sigh

Still waiting. No contact whatsoever. Depressing.

Beagles!

Watson already playing with a toy!

Not sure if anyone has seen on the news about the rescue effort that the organization Beagle Freedom Project undertook recently. This organization rescues Beagles from research labs after they no longer need or want them. On the day before Thanksgiving, their biggest rescue yet arrived in Los Angeles. 40 Beagles were flown here from a lab in Spain. We had volunteered a while back to foster one while they get adjusted to just being a normal dog, and then they will be adopted. So we went there on Wednesday night and what a sight it was to see 40 Beagles running around a backyard! It was such cute chaos!

We called our little guy Watson, as I really like to come up with literary names, and I thought it sounded good with our original Beagle, Marlowe. Watson is adjusting so well. He is sweet and lovable and pretty sharp, as he picked up his name quickly! He really loves food, and if you know how Beagles are, you know they love food. He likes to jump up on his hind legs to get your attention and ask you to rub behind his ears. We are trying to train him to not jump up on people. It is pretty amazing to see his curiosity and how quickly he just enjoys doing dog type things.

If you want to know more about fostering, adopting or donating check out their website.


Marlowe, me, and Watson

A favor...

Hello everyone. I have a favor to ask. My sister is a student at USC and she is doing an anthropology paper on adoption and parenthood. If anyone is willing to help out we would really appreciate it. She would like to interview (waiting or already) adoptive parents, birthparents and adoptees. This can be done through Skype, phone or perhaps in written form if that makes you feel more comfortable.

If you would like more info or are interested in helping please let me know in the comments and we can arrange some contact info.

Thank you so much!

Waiting with sniffles.

So we have been waiting for about 15 months now, and still not one contact. Becoming parents really does not seem real to me anymore. Family and friends don't really ask for updates anymore, and in a way that is good since there is nothing to update. But it makes me feel like they don't believe it is gonna happen either.

Maybe I am just feeling bad because I have a cold and have been on the couch for the past three days. Yes, that must be it.

Crazy

I was reading a waiting families message board in which a woman answered how she was spending her summer with " doing all the usual things etc. Dealing with scammers, which seem to come out during the summer months."
So am I crazy to feel bad that we haven't even had one scammer that wanted to contact us?

Anti-adoption?

Has anyone heard or had any experiences with anti-adoption folks? Since being in the "adoption world" for about 2 years now, I have had some glimpses of this movement. One of these encounters was in the comment section of a fellow blogger a few months ago, and today I stumbled onto a facebook page called Mothers Stand, which I have to admit, left a bad taste in my mouth. I think the main reason this page bothered me, was that I am often bothered, and let me be honest, angered when people try to push their beliefs and experiences onto everyone. The owner of this page states that she is anti-adoption and anti-abortion. So it would seem according to her, if you get pregnant and know that you are not capable of taking care of a child, too bad. You have no choices or options except to parent. Well, I guess you do have the option of having your family members help, or parent the child. I just don't see this kind of reality being good for women or for their children. Obviously an adoption plan is not for everyone, and I think it is abhorrent for anyone to push a woman into making this choice. But it is just as abhorrent to push her into the choice of parenting if that is not what she thinks is best for her and her child.

So does anyone else have any thoughts or experiences in this matter. I would really love to hear from you. And I hope you all are having a lovely Sunday as well!

A year in...and painting!

So apparently I have lost 2 blog followers. Is it strange to admit that it kinda hurts my feelings! Oh well, not much I can do about it!

Last Thursday we had an appointment to update our home study at the agency since we are hitting the year of waiting mark. We had to get notes from our doctors, saying we were still in good health, and we had to go over our profiles and think about some things we might want to update or add. Our adoption coordinator also gave us the advice that if we want our letter to go out to more potential birthmothers, we might want to open up what drug or alcohol use we are comfortable with. Right now we have that we are fine with marijuana and alcohol use in the first trimester. We were not ok with cocaine, heroin, or meth. There is also a new category, other, which includes pain meds or anti-depressants. All of this means that if a birthmother admitted to using, even once any of those drugs, including marijuana and alcohol after the first trimester, then our profile will not go to her at all. As far as the health of the baby goes, from what I have read, alcohol seems to be one of the most damaging, but we felt that there are times that women do not know they are pregnant in the first trimester, so social drinking or smoking pot might be common. The reason that we felt uncomfortable with other drug use was that we want to have a good relationship with our child's birthmother, and drug addictions can make having a good relationship difficult. Our coordinator suggested that we might want to expand what we are comfortable with because our profile would go to more birthmothers, and we can then decide if she picks us if we are comfortable with any drug use she may have had.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience about this?

Since we have been waiting for a year, we also go on the last minute hospital list. Sometimes our agency gets a call from a hospital (most likely it will be in Southern California) with a mother who has just given birth and she did not make an adoption plan before hand, but she has decided that she wants to do now. Our agency will then send over, with a counselor, profiles of those on the last minute hospital list that match and prerequisites that she may have stated (such as a religious preference etc) and then she will pick one or two and then the counselor will call the first one and see if they can get to the hospital. Generally, they will want an answer within 30 minutes, or they may go onto the next family. This is up to the birthmother. If she is fine waiting longer because that first family is the one she wants, then the counselor will of course follow her wishes. So in this scenario, one day we will have no baby, and the next day, bam, we will be parents. That is a little frightening, but also exciting! I asked how many of these situations they see, and our coordinator says it probably averages like once a month. So not too common, but a possibility.

With the possibility of a last minute placement, we had a painting party over the Memorial day weekend. We took everything out of both bedrooms, with the hope of getting them both painted, and then the nursery will be set up in what was our bedroom ( a better closet!), and our new bedroom will be the front (bigger!) bedroom. We only finished our new bedroom. The nursery is all set up, and taped, ready to be painted sometime this week. Then the fun will begin, as I will start painting the tree mural. I am pretty excited about it, and I hope I can actually get my vision onto the wall!

Here are some pics of my sisters and Adam's dad helping us paint. I want to thank them, and our friend Chris for helping us out!