Julie and Bill, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

After a few too many days of fun looking at paint swatches, cribs, and reading "Baby Bargains," I finally got back around to work on our photo book and "Dear Birth Parent" letter. Without those, I won't really be needing that pretty little nursery I'm getting all excited about...

For those that don't know, domestic adoption is done through a matching process. The birth parent(s) have the opportunity to choose who they want to raise the baby. So while we don't have lengthy dossier paperwork as is required in an international adoption, we do have the task of putting together a photo book about our lives along with a letter about us, our families, our values, and how we will raise our child. For me, this has been the hardest part of the process so far.

First, the letter. We want to show our appreciation for the birth parent(s) who is/are selflessly choosing what is best for their child, which is to be raised by another set of parents. As someone who has desperately wanted kids for years, I can't imagine being pregnant and realizing that you aren't in a position to be a parent to that child. And at the same time, my heart is full of compassion and empathy for someone faced with that decision, and incredible appreciation that that decision will lead to us fulfilling our dream of becoming parents. Then, we want to share in this letter that we're pretty fabulous people -- well-rounded, good families, lots of support, fun and responsible. And finally, we need to share how we will raise this child. What will life be like in our home? What are our hopes and dreams for this child, who we do not yet know? How will the birth parents be incorporated into our lives? All this in under two pages that have to be woven into the context of our photo book.

So the photo book has the letter woven throughout, with lots of photos illustrating things the letter talks about. Lots of pictures of us together, us with family, us as babies, us with friends, us on trips. All I can say is, thank goodness we live in the digital age and we could create the whole thing on shutterfly, because I am SO not the scrapbooking type. Can you picture me with all those fancy scissors and stickers and scrapbooking pages and shit?! Yeah, me neither.

So after about 6-7 hours of work, the draft of our photo book and letter have been emailed off to the agency and our fabulous social worker for their feedback. With luck, they'll love it and we can get several copies from shutterfly. Once they are in-hand at the agency, AWAY WE GO! We will start being "shown" to birth families whose criteria are a match with ours. And then it's back to painting, furniture shopping, and all that fun stuff!

Quick update!

I know that certain friends are awaiting an update and some (ahem, Megan...) have noted that we need to step up and post updates more frequently. So here's just a quick update on where we are:

1) After interviewing all of our references (THANK YOU, DEAR FRIENDS!) our fabulous social worker submitted her draft of our home study report to the agency a few weeks ago. She is awaiting (or perhaps has received) comments and edits from the agency's director of domestic adoption so they can finalize the home study. I am hopeful that we'll get to see a copy when it's all done!

2) Unfortunately, I seem to have illegible fingerprints. After submitting a second set and having them also come up unreadable, the agency is going to discontinue that process and have the Commonwealth of Virginia do their search on my by name instead. The agency thinks that we should have all of our state clearances soon, despite this hiccup.

3) We are in the process of writing our "Dear Birth Parent" letter and putting together our photo book. The letter and photos will be given to parents to give them more of a sense of who we are and will be how we will be chosen by a birth family to be the child's adoptive family. So far, the letter has been the hardest part of the process. As you can imagine, it's full of emotion -- heartache for the decision the birth parents are making, incredible appreciation for their selflessness in choosing what they feel is best for their child, excitement in sharing how we will parent our child, and hope that this letter will compel someone to choose us to become parents. So not a simple thing to write... I hope we can have drafts of both done within another week or so to show the agency.

In short, I think we're 3-4 weeks away from being Parents-In-Waiting. It's amazing that we've moved through this process so quickly and to be almost to this stage...

Which means that we are also starting in on the fun stuff -- researching cribs, picking colors for the nursery, etc. I can't tell you how amazing it was to go looking at Babies R Us recently, after years of shopping there for friends. And after sometimes not going near any baby stores because it was just too painful. This is really going to happen!

Update and more

So we had our final meeting with our social worker (Rebecca) and everything seemed to go great. All we have to do now is wait for her report, which I believe will suggest that we are approved to adopt. Then comes the big wait. Will it be two months or two years? Who knows?

Now onto the "and more" part of the entry, which will be the vast majority of this post. So, as you know, we went to visit my family in California a couple of weeks ago. It was a wonderful visit! We got to spend great time with our niece (Emily), our nephew (Hayden), my sister, my brother (in-law but the brother part is the most important) and my parents. Usually when we visit my family we generally spend time with everyone all the time. This time we tried to have a little bit of extra time with individual people. My time with everyone was precious but I am going to talk about my time with my dad. We just made time to go see a movie (Avatar in 3D - such a great movie!). But it got me to thinking about all the time and activities we've shared over the years and all the things I hope to share with my child. It is impossible to name everything my dad shared with me - the subjects are too numerous and there are many that I'm sure are a part of me but I don't remember learning. However, here are the things I can point to in no particular order:

The 49'ers

John Wayne movies

Action movies in general

Bagpipes

Scotch

Nature

The SF Giants

His stories about growing up

But the one thing that is most a part of me is photography. My grandfather gave my father an SLR in that late 1970's - a Fujica. That was the camera with which I learned to take photographs with the help of my dad. I learned to take pictures in Yosemite, which is possibly the most beautiful and most forgiving place to learn. Everywhere you turn there is a beautiful scene. It was easy to build my confidence - especially with the help of my dad who was quick to encourage and offer tips. Photography is now my creative outlet and my zen activity. When I am taking pictures everything else melts away. It is my way to connect with the moment and leave all concerns and stress behind even if only for one shot. The result of all this is that I have managed to take some decent photographs. Some of them are now on display at the Cherrydale Library in Arlington, VA. If you are in the area and feel like it, stop by - my photographs are pretty good and so are the photographs of the other artist on display. If you're not in the are and interested, here is the link to the photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/williammurray3/sets/72157623030301348/

More to the point I hope and dream that I will be able to have that kind of connection with my child and to share with them something that gives me so much pleasure. It gives me great pleasure to think about sharing my passions and interests with my child but it also makes me anxious to know that I have such a responsibility. I will do my best to live up to that responsibility.

UPDATE!

Things are moving -- and quickly! We had our first meeting this past Tuesday with our social worker, Rebecca. She is fantastic! She very quickly eased our minds, expressing that her role in the process is as advocate and support to us as we move forward. While she will still be in a position to evaluate our readiness, it seems that she is in a position to get us ready, not "turn us down" for adoption. (Which I think has been obvious to everyone around me, but given all we've been through in our parenthood journey, it's hard not to believe that we'll hit roadblocks...) We had a 2-hour conversation which flowed wonderfully -- it felt much more like a dialogue than an interview. She's coming over to our house tomorrow to meet again and, while here, will walk through our cozy home and meet with each of us one-on-one. She's actually condensing three interviews into one evening, which is fantastic! Then, Rebecca will write up the home study document, which we hope will express that Bill and I are approved and will be fabulous parents! :-)

Beyond that, we need to do a short online training, put together our photo book and a "dear birthmother" letter and then we'll be officially waiting! With domestic adoption, it's a matching process, so we will be put forth as a prospective adoptive family where our "qualifications" match the desires of the birthmom or birth family. Which means we could be matched in a few months or in a few years.

One question that Rebecca asked is how we'll handle the waiting. Honestly, the wait feels fine to me! I know that I may get itchy if/when we hit the year mark. But given the sometimes minute-to-minute, day-to-day anxieties of the fertility process (am I pregnant? am I still pregnant? will this cycle work? etc.), this wait just doesn't feel hard to me at all. And because this time, it's a matter of WHEN instead of IF. So exciting!

Unexpected Gift

Bill and I are back from our trip to California -- we had a great visit with friends and family and a lot of bonding with our niece and nephew. I miss them terribly already! The good news is that we have our first interview with our social worker on Tuesday, January 26 -- yay! I am so thrilled to be moving forward.

We started contemplating adoption in the midst of our fertility struggle, and then seriously last March, but it wasn't until fall 2009 that we really started moving forward with our plans to adopt. And now, just a few months later, it feels so completely amazing. For the first time our journey toward parenthood feels "right."

And I think what's really on my mind most these days is what a gift adoption is for me in ways I never expected. A gift in all the ways I feel I am growing and learning about myself and the world around me as I look at life through the new lens of adoptive parent and through the eyes of our someday child. As I think in very deep ways about race and what it will mean to likely raise a child who not only doesn't share our ethnic heritage but may also likely be subjected to others' racism. I'm thinking about our child's birth parents, who will have selflessly given their child to us to raise, which will be an enormous loss for them and for my child. I'm thinking about how we will incorporate our child's birth family into our lives and that it will be what's best for our child, but may at times be challenging emotionally. I'm preparing for the first time my child tells me that I'll "never really understand" them because I am white and was raised by my biological parents. It's all hard to think about on one level, and on another, it's completely invigorating. I love being stretched in this way and thinking about how Bill and I can provide not just all our love to our child, but also support and connections and an open and trusting relationship that will ensure that we tackle the hard stuff together, as a family. Somehow, I feel more ready for this than for all the 3:00 AM feedings that await us...

For Christmas this year, we gave a book, "Adoption is a Family Affair," to all our immediate family members. It's a great book (though perhaps a little harsh in tone) and a good primer for us to all be on the same page as we welcome our child into our family. Some of our family and friends have already read it, which means the world to me -- that we're all together thinking already about what this child may need and what makes raising an adopted child different from raising a biological child. I recommend it and look forward to my continued thinking and having deep discussions with so many family and friends as we continue down this road... It's all helping me to grow and getting me ready to be a mommy...

Another step forward

Good news today! We heard today from the Barker Foundation that they have received all of our paperwork and assigned us a social worker. The next step for us is to schedule our appointments/interviews with the social worker. After the four interviews the social worker will write up a report that hopefully approves us. At that point we need to put together something of a scrapbook (more like a photo album with words) about Julie and I that will be put in front of birth parents. Then it is up to the birth parents to choose. Could be a couple of months or closer to two years but it will happen. Exciting!

Fini

Autobiography finished - adoption paperwork done! Woo-Hoo! More to follow later. Have a safe and happy new year everyone!