questions about adoptlink

Does anyone know anything about this faciliator, good or bad? I'm just curious, because she presents quite a few available situations, so I wanted to see what anyone might know about her/them. It's out in California, where many adoption faciliators are, but she seems to get a lot of mothers/situations through.

Aren't there any facilitators east of the Mississippi with that large of a client base? All I have seen are very small companies with one or two situations.

Or am I just crazy not to count on my own agency? Am I the only one who wishes this would hurry up and would love to be connected with a birth mom some other way?

I know someday it will happen. But do I need to help it along or just sit and wait? Give me some perspective on that one. I'd love to know what you think.

a little mystery

I've been so sick this week that I haven't thought to much about all this waiting. Charlie and I were talking about paying down our debt, something that has been a big goal of ours, and how we are trying to get it done this year. We have done some Dave Ramsey things before, but this year we are sticking to it tightly and applying every extra cent to the amount of debt we have. It isn't huge, mind you, but we still have some college loans and a credit card to pay off this year.

Currently, his schedule has us paid off in about 6 months. And I told him I thought that was good, but he said he figured it would get interrupted by an adoption. I kinda stared at him. I know he thinks about it too, but he seemed so certain that it would happen.

There are days when I think it won't ever happen.

Don't you have those days?

He said he knows someone will choose us eventually. And I just didn't have that kind of faith. I mean, the law of averages says yes, we will get chosen. But it could take years. I don't want to wait that long, but it isn't in my hands.

I did get the strangest FB message today from a student of mine. Now, I don't allow my students to be my friends on FB. There's just too much personal stuff on there, but this message was from a 4th grade student. The title was "adopt" and all it said was "Are you serious." No question mark or anything else. And the student's name was spelled wrong, but the picture was of her. Weird.

I'm not quite sure what to do, and I think I might talk with her teacher about it. I highly doubt she wants me to adopt her, which would be strange, but I don't know why she would send me that message.

Curiouser and curiouser, as my dad would say.

What do you think?

UPDATE: The teacher and I talked with the student this morning and all she said was she wanted to know if we were really going to adopt a baby. That's it. I told her I didn't talk to students on FB and wouldn't be replying to her, and I told her because the message was so short and abrupt I didn't know how to interpret it. I know people find adoptions in the oddest ways, and I really didn't want her to know a pregnant girl or something. Weird, I say again.

crying in public

There isn't much to say or update anyone on these days. Every once in awhile I wake up and think "today might be the day" but our phone hasn't rung, so it obviously hasn't been our day yet.

Today we went to Walmart a couple of towns over. We like this particular store because the ones in town are kind of dirty and crowded, but we have to drive about 25 minutes to get to one that isn't half bad. And the husband wanted to wander around with me, so we drove over there.

That really isn't the point of the story. The point is that we hadn't been over to this store since last year when we were baby shopping. We ended up spending a ton of time in the baby section picking out some clothes and baby supplies and had a great time.

Today I cried in the store thinking about it.

like a tortoise

It's the slowness that drives a girl crazy, I think. I mean, the beginning part of adoption, when you're filling out all the paperwork and hoping you get approved. There's cranky fingerprint people and courthouses to go to and endless questions about everything. But it all adds up to something I can do. Things to check off.

In our case, our match came around rather quickly. We weren't even done with our homestudy before we were matched, which is really rare. But our agency loved us so much to show us, and so Vanessa chose us for her little girl. It was thrilling to think that six months after calling the agency we would have a baby. It was fast, but it was all coming together. Then it all fell apart, but that's another story.

But now it's been another nine months and I'm getting a little antsy. The first couple of months I thought about the baby a ton and prayed for her and basically just tried to get past it. And I was embarrassed. It wasn't my fault at all, but I felt like I had lied, saying she was coming and getting all this attention, just to have to contradict myself. I hated that feeling.

After a while my husband just said...we need to move forward. We had never taken ourselves off the list, but we talked to the agency anyway, just to make sure we were still being shown. We're on the website (click over on the sidebar and you can see us under Waiting Families.) I want my phone to ring and it to be the right number, saying "you're matched!" I remember the moment we first found out about Vanessa and I ran out of my office and started jumping up and down with the woman next door. She didn't even know why we were jumping. Finally, I just said "baby."

Will it be as thrilling the next time? Will I want to jump or want to hide it? Will I want to be so forthcoming, or reticent about the details? How much will I share?

I don't know.

It seems like, knowing myself, that I would be open and share, but the fear of looking stupid twice comes over me and whispers to me to keep it to myself. Keep praying I get past that, okay?

As for now, we wait. Like little tortoises on the road to parenthood. But I want to be the hare.

no more whining

Okay, I am over my whining. It comes and goes depending on my mood, I guess. There are times when I feel blessed to be adopting, and other times when I wonder why God didn't make me like other women. It's hard to always know what God intends and to trust that his timing is perfect.

