adoptive parents? Well, have no fears.

2. Your kid would have his or her own room. I always wanted my own room growing up, I think this is a bonus. However, your kid probably won't have a horse, a castle, unlimited access to Disneyland, or a bazillion toys. I'm sure our kids will have their own computers, since Paul already has his own. Enough about belongings- there is just way too much stuff in the world and we don't like collecting lots of worthless things.

3. A big brother named Paul. Paul doesn't beat up on other kids and he is really fun. I can't say whether he'll be a good big brother, because he's only two years old, and I can't make those kind of promises. I can't promise he won't be a nerdy older brother, either, because he likes computer games. But, he can dribble a soccer ball, so there is hope. All I can say is that he has been known to peacefully coexist with other children, isn't violent, and begs for his cousins friends to come over all the time.

4. We eat healthy food but still have the old favorites every so often. I would choose us because I would want a mom who doesn't shovel sugar and junk food into her kids all day long. Someone who is dedicated to eating a healthy, organic diet, but is always willing to take a break from it for birthday parties and other social activities, holidays, and even go out to McDonalds with friends for a treat every so often. We're sensible, but not hyper about mealtime. Grandma and Grandpa have been known to feed their grandchildren lots and lots of chocolate, however, which is okay with me.

5. We're in family mode all the way. When you have a little kid, you give up those selfish things you used to do when it was just the two of you. We're both more than okay with that. We like doing things together as a family and don't look at kids as a cramp in our style. We don't feel like we need to "escape" from our kid. For balance, we go out on dates and still have couple time because it's important, but it's actually a gift to Paul because he's so in love with his babysitters and relatives who watch him when we go out.

6. We believe in teaching good manners and proper etiquette. Society is losing the essentials of polite culture-- we are starting young with Paul to teach him not only please and thank you, but the importance of other things like being on time and not taking advantage of others.

7. Our life is focused on serving others. Some people might be a little bit wary about this one because if you're not careful, you can spend all your time taking care of others and neglecting your own family. But, we like to try to reach out to others as a family when we can and do what we can to make the world a better place, whether it's conserving energy to help the environment or helping others do something they can't do for themselves.

8. Big extended family. Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins abound here. That's way too many birthday parties some months, but everyone gets a really big turn out for each special day.

9. We are parents with diverse interests. As parents, we aren't clones of each other. We have common and separate interests. Tom is more of a spatial, visual, mathematical person; and Becky is a auditory (verbal), creative person. Tom went on his mission to France, and Becky went to Russia. Tom has a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering is working as a Mechanical Engineer, formerly an IT (Computer) specialist. Becky has a bachelors in Creative Writing/ Art History and a Masters of Education in Teaching/ Secondary English and has worked as a newspaper editor, teacher, and technical writer. So, we have two different aspects of life that we bring together.

10. We're dedicated to the gospel and to each other. If I were choosing adoptive parents, my greatest fear would be that the kid would end up in a broken home or that the parents would fight with each other. Or, that they would leave the gospel and blow off values all together. There are so many couples out there that have half a dozen kids and then decide that they don't want to be together anymore and split up. Or, they just decide not to go to church anymore because they are too busy going fishing or sleeping in and reading the newspaper on Sundays. It makes us both sick to think of those kind of situations. We know that if we stay dedicated to the gospel and make God a partner in our marriage and family life that he will keep us strong. Work will never be more important to Tom than taking care of his family. It's not easy to be dedicated and make a family work. It takes a lot of sacrifice, and that is why I would choose us for adoptive parents. We've had to become grown ups through life's experiences and have matured to the point where we can parent children effectively.

Some Great Adoption Advice for Adoptive Parents

2008-02-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things I found within an article on Kimberly-Clark's website By Amy Coughlin and Caryn Abramowitz that are awesome for adoptive couples. The article is on international adoption, but it totally applies to all adoption.

So just what are the best ways for parents to answer questions about a child's adoption? (And what questions should the rest of us avoid asking?) Read on for a list of the "do's and don'ts."

What You Should Do

Do treat her like any other kid. It may be difficult and take a while for adopted children to feel like they belong within their extended families. Treating these children like they're "nothing special" can go a long way toward making them feel at home and comfortable within the group.

Avoid the temptation to spoil her because she didn't have everything that the other kids had in the first few months or years of her life. The most valuable gifts you can offer these children are patience, routine, and consistency -- and most of all, unexaggerated expressions of love and devotion.

Do support her when curious strangers ask questions.
When curious (and sometimes thoughtless) strangers ask questions or feel the need to comment on the circumstances of the adoption, do not let them lead you into uncomfortable territory. Instead, gently steer them back to more suitable small talk or respond in such a way that shifts the conversation to positive adoption language that in turn lets the child know that you are on her side.

