When the time comes, it will move quickly...

So right off the bat, there is no new news. Still just waiting. However, shortly after posting my last entry we got a phone call from our social worker Melissa from the Gladney Center. She was just calling to check up on us and to remind us that she hadn't forgotten about us and that we shouldn't get down or frustrated because there is no movement. She pleasantly reminded us that they are working through several couples that have been waiting for decent amount of time and that she would be able to start showing our profile soon. So it is worth noting to you guys that we will know when our profile is being shown to a birth mother. Even though our profile has been finished for a while it still has not been shown to any birth mothers. Anytime our profile will be shown, Melissa will let us know the situation. She also continued to remind us that once that time comes, the process can move very very quickly. The extreme situation could be that we get a phone call that a mother has given birth, she decided not to keep the child, she fits our criteria and has decided that she wants us to adopt her child. Then a week later we are back in Virginia and are new parents. Odds are it won't happen that way, but the point is it could happen very quickly. The most likely scenario is that we will get a phone call that a birth mother is looking at our profile, she decides that we may fit what she is looking for in an adoptive parents and wants to talk with us. Several conversations later over a coupla weeks she decides that we are the adoptive parents she wants to adopt her child. A coupla months later, after she gives birth, we fly down to Texas, do some legal stuff, live out of a hotel for at least a week with a new born while all the legal stuff gets settled, and with a little luck, be able to fly home with our new born. I guess the point is, we won't have a nine month waiting period to bring home our new born, it will be more like a two-eight week notice. So while the average may be a year, it doesn't mean the process will take a year. So when the time comes, it will move quickly...

Topics to come but haven't had the time to post yet:
* Politically Correct Adoption terms. "Do you know your child's real parents?", is a bad thing to say.
* Sue Kimbal- Infant CPR instructor extraordinaire.

A gathering for waiting adoptive parents

So last weekend we attended a reception for "waiting" adoptive parents in the Washington DC area hosted by one of the Gladney board memebers that lives in the area. By the way, Gladney Center for Adoption is the adoption agency we choose to help us find a birth mother. Anyway, we had received several invitations for social events hosted by Gladney but we had declined them because we didn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of happy parents that already had adopted thief children. However, this was the first event for "waiting" parents, so we decided to go, thinking it would be a good idea to share our stories and share in the anxiousness. Before attending the event, we told a friend about it and they gave us a completely different perspective. She said to us, "Ah, you get to meet the competition?" Good point Erin. These are the people that are standing in our way, preventing us from brining home our first child! Might as well do something about this! So at the reception, I got as many names and numbers as I could and immediately phoned them into my friend at the FBI and had him start writing up a bunch of citations! Just kidding. The reception was very good, and we met a bunch of really nice people. It's good to know there are a number of people out there in the same exact position as we are, we are just better looking: ) The reality is that even though there is a pool of waiting adoptive parents, they all have unique wants and needs. So that, hopefully, there isn't too many couples that are truly competing for the same potential birth mother. Or at least that's what they told us.

So what does that mean for us? No new news. We have been in the waiting pool since August of 2007. They tell us the average wait time is 12 months after being placed in the pool. What that really means is that 50% of the people are matched before 12 months and 50% of the people are matched after 12 months. There's no magic 12 month marker. We just hope, for whatever reason, we fall in the pre-12 month category.

Joel

Nevis

We just got back from the Carribbean. We stayed at the Four Seasons in Nevis. It was absolutely fantastic! Hands down the best place we have been in the Carib. I will post the pics shortly. Still no news from the adoption front...

Online Profiles

Here's our profile on parentprofiles.com and Gladney Center for adoption. We're out on the internet advertising!!!

http://www.adoptionsbygladney.com/html/parents/karenjoel/index.html

http://www.parentprofiles.com/profiles/db21559.html

How's the adoption process going?

As of today, October 23, 2007, we are in the pool. The first time we heard the term "in the pool" was at the 'Parent Prep 1 Adoption Seminar'. Essentially that means we have finished all the paper work, cleared all criminal background checks, passed the home visit, officially approved to be adoptive parents, and are in the waiting pool with all the other cleared parents. We've been in the pool for about 2 months now. We are trying to balance the anxiousness of not hearing anything and savoring the life of a DINK (Double Income No Kids). It's a tough balancing act but we are coping.

So we are consuming ourselves with work, training and vacationing. Within the last few weeks, we spent a long weekend in San Fran/Napa Valley, Karen ran the Army 10 miler, I was in Vegas for a fight, I'm running the Marine Corps Marathon this coming weekend, and we are going to Nevis next week for some sun. We gotta keep ourselves busy!

A personal request...

Here is the letter that many of you may have received from us. If you know of somebody looking for an adoption plan for their child, feel free to forward on.

Joel


Dear Family and Friends:

We are excited to share with you our plans to build our family through adoption. As many of you know we have been talking for a long time about bringing a child into our home. It has been quite an emotional journey getting to this point in our lives, and now we are ready to proceed toward a fulfilling future. We have done a great deal of preparation and research about the adoption process and have discovered that, in the United States, most newborn children are placed for adoption through "independent", or "private" adoption.

"Independent", or "private", adoption means that as a first step we will be searching on our own for a birth mother who has an unplanned pregnancy and who wishes to make an adoption plan for her child. The adoption laws in Virginia indicate that anyone can help us locate a birth mother, and we have learned from the experience of others that birth mothers and adoptive parents often connect through word of mouth. As such we are reaching out to as many people as we can to ask them to keep us in mind if they learn of a pregnant woman who wishes to make an adoption plan. We write to you today for this purpose, we hope that you can help us in this way.

If you know of a birth mother who wishes to make an adoption plan, please don't hesitate to tell us about her and her about us. We would love to answer any questions that you may have - feel free to contact us directly. You may also feel free to pass on our first names and the following email address: kjadoption@gmail.com to the birth mother should she be interested in contacting us. Additionally, feel free to forward this email to any of your family or friends that you believe may help support our effort.

We thank you for keeping us in mind and supporting us as we start this journey.

Karen and Joel