I did come across several adoption situations last week where I ended up emailing the social working involved. Both times the social workers were quick to email me back, which I appreciated, but with news that either the situation had already been matched or that they weren't accepting any more applications/profiles for the situation. One would have been almost perfect for us, with the fees being what we could afford and with the mom looking for a Christian couple. Oh well.

Are there any sites that you all look around at, to read or learn about available situations? Please share, if you would. How do you deal with just sitting and waiting for your agency to call? I would love some tips about that.

Well, today I have the day off and am going to the chiropractor. Church was amazing yesterday and we took up an offering for Haiti, plus our pastor talked about one of our local missionaries taking a medical missions team in a couple of weeks. I was glad that we were able to donate to Convoy of Hope, which already has a warehouse in Haiti that miraculously was not damaged by the earthquake.

If you would like to donate just click HERE. Anything helps!

adoption is expensive

Okay, this is the post where I whine about adoptions being expensive. Yup. It won't be long and I'll be over it soon, but it's the post where I say it shouldn't be so expensive.

I will also say that infertility procedures shouldn't be so expensive either and should be covered by insurance (it is in Massachusetts, did you know that?)

We are homestudy ready and have a nursery ready to go. I have diapers and formula and a diaper bag that is packed. And while I have mostly girl clothes (from our failed placement) I have both boy and girl bedding.

And I have been researching many different available situations on the internet. There are many out there. And the price tag is steep. Most of the situations are advertised by lawyers and huge adoption consultant firms, who you have to pay, and then you pay an agency on top of that. The lowest adoption I have seen out there is $21,000 and the highest being $38,000.

It's not a cheap thing to do, and I know the staff at the agencies need to get paid. I understand that. I do. But I feel bad that right now there could be a baby waiting that I just can't afford to adopt.

I guess the comfort is in knowing that there probably are couples out there who can afford the steeper price tags. Like Brad and Angelina.

feelings from a failed placement

Today I popped over to a site called For Birthmothers By Birthmothers as recommended by another blogger (I now have the birthmother blog on my sidebar.) It was a blog I needed to find. Not in the sense that I was looking for it, but in the sense that it helped round out my feelings on our failed placement.

I don't know if many of you out there have experienced an adoption that didn't go through. I know Maria did (plus a couple of you bloggers I don't know well), and I know some of you have been through a miscarriage (or two or three) or a stillbirth. All the situations, while similar, are very different. In a miscarriage or a stillbirth, I imagine women feel physically responsible, like maybe there was something they could have done to make the baby healthier. I didn't have to go through the physical pain of the miscarriage or deliver a baby only to watch them die. And I'm sure the pregnancy hormones don't make it any easier.

It was not like that for me. I just felt rejected, and not by the birthmother, really, but by God. Well, not even Him so much as LIFE. Reality. Murphy's Law. Like I wasn't good enough to get the baby. Or good enough to get pregnant in the first place. Why didn't he choose me for that? Why did he choose me for this? If he intended me to adopt, then why didn't it go through? In the months following, most of that has faded. I don't blame God or even feel like he doesn't see me or hear me, I just want to move forward and begin my journey as a family of three.

Anyway, to get back to my original point, was that this birthmother site is maintained to provide support for each other, and for others that support adoption. The posts were so interesting and provided so many insights into what birthmothers feel as they are making an adoption plan and placing their child. It helped me to better understand what our birthmother (I call her Vanessa on the blog) was thinking about before she changed her mind about placing. They were doing a question and answer post today, talking about the five highs and five lows of placing a baby for adoption. Some things came up that I wouldn't have even thought about. It's too much to go into here, but I encourage you to click the link and explore the site. Suffice it to say that I found myself clicking through many of the posts, feeling like I was taking an adoption class on birthmothers. I think some of you have talked about your adoption classes before and hearing birthmothers talk, and I think that would be awesome.

We only met with Vanessa once, and weren't able to talk to her after she decided not to place. In fact, she only text messaged the agency to let them know she'd changed her mind. It was all over and done with so quickly, although she did tell them to apologize to us. We even went ahead and had them give her the clothes we'd bought for the Interim Care family to use with the baby. I didn't want them back. I'd bought them for that baby and they needed to be with her. I just think I needed a little more closure. One text and it was over.

Okay, so I've shared more than I intended I think, but that's how I tend to be with my blogs, I guess. But I was so impressed by the honesty and perspective offered in the posts that I read for a long time. If you are considering adopting, I suggest you read some of the entries. It will give you some much needed insight into what the process is like for the moms. We tend to think of it all about us, and how we want babies. And I am like that a lot. I can admit that. But I also like to think that the baby I adopt will need a home, and a mom and a dad. It doesn't mean it won't be a painful experience for the mom. It will be, and I think I understand better all the emotions involved. I do plan to go back and check up on the blog, as I want to keep learning.