Do respect her privacy.
Adopted children have the same need for and the right to privacy as you do. They do not want their entire life story being told to strangers. If she hears you discussing the intimate details of her origins, she will likely feel embarrassed. Until the child is old enough to decide for herself how much information she would like to share regarding her background, please respect her privacy.

Do treat prospective adoptive parents the same as expectant parents.
Adopting a child is just as exciting for soon-to-be parents as being pregnant. They feel the same way all expectant parents do -- overjoyed, overwhelmed, nervous, impatient, and most of all, excited. Don't be afraid to ask adopting parents about these feelings. After all, adoption is neither a secret nor a source of embarrassment or shame.

Do acknowledge and celebrate the differences.
One of the best things you can do to show your support as well as your love for the adopted child in your life is to learn a bit about the culture and history of her birth country. Read a couple of books, especially travel books. Even if you have no plans to travel there, there is no better way to get the feeling of another country.

What You Should Not Do

Don't introduce her as adopted. The pain this inflicts on the child is obvious. The child is made to feel inferior, like she will never be considered a real part of the family. The rule is simple: Don't ever, ever do this.

Don't say how "lucky" she is.
After hearing this enough times, the child can be made to feel like a lifelong charity case, rather than the cherished child she is. Yes, she is lucky, but so is any child who has a supportive, loving family. And we parents are lucky, too, to have been able to create this loving, supportive family.

Don't assume adoption is a second choice.
The reasons people choose to adopt are as varied and unique as the people themselves. While it is true that many choose adoption because of infertility, it is also true that many choose adoption for a myriad of other reasons as well. Many people choose to adopt not because they are out of other options, but rather because they believe that adoption is the best choice for them.

Don't jump to conclusions about the birth mother.
Birth mothers often suffer a lifetime of pain far greater than that of childbirth. Please don't jump to the wrong conclusion that these women are any different than you and me or that they love their children any less.

Most cross-cultural adoptive families know little or nothing about the circumstances that led their child's birth mother to relinquish her child. What they do know is that they love their children's birth mothers because they are a part of their children and it is because of them that their beloved children are who they are.

Don't tell us we're sure to have "our own" now.
She is our own. Those parents who choose adoption because of infertility do not secretly harbor lifelong yearnings for a biological child. Having "our own" is now irrelevant; the child we have is the one we want and it is inconceivable that we could love or want any child more. Like all parents, we have the best.

We're Officially Certified to Adopt!

2008-02-07T16:41:00.000-08:00

The letter just came in the mail today! We are "certified as acceptable to adopt by the Superior Court of the State of Arizona". Yay! Our certification is good for 18 months (until June 10, 2009) and after that we have to renew it.

Some people call this phase "paper pregnant", but I can't handle the weirdness of that term, so I'll just call it "ready for the baby whenever the baby is ready for us." So, now we have to get our profile on the LDSFS website ready and I'll let you know when that is up and running.

You've got to listen to this story!

2008-01-26T07:54:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday night, Tom and I were listening to NPR on the radio during a show called "This American Life." An LDS comedian, Elna Baker, told a story that actually relates to adoption in the real world. It's funny and witty in a dark humor sort of way, but it made me think at the same time about my own feelings on race preferences when adopting.
This is Chicago Public Radio's synopsis of the story on This American Life- click here for the link to their page:

Babies Buying Babies.

Elna Baker reads her story about the time she worked at the giant toy store, FAO Schwartz. Her job was to sell these lifelike “newborns” which were displayed in a “nursery” inside the store. When the toys become the hot new present, they begin to fly off the shelves. When the white babies sell out, white parents are faced with a choice: will they go for an Asian, Latino, or African-American baby instead? What happens is so disturbing that Elna has a hard time even telling it.

Here is the podcast of just her story (thank you anonymous reader friend for cropping it for me!) Click HERE. Enjoy. Nubbins will thank you.

Families Supporting Adoption (FSA)

2008-01-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

We went to our first Families Supporting Adoption (FSA) get-together last night. We were actually the only couple there who was actively pursuing adopting a child, but there were three other families there who had adopted kids and had great experiences to share. The couple who is chairing the group has a two year old and are going to start the process to adopt a second child soon. It was nice that others already had kids because we took Paul and he ran around like crazy. The LDSFS director for the area traveled to be there, and our case worker was also there.
It was nice getting to know parents who had adopted through LDSFS who'd had great experiences. It was good to know that we have a lot of support out there and that there are so many amazingly awesome families going through the same thing we are. One thing I took away from our meeting was that the Lord will guide us to find the child that is meant to be ours. I know that sounds corney saying it over and over again, but meeting with people who have experienced the blessing of adoption makes it more real and is really encouraging.

