Two Hands Are Better Than One

Hello, friends! Well, it's time for another post, and, as usual, it's taken longer than anticipated to put something together. We've actually been really close to posting a few different times the past couple of weeks, but when you're publishing thoughts for the entire internet world to see, it's easy to over analyze what it is you want to communicate. Eventually, you get tired of trying to find the right words and just put it off until another opportune time which usually doesn't end up presenting itself as soon as you hoped. Not that we've had much going on lately.

I'm kidding, of course. Like many of you, we've had a busy month including a very full Thanksgiving week: too much time on the road, too little time with family (some of you might disagree), too much food, and, for some, too little patience at the local retail stores. No, we are not against Black Friday. It does tend to overstimulate the "crazy" cells in some people's brains, but it can also be fun. We didn't hit the door running before daylight this year, but we did manage to snag a few deals for Christmas gifts in between family gatherings.

We also managed to be very productive on the adoption front. We had our final home study visit the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, though it wasn't at our home. We were able to meet our specialist on the road for the final portion of the study which worked out great. The visit went very well, and, at least for our part, the home study is done. We still have to wait on a formal approval from the agency, but that should happen in the next couple of weeks. Best of all, it's out of our hands now, so we don't have to complete any more tasks. If you've been keeping track, this means we are now done with 2 of the 3 requirements before we can become an active, waiting family.

One of the many, many pics we submitted

The only requirement that remains for us to complete is our family's profile (the published material birth mothers review when trying to decide which family they want for their child). It's essentially a collection of photos and narratives about different aspects of our family: community, lifestyle, extended family, traditions, etc. The written profile also contains a letter from the adoptive family to the birth parents. This was probably the hardest part to write, but we just submitted it last night. Now, we just need to send the agency pictures for our profile (already collected) so that their media team can put together our family's handout. Again, this means we are essentially done with our part of the profile and are just waiting to approve the agency's final product. Once we do, we will then be at a point, procedurally at least, to flip the switch on our activation.

Our goal has always been to be an official waiting family by February 1. From a paperwork standpoint, we'll likely be ready to go by the New Year. If you recall from one of our earlier posts, however, we also have to have access to all of our adoption funding prior to going active. Unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll reach that point prior to February meaning our focus the next couple of months will shift towards more aggressive saving and applying for some adoption assistance (this requires a completed home study which we will now have). We have a couple ideas for a second fundraising effort that we hope to organize through two agencies that work together, Lifesong For Orphans and Both Hands Foundation. Together, these agencies offer a unique approach to raising money for orphan care. Check out a short clip on the concept below or by clicking here. It's a cool idea, and we hope to organize a project soon.

 

 

As always, we are extremely grateful for everyone's support. Our family and friends have been such an encouragement throughout this process, and we wouldn't be at this point with their help. We greatly covet your prayers as we move a little closer each day to meeting our new kiddo. We only get more excited with each passing day, and Riley is especially ready to be a big sister. She's going to be awesome at it.

Thanks for tagging along with us. We'll talk to you all again in December...hopefully. :)

Octoberfest

Sold!

Wow. Where did October go?? Exactly one month ago, we were opening the garage door for day 1 of our adoption fundraiser garage sale. By the way, it went very well and you can read more about it here. It actually continues to go very well as we just sold a few of the leftover items this past week via Craigslist.

Speaking of which, we still have a number of clothes and other items remaining from our sale, but probably not enough to host a third garage sale prior to our activation. If you know of another family looking to host an adoption-related sale in the future, please let us know. We'd love to pass on any of the items we received to help supplement the stock of another family.
 
Back to October. It really did seem to fly by. Between the garage sale, time spent out of town, birthdays, a wedding, and pumpkins, we somehow managed, with some help, to prepare the house for our first home visit. In addition to being ready for the visit, we got a really clean house out of the deal. Well, it was clean for a little while at least. We also ate Shakespeare's three times in the last month, and that's always productive.


Say pumpkin!

The home visit itself went as well as it could. Our home study specialist, Karla, was super friendly and very accommodating to us. She visited with us for a couple of hours as a family to learn more about our history:  how we met, our first impressions of each other, our experience raising Riley, and so on. She also did a home tour which, thankfully, we can say passed her inspection. All in all, it was a great visit and a good feeling to have our home study essentially 50% complete. We have one visit left, and we'll be doing that later this month, just before Thanksgiving. Once that visit is completed (and successful), it's just a matter of us waiting for Karla to finish the paperwork so that the home study can be formally approved. Overall, the process has been simpler than we thought, and it will be great having it completed before the end of the year. 



Hayride at the pumpkin patch

A successful home visit wasn't the only adoption-related milestone we reached in October. We also formally submitted our APQ (more info here). The APQ, along with the home study and the profile, is one of the steps that must be completed before going active. With this document submitted, we can now have a conference call with our adoptive family specialist, Laurie, to finalize this portion of the process. That call will be happening this Wednesday and will represent another big step forward towards being an active family.

All in all, October was super fast, but also pretty productive. We have been fortunate to stay on task thus far, and, as of now, we are still on target for activation as a waiting family in early 2013. Our current task is to complete our adoption profile (narratives, dozens of pictures, and even a video) which will essentially represent who we are as a family to potential birth mothers. This process will likely take us through the end of the year, but it will be fun to watch it come together. Special thanks to Kelso for a last-minute photo shoot yesterday! Once the home study is complete, we'll also have the opportunity to apply for some grant programs and other fundraising resources.

One final thought for today's post. Yesterday was Orphan Sunday and next week is collection week for Operation Christmas Child. If you have not heard of either of these events/efforts, check out the links for more information. These are excellent ways for individuals, families, churches, or other groups to get involved in supporting children across the globe. I hope to post more about this and other things we've been learning through the process in a future post. Maybe we won't wait a month this time.