Our Homestudy was finally turned in!

2008-01-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

I called to check on the home study and the secretary told me that she took it over to the court last week, so now we just have to wait for them to get to it and approve us. It turns out that the regular person who types up dictations for the case worker (a volunteer) has been ill, so the regular secretary typed it up. It was about 13 pages of text! She said we should be getting our approval soon in the form of a letter in the mail.

Projected Approval Update

2007-12-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

I just talked to our case worker at LDSFS today. We should be submitted to the court for approval by the end of next week. Looks like we are finally in the home stretch as far as getting the home study done. Our online profile may go live on www.itsaboutlove.org as early as the beginning of January. Our case worker just has to sign off on a website release right after the court approves us and send it up to Salt Lake City. He also recommended maybe putting our info on parentprofiles.com, which I have looked into, but their fees start at $99 a month. It seems like that website is kind of a clearinghouse for birthmothers to look for adoptive parents. We'll have to think about that one some more. I know adoption has turned into somewhat of a luxury in our society where money seems to buy almost anything, and not meant to be cheap, but it would be nice to have a craigslist version of parentprofiles. I feel like our job is to be the answer to someone's prayers and if we stay in tune with the spirit, we'll know what we have to do to find the baby that is meant to join our family.

It's hard to believe that Tom and I decided we were going to go this route over 4th of July weekend this year and it takes this long (6 months!) to get all the paperwork in and approved. Pursuing adoption is definitely something you have to WANT to do. Not all couples who can't have kids can stomach going through all of this.

If we find a pregnant mom (or she find us) who is interested in finding a couple to parent her child, in order to choose us to be the adoptive parent, she can go to the nearest LDS Family Services. Click HERE for a list of offices. LDSFS offers free pregnancy counseling to anyone, regardless of religion or any other factor. Also, they stay really neutral as far as presenting options for women to choose. I have to admit it would be beyond stressful if I were pregnant and considering adoption. I mean, I remember just wanting to sleep all the time during pregnancy, so having to deal with agencies and counseling, and all of that stress must be beyond overwhelming for the expectant moms. Within the LDS church, women who are pregnant out of wedlock are encouraged by their church leaders to first make it work in their relationship with the expectant dad and get married if that is a viable option. If that won't work, adoption is encouraged because the church teaches that children need to be raised by both a mom and a dad. However, at LDSFS, they are focused on letting the pregnant mom make her own choice and supporting her in whatever path she wants to choose.

Adoption vs. Pregnancy

2007-11-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was talking with someone who has both adopted some children and had a biological child and she said something that was so simple, but it made me think.

"Pregnancy and birth is a physical thing, but adoption is definitely an emotional thing."

Even though we're still just going through the approval process, it's so true. My thoughts are on adoption every day. I get emotional when I think of a woman out there who has become pregnant and all the stress she must be having. I think of the angst that she has when considering either raising the baby or finding a special other home for the child. I consider the relationship she has had with the baby's father and what he must think about the complexity of the situation, too. And her family: the baby's genetic grandparents and aunts and uncles who, even though it's not their final decision, are having their own emotions and may be making it harder or easier for the baby's mom. I think of how this tiny baby is going to find us-- mostly how his or her mother is going to find us so we can parent her little child for her. I also think of the baby's spirit waiting in the pre-earth spirit world, and that he or she is probably nervous about the future as well.

With a a bunch of money spent and putting my body through some pretty dangerous stuff (including surgery), there might still be a chance that I could have another biological child. But where does that leave me as far as being there for our existing son, Paul? It's amazing how physical the pregnancy experience really was for me. Just getting pregnant with Paul through surgery and fertility treatment, and then being on bed rest for half the pregnancy, I was definitely focused on my physical aches and pains. Even nursing was a whole physical can of worms! I was in denial that I would even have a healthy baby after all I had gone through, so I lived in that state of detachment until after Paul was born. It was only then that I came to the realization that I had a son. Of course, it was hard emotionally to deal with the physical pain of having a baby, but that was tiny compared to the love I feel for the little guy and the ongoing daily energy it takes to raise a child.

Checking in...

2007-11-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

Our Social Worker said to call him to check in after a month (and it's been over a month now). So, I called and the secretary said that he's not done with our report yet. Hmmm... maybe it's good that I called just to remind him that we're out here waiting to get our Home Study approved.

Tom and I do think about adoption every day, but I wouldn't say that we're obsessed with the idea. We're actually putting our energy into enjoying Paul's goofy toddlerhood to its fullest. We still pray every night to be able to find the baby that is meant to come to our family. It will be interesting to see how this happens and when. Sometimes I think that the chances of me getting pregnant (a dubious 1%) are about as good as us finding a baby to adopt.

Today I went shopping for Paul to get him some fall clothes. Part of me thought that maybe I should pull out his old clothes and donate them or exchange them at the thrift store. But, I guess I'm not ready for that because another little boy may join our family some day and decent baby clothes (that don't make the kids look like dorks) are hard to come by.

Our photo collage

2007-10-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

Our "Dear Birthmother" letter

2007-10-05T09:17:00.001-07:00

This letter is meant to be read by expectant mothers (and sometimes fathers) who are considering finding an adoptive family for their unborn child. It is supposed to be a starting point to help people get to know us. Ours is a little bit on the long side, but hey, I believe more information is better than less! I hope it's not too cheesy. When I read these letters they all seem so cheesy and it makes me feel weird, maybe even uncomfortable. This is going to be put in the huge scrapbooks that all of the LDSFS agencies have in Arizona. Other prospective birthparents will have to find us online.

Greetings,
Welcome to the pages of Becky, Tom, and our young one, Paul. We hope that these few paragraphs will be a good use of your time and provide an honest representation of our family so that you are able to make a well-informed decision about us. The space here is very limited, so if there is anything else you would like us to share, please don’t be shy and drop us a note.
Our philosophy as parents. . .
We want our children to know of our love for them. We believe strongly in encouraging our children’s developing individuality. Our common parenting goals are: to bring our children up in the gospel, spend lots of time with them and attend all of their childhood functions, teach them good manners, provide them with an excellent education, and expose them to many different experiences so that they can be their best selves and each choose a unique path through life.
Becky’s thoughts on Tom as a dad. . .
Most importantly, Tom is a positive spiritual influence in our home. He was born to be a dad. He always encourages Paul’s exploration by taking him out to jump in mud puddles and teaches him to hold on tight when he climbs on his play set. He has enviable night-time endurance for calming a sleepless infant, a high tolerance for messes, and marathon story reading stamina. It also seems like he can build or fix anything.
He is a patient, selfless, generous, gentle, dedicated, providing father; proficient in belly-button beeping, piggy-back ride giving, toy assembling, playground building, toe tickling, block building, game playing, diaper changing, hall walking, stroller pushing, fishing items out of the toilet bowl, obsessively kissing, story reading, “I love you” saying, hug giving, silly song singing, cuddling and rocking, stink detecting, car seat carrying, toe counting, and always being there for the family.
Tom’s thoughts on Becky as a mom. . .
Becky is a sophisticated, culturally refined influence in our home who keeps everyone organized, productive, clean, fed, and out of danger. She is extremely creative, witty and sometimes sassy.
She is a protective, peace-making, smile smiling, patient, multitasking mother; skilled at swiftly swaddling, making up nicknames, diaper changing, burp coaxing, barf dodging, doctor appointment making, story reading, “I love you” saying, hug giving, pacifier finding, onesie snapping, lullaby singing, snuggling close holding, temperature taking, photographing, teeny tiny nail trimming, always teaching, and single-sided conversation holding.
A very short resume. . .
Tom:
Education: Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Mission: France Bordeaux
Employment History: Mechanical Engineer; formerly an IT Specialist and Computer Repair Technician
Becky:
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, minor in Art History; Master of Education in Teaching and Teacher Education, Secondary English
Mission: Russia Moscow
Employment: Full-time mom, occasional Technical Writer; formerly an Art, Creative Writing, and English Teacher; Newspaper Editor/Writer; and Photography Studio Manager

Feelings on adoption. . .
We have been praying to know what to do about the future of our family. The prompting came to both of us that we are to adopt a child. The feeling came again and again and was so strong that we couldn’t deny it.
Tom:
It has been an honor to be able to be parents to our son. Realistically, parenthood has been a lot of work for us, full of sleepless nights and sacrifice, but despite this, having Paul has been blessing and a wonder. We would embrace the opportunity for our family to grow and for him to have a sibling. I feel that there is a child out there who is meant to come to our family.
Becky:
It took seven years of trying and the science of fertility treatment for us to bring our little son into the world. My pregnancy with him was unusually difficult and I was on bed rest for four months with pre-term labor. Still, I would be willing to do it all again if I could just get pregnant. However, I am unable to continue fertility treatments. For awhile we thought that maybe Paul was destined to be an only child, but I feel inspired that adoption is the right path for us to take.

Hobbies and interests. . .
Our “artsy” side takes us to plays, musicals, museums of any kind, and art galleries. If there is any type of festival or fair, we’ll go and check out new goofy fair food like fried twinkies, towers of onion rings, or caramel apples. We like to try a new restaurant almost every time we go out and sample cuisines from other cultures. We also like gardening. It’s so cute to see the little kids picking and eating cherry tomatoes straight off the vine. In our laid back family time we make homemade ice cream, sing songs, pop popcorn, read stories with Paul, go swimming, walking, make videos, and take lots of pictures.
Tom:
Every so often, I hear the call of the wild, which leads me to take the family camping or picnicking. I loved participating in scouting and earned my Eagle Scout award. I also like hiking, mountain biking, and swimming. I am an amateur guitar player, do some woodworking, and a lot of building things and tinkering. I build computers and fix mechanical things for fun. My favorite books are Tom Clancy novels, Harry Potter, and other mystery/spy books.
Becky:
I like playing the piano- it is very relaxing for me. My passion is writing: non-fiction stories, poetry, and I write in my blog almost every day. In high school, I loved drama and had the lead in a high-school musical. In college, I spent my time attending poetry readings and wandering around art galleries. I also toured Italy to further my studies of classical art. I love reading cookbooks and cooking gourmet dinners (not every night) for the rest of the family. I like to take time to study nutrition and healthy living. I enjoy planning social events, dinner parties, and entertaining guests. I make elaborate birthday cakes and like to help my mom decorate wedding cakes. I take pride in organizing the family budget, balancing the checkbook, and making sure we have our food storage in order. I have collected Dr. Seuss books since I was in high school and now have branched out to other children’s authors. My favorite author is E.M. Forster. I love old black and white movies, especially Audrey Hepburn ones. I have a huge collection of fortunes from fortune cookies.
Paul, the potential big brother. . .
Paul, almost two years old, is a loving, social child with tender feelings who would make a super big brother. He is growing up fast and always changing. He hugs and kisses mom and dad and anything he thinks is cute, from stuffed animals to plastic bugs! He is our little marathon runner and loves to run for the joy of running. He also loves swimming, baby computer games, trains, puzzles, climbing, sliding, and playing in the mud. His favorite thing to do at home is pop popcorn in the popper. He loves books and likes us to read about ten to him each day. His favorites are: “The Pop-up Mice of Mr. Brice” and “The Little Red Caboose”.

Our big families. . .
Becky:
My family is very scholarly. I am the second oldest of six children. I have four brothers and one sister- they all live nearby. All of my siblings are well educated and have bachelors or advanced degrees.

My parents are gifted in many ways: intelligent, intuitive, and level-headed. They live nearby and are fabulous grandparents to all four of their grandchildren. We all get together almost every week for Sunday dinners. They read stories to the grandkids and use all the characters’ funny voices. Grandpa takes the grandkids on rides in the red wagon and teaches them all the funny silly things that grandpas should- like how to make drums out of container lids, and how to bark like different types of dogs. Grandma is cuddly and gives lots of hugs and kisses and treats. Aside from being a gourmet cook, she makes wedding cakes.

Tom:
I am the oldest of seven children. I have four sisters and two brothers. Both of my brothers and one sister are married and most live nearby. There are five nieces on my side of the family. My parents divorced when I was in my teens and they are now remarried and live in other states. My dad comes to visit a few times a year and my mom comes to town about once a year. My grandparents have served many missions and are currently temple workers.

If we connect . . .
We hope to be able to meet you, to listen to your story, and to learn about your personal goals and wishes for your child’s future. Feel free to read our blog about our adoption journey: http://adoptingpumpkinmuffin.blogspot.com/. If you select us to become adoptive parents, this blog is where we will post pictures and stories about your child who comes to be with us. That way, you can log on any time to keep up on his or her important milestones in life.

Thanks for reading and best wishes in all regards,

Tom and Becky

The Home Visit / Joint Interview

2007-10-01T21:21:00.001-07:00

We had the last interview in the adoptive home study process today- the home visit. This was kind of interesting because we were never told what to expect, just that it is a joint interview with both of us and Paul and that it is held at our home. So, luckily, I cleaned the whole house because the social worker went in every room! He asked certain questions about our home and took notes. So, here is some of the random things I saw him take notes on about our home, which he will report to the court for approval:
Square footage: 1600
Year built: 1959
3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, plus office
Kitchen: talked about appliances like- induction cooktop, microwave, toaster oven, oven, trash compactor, dishwasher. He seemed to like our kitchen and is thinking about remodeling his someday soon.
Type of flooring: Tile in living room, hallway, and bathroom; wood laminate in kitchen, dining, and office/den; carpet in all bedrooms.
Backyard: fully enclosed with a brick wall, locked gates, and several types of trees: lemon, grapefruit, pomegranate, California pepper, and mesquite. Play area with rubber mulch.
I'm not sure what else he took into account- he asked whether we had any guns or ammunition in the house, which we don't.
One of our bathrooms is being remodeled, which he said isn't a big deal, but he still looked it over and talked about what we are doing with it, whether everything is functional, etc. Our backyard was also a mess because of the remodeling- we had the tile saw out there and a bunch of tools and buckets piled up. I am not so happy with how our backyard is right now (except for the awesome play set). I guess I should be glad that it is a nice, blank slate for whatever we want to do with it. At least it's not full of weeds and junk or anything.
Besides talking about our house, this interview also covered our relationship as a couple. He asked how we met, what attracted us to each other, any issues we have had to work through and how we have solved them. He also went over our finances, how we manage them, budget, and make decisions on purchases. All of these questions were really easy for us and the whole interview went smoothly.

After this, the social worker has to get around to putting together the actual report. He says he dictates it and has someone type it up. It ends up being about 20 pages long. Basically, he is the "eyes and ears" for the court to approve us as an adoptive couple. I think Arizona is the only state who has to go through the court, so different states probably have an easier process to go through for home studies. The social worker said to check in with him in another month or so to see what progress is made in the actual approval process. We should get a letter in the mail confirming our approval in less than three months. I told the S.W. that we are not desperate, nor are we in a huge rush, so it's all okay. I guess some couples are really anxious to get approved. Although, he said we got our paperwork done really fast, which surprises me-- I mean, this isn't brain surgery or anything. Maybe the more stressful part comes when we find a baby and gear up for actual adoption?

Tom's personal interview

2007-09-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tom reported that his interview mirrored mine as far as the questions asked. In his, he spent more time going through all the complexities of his family (divorced parents, etc.) and didn't really talk about his job experience as much as I did.

His interview was really delayed because the social worker was backed up. But, he didn't mind because he took a Harry Potter book to read.

He did ask the secretary whether she had gotten all our medical forms, and she did, so HURRAH! They just have to wait for our background check/ fingerprint clearance to come back and then do our home visit on Oct 1st. Then, we wait for court approval- maybe we'll get approved by early December.

My Personal Interview

2007-09-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

I had my personal interview as part of the home study on Monday. I was kind of nervous because I had heard about all kinds of weird things that social workers ask the adoptive couple in their individual interviews. But, this was really easy. Well, it would have been easier but I have had a horrible cold and I spent the whole thing blowing my nose and coughing. I would totally have canceled, but I really just wanted to get it over with!
Here are some of the things in the interview that we covered:
He asked me about my schooling starting at high school, hobbies, interests, jobs, church callings, and mission. We talked a lot about my mission- I always find that people are usually interested in the weirdness of Russia. He also had me list everyone in my immediate family (parent, siblings), where they live, ages, and whether they are married. Why can't I remember how old each of my siblings are? I only have six ;-) ) He had me describe my parents using a few adjectives and talk about their occupations. He didn't talk to me about my marriage relationship at all, which was kind of surprising. The whole thing lasted about an hour.
I like how his office is decorated in seashells. The HUGE overstuffed leather couch he had me sitting on was SO big that my feet couldn't touch the ground. They kind of just hung there, dangling ::snicker::. That was weird.
I must mention, however, that the florescent lighting in the LDFS office has got to go. It's so bright and glaring it's unreal. Maybe even damaging- heh, heh. I even wear anti-glare glasses and it didn't help. Maybe I'm slightly light-sensitive, but after sitting in there for an hour I was going cross-eyed! Tom actually got a headache from it back when we had our initial interview. Tom has his tomorrow afternoon. I'll warn him to take some Tylenol or something ahead of time.

I also checked to see whether they got the medical paperwork from our physicals- but they haven't yet. I wonder if they were waiting to get our bloodwork back.

Physical Exams

2007-09-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

Part of the adoption paperwork is a medical examination. They want to make sure you are going to live long enough to parent a child and make sure you are free of major diseases.

I scheduled exams for Tom and me on the same day, so that the paperwork would be easier for the doctor (and hopefully wouldn't get lost). It was kind of fun to both go to the doctor together. Not that going to the doctor is ever fun, but this wasn't so bad. I don't think I have actually gone in for an official "physical" since high school but Tom has to have them for work occasionally.

What surprised me is how much the doctor was interested in talking about adoption in general when we told her why we were there. She wanted to know how we were going to find a child to adopt and how LDS Family Services works. I was talking to her about my problems related to fertility and fertility treatments and she actually said, "Well, maybe it was supposed to happen. Maybe you are supposed to have a child come to your family from somewhere else."

So, the exams went well- they were no big deal. I actually haven't had a tetanus shot in about 20 years, so I got one (ouch- my arm is really sore today). We also have to go get all updated bloodwork. She said we didn't have to for the adoption paperwork because we are healthy, but it's standard practice when you're over 30 years old and go in for a physical.

Adoption Semantics

2007-09-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

When I was studying to be a teacher, I learned a whole new politically correct vocabulary that was preferred when speaking of children with disabilities or special needs. For example, you have to put the person first in the sentence: instead of "handicapped or disabled person", you have to say "person with disabilities" or person with "special needs". Then, the term "special" started getting negative connotations, because sarcastic or insensitive use, so what do you do? They changed "special education" to "exceptional education" in many areas on paper, but people still call it the same thing. It's hard to keep up.

Likewise, with adoption, new levels of political correctness are one-upping themselves all the time. The goal is to smooth over the difficult feelings for birth mothers, but it is really hard to know how to phrase things. Our social worker at LDSFS already told us that one should never say "Give up a child for adoption," but instead should say something like "find an eternal family for the child."

Being that I'm a writer and entering the new genre of adoption writing soon (we're going to have to write a sensitive and meaningful "Dear Birthparent" letter in a few weeks), I want to figure out how to speak this new language. Of course, as with all semantics, sometimes things get a little silly when we can't call things what we are used to, but I can see how people want to be sensitive with this terminology.

Here are some wrong and right terms, according to my research:
WRONG -------->>>> RIGHT
Give up , Give away--->> Choose adoption, plan an adoption
Place for adoption --->>Find an eternal family
Real Parent--->> Birth Parent
Natural Parent --->>Biological Parent
Illegitimate child --->>Child born to unwed parents
To keep--->> To parent
Is adopted --->>Was adopted

Even the acceptable words are a moving target as people develop new stigma attached to them. For example, the term "birth mother" is starting to become despised by some biological parents because of new connotative meanings that are always floating around. I don't know if it sounds weird, but I might like to use the term "genetic parent" if I were a birth mom even more than "biological parent". It's that old nature-nurture psychology thing, I guess. When we do adopt a child, it will have someone else's set of genes entirely, but will be raised in our family with our mannerisms and values. In any case, I think that these words are a step in the direction of making adoption more positive and socially acceptable, but they will go through several changes through the ages, I'm sure.

The Right Timing

2007-08-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

We have talked about adoption since before we were married- about 9 years ago. It was probably one of those things on a "marriage preparation" list- but I remember quite clearly when we were engaged and Tom asked me how I felt about it. I think I told him that I was open to the idea, but would see how I felt at the time it came up. He had a really positive attitude about it at that time. In any case, it was weird to be talking about it because we assumed we would have no problem having lots of kids just like our parents.

The issue came up again in our lives around the last week of June this year. I just had this feeling that a baby was on the way for us- but strangely, coming to someone else. Tom had the same feeling. It was pretty cosmic. We talked it over and prayed about it for more than a week and then I called up LDS Family Services. The secretary emailed me a few pages of paperwork the same day. It had about three pages and one of them was to submit references, including a permission form to get a bishop's reference. She said that as soon as they got the bishop's reference that they would give us a call. So, we waited and waited for a few weeks. Our friends all told us that they had turned in their references. Finally, Tom called our bishop. He had filled out the forms as soon as he'd gotten them and they must have gotten lost. So, he did them again and took them down personally to LDSFS to turn them in. That was really nice of him- he's been really encouraging since he heard we were interested in adopting. As soon as his forms hit the desk at the agency, we got a phonecall to make an appointment for our orientation interview. This interview got rescheduled a couple of times for various reasons, so we had to wait three weeks for that.

Recently our physical exams got rescheduled because our doctor had a family emergency. . . so the whole timing thing is so variable.

It should take a month to get our fingerprint and CPS clearance back. We'll have personal interviews the second week of Sept, and then our home visit on Oct 1. The social worker has three months from the time we turn in our paperwork, which was Aug 28, to submit our home study. So... that should be in by the end of November. Then we have to wait for court approval to be considered as adoptive parents. Still not too sure how long that is going to be.

I'm not too concerned with all these delays. I don't feel like we're in any huge rush. These types of major life things usually happen within the Lord's time frame, so whatever happens to either speed things along or slow us down are probably all meant to be.

Financing the Adoption

2007-08-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

IF we do end up being chosen to adopt a baby (the baby's mom has to choose us for this to happen), it's going to end up costing us over$6,000.00 when the child is placed. Since we don't know when that's going to happen, I can't really estimate how long we have to save up. I am going to make a wild guess that it will take nine months. That's a normal gestational amount of time, so why not, right? We already put down a deposit of $1k, so that's only $5K left So, if I start socking away $560 a month into a special account, we should be set without having to raid our emergency, retirement, or other long term investments. If the adoption happens sooner, we'll probably borrow from the emergency fund (this is the one with 6 months living expenses).

Now... what are we going to give up so that we can put that money aside? Here are some ideas along with estimated monthly savings (let me know if you have others):

Cook more from scratch, no eating out, no Schwanns, and concentrate more on sales ($120)
Use only volunteer babysitters when we really need them- ($20)
Turn up the thermostat a degree and go around the house without clothes on in the heat- take fewer, shorter showers, and cook more in the microwave ($20)
Everyone gets homemade cards or emails for birthday and Christmas presents (this is your forewarning you so that you don't think we don't love you) ($50)
No highlights in my hair (argh- $50)
No truck or computer parts
Tom can ride his bike to work ($20) :) That's a lot of good exercise!
I'll try to get a few articles published and put in more time writing other things than this blog- heh, heh.
Work harder on Paul's potty training to save money on pull-ups and diapers.

I've already looked into tax credits, so that could help with about a third of the cost, but you have to wait for that money for a long time after you file your taxes.
But really, we're not too concerned with the money part. God has given us all that we have and we'll gladly use it for something that he wants us to.

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, oh, more paperwork. . .

2007-08-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

Just so you know, we decided to go ahead and try adopting through LDS Family services. I just turned in our paperwork today. I am a complete freak and actually LIKE filling out paperwork, but this amount kind of pushed me over the edge. I don't know how many pages it was because most of it was online. Honestly about 50, but if you ask me I'll probably say 500 or a thousand because in my embellished reality, that's what it was more like. The questions we had to answer included everything about ourselves, personalities and talents, childhood memories and medical problems, heritage (like what countries our ancestors are from) and all the information about our parents and siblings. Then I had to make copies of all of our significant documents- birth and marriage certificates (has anyone seen the old ugly blue arizona licenses- bleck I forgot how gross they are), temple marriage certificate, tax forms....

Anyway, you get the picture. I think the hardest part is that Tom actually had to fill out his forms on his own. He's kind of gotten used to letting me fill out paperwork for him. It was funny when we were done we read over what the other person wrote and we wrote about the same stuff. We had to detail strengths and weaknesses in our marriage, financial information, write all about our house, our ideas about discipline and raising kids, and attitudes about adoption. There were about a thousand other things we had to write about, too, but I won't bore you too much. Anyway, it's weird analyzing our entire lives when preparing to adopt. My favorite part was writing about my family. I wrote about how brilliant I think they all are. I even called my parents gifted, which they are, but I've never had the opportunity to actually put that in print on a form! I remember having trouble thinking of my brother, Bill's, hobbies. I mean, when you have three kids your hobbies sometimes fly out the window. So I put, "Giving personalities to stuffed animals and making them come to life." Can you see why filling out these types of questions is pretty challenging?

Of course, this is just the paperwork. We already went to our first 2 1/2 hour interview, and there are more to come. Oh yeah, and we got fingerprinted today and are scheduled for physical exams. On top of this, just to get the ball rolling, it takes a check for a thousand dollars (non-refundable). It's serious business and I keep thinking how easy it would be to NOT adopt. But then I think of that sweet warm soft baby sleeping in the co-sleeper next to our bed someday, waking up to be fed in the twilight hours. . .

Pumpkin Muffin - the nickname

2007-08-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

Here is some background on the name of the blog. . . I can't think of a better term of endearment for our unknown future child than "Pumpkin Muffin". It's sweet and yummy smelling like babies are (not the same scent- different scent, silly), and takes some effort to bake (babies take 9 months, pumpkin muffins a lot less). They are also something that is associated with special occasions like Christmas or just snuggly cold mornings (there is no occasion more special than the birth of a child). So, there you go-- are you getting hungry yet? Well, I would definitely not describe us as hungry for a new baby in our house, but there is a subtle longing involved, I guess you could say.

Paul's nickname is "Beeper." He got that when he was a little sleeper beeper and sometimes creeper and peeper. Tom and I also have nicknames for each other- but we both call each other the same one "friend". We have even created a language similar to twin-speak between the two of us. It's called "mao" and sounds similar to Henrietta Pussycat's manner of speech on Mr. Rogers, although there is no relation.

I want to begin Pumpkin Muffin's story long before he or she comes to live with us. We know another child is on the way... but we don't know how, when, or where. It could be years before we find a newborn to adopt, but we're patient. So, we're waiting for you, pumpkin muffin, whoever you end up being.

We've decided to adopt!

2007-08-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

It took seven years of trying and the science of fertility treatment for us to bring our little son into the world. My pregnancy with him was unusually difficult and I was on bed rest for four months with pre-term labor. Still, I would be willing to do it all again if I could just get pregnant. However, I am unable to continue fertility treatments. For awhile we thought that maybe Paul was destined to be an only child, but I feel inspired that adoption is the right path for us to take.

So, here we go, starting down this crazy path called adoption. Whoa. This was a kind of serious post. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a boring blog.