Jayhawks beat North Carolina!
Hubby’s best friend said last night “I think that since you got the call you’ve been waiting so many years for, this is the year that the Jayhawks are going to win the National Championship! I think it’s a good omen!”
Well, it was fun watching the Jayhawks win on the big screens at Allen Fieldhouse (check out Hubby’s blog, he’s probably got video and all this stuff for you Former Lawrencians that want to get a glimpse of downtown).
I keep looking at our baby registry lists over and over, thinking “That’s really us.” Some people have even bought us some stuff! I’m just a little worried if he comes early how we’re going to get the car seat to take him home if it’s before April 13th, but we’ll figure it out. I have to call our social worker today to see if she has any new news on the birth mom - this is just crazy. 10 days!
Our realtor last night (the realtor that is SELLING our current home) said 1 guy is coming back today for the 3rd time and he’s gone to the bank and planning on putting in an offer. Excitement! The other guy who was buying a house for his grad school son seems to have fizzled out - he’s looking to buy his son a house in the 140,000 range and then lowball offer to 130,000 - which is weird, but oh well, at least we’ve had a lot of showings and a lot of interest in our house this season. We had another “new” person come by yesterday. We just need a contract on our house by May 22nd so we don’t lose our contract on our Gardner house! That’s all I want. I think with baby we’re DEFINITELY hiring movers…..I don’t see any other way to get it done!
Well, I’ll probably be updating here more recently, daily, multiple times a day, letting you know what I know.
Talked to our social worker on Thursday. We were not picked by the two birth families (one baby was born on 12.26.07 and one was due 02.04.08) However, our social worker told us that she will let a birthmom in Nebraska know about us. We’ll see!
On the home front, everything is done. We didn’t have our realtor do photos on Friday, but he should take them sometime this week and get it back up on the market. We just have some cleaning to do and a little rearranging but that is it.
Found another attorney to help us with our mom’s estate stuff, so that was a good feeling to finally get some help on that. Hopefully, that will be resolved within the next couple of weeks. Today is just a laid back day, working on laundry and the cross stitch for my nephew. He hasn’t been born yet but should be anytime!
It will be fun being an aunt I think. Hubby was in Target a couple weeks ago and he was trying to convince me to buy our nephew a Star Wars Lego Set that is meant for an 8-10 year old. I advised Hubby that his nephew will not be able to play with a Star Wars lego set right out of the womb. Hubby said “well, I will give a lot of supervision!” Well, I’m sure.
Here is the announcement that went out at work letting everyone know I’d been promoted to supervisor (some of it is insurance jargon):
Jessica (Jessie) started her career at (Company Name) as a bilingual CSA in March
of 2005. She promoted to OCR on the Spanish Auto Coverage Team in October
of 2006 & became team coach in July of 2007. She has been backstopping for
various supervisors since August of 2007. She has earned her AIC and her
AIS designations, and is nearing completion of her GCA designation. She is
a member of Toastmasters, Diversity Club, and FEAPAC. She earned a degree
in Theatre, with a class concentration in Spanish, from Knox College in
Galesburg, Illinois in 1999. She and her husband, Donald, who also works
for KCHP in the Workforce department, are excited to be in the process of
adopting their first child.
On the adoption front, Hubby started his Saturday through Tuesday schedule last week, so if anything happens with adoption very quickly we will only need childcare 2 days a week. We have our names in with 2 different birth families, 1 child was born on Dec. 26th and another is due Feb. 4, we’ve given them our “book” but haven’t heard anything. I don’t think I ever blogged about this, but we had our name in for a baby due in August that she ended up picking someone else. I know domestic adoption can be full of “false starts,” which is just part of the deal. When people ask me “Isn’t this so hard” or “Isn’t this so expensive” I just say “If you want it, you have to play the game.” Even though I don’t like having to tell a social worker every detail of my life and give all of my tax information for the past 2 years and have her look at my house, it’s part of the game, it’s part of the system, and we have to play it. I am getting more and more excited and feeling as if things are really happening. We shelled out $900 for our homestudy on 1.15.08, just more to apply to the tax credit!
So, if one of those children happens to pan out, we’ve at least got a plan. Talked with HR and our insurance company. We can put our child on our insurance as soon as we “take possession” of the child, whether or not the adoption is finalized. No one seems to know for sure if insurance will pay for the birth mom’s labor costs. The birth mom that is due Feb 4th has NO health insurance, and our social worker was concerned that we would be responsible for all her labor costs. Well, if I went into labor my insurance would need to pay my hospital bill, but no one is sure if it can pay for the birth mother. Has anyone dealt with this before? It seems as if (YIPES) we would be responsible for paying these costs out of pocket.
We have everything we can possibly pack packed up and in the storage unit (one last load in Father in law’s van), and we are planning on having photos of our house taken and the house put BACK on the market Friday! It’s been a couple months but we’re nearing the home stretch. We have our bedrooms and kitchen to paint but that is it! Rest of the house is painted. SO glad the remodeling stuff is almost over!
I am pretty excited about tomorrow. Our home is a total mess because we’re remodeling it, but our social worker is coming over tomorrow at 1pm to complete our home study.
I realize another step in this process will be completed, but I feel sort of frustrated at the same time. Our attorney is on a vacation/sabatical, and all we’ve done is let people know that we’re looking to adopt. This seems so strange to adopt this way, just kind of waiting for a situation to present itself. I feel a little lost about what to do next once the home study is done, and when I asked our attorney, she basically said just to send out the letters letting people know we’re adopting and wait. I have nightmares and worry a lot that we will never be matched with a birth family and we’ll have to deal with not being able to be parents and learn to live as a childless couple. If that is God’s will that is His will, but I don’t feel that that is the direction we should go right now.
I just hope once the homestudy is done we will be able to focus on another step of the adoption process.
I have my interview for a supervisor position at my job on Thursday afternoon. I’m pretty excited and nervous; I already had to interview to get into the TRAINING to be a supervisor, and now I’m actually interviewing to be hired formally as a supervisor. This week, we’ve worked on packing more things at our house, put in upper cabinets in the kitchen (Donald and my father in law have done that), and then once we get to a good place I will start painting the inside of the ENTIRE house. Yes, I am super excited (Yuck.) It will all be beautiful when it’s done, but the house better sell, as we’re going to be updating/redoing everything but the carpeting, but including a carpet allowance.
We’ve been “almost done” with our home study for a few weeks now. Our social worker has had to deal with the death of a close friend, so she has had to cancel our last few appointments. We have sent in our background checks to the state, but we still need to send in our fingerprints and background check request to the FBI. Hopefully, we can get the homestudy done in December or January at the latest.
Hubby’s dad is staying with us for a few weeks. He works at a golf course and gets laid off every winter, so he’s using this time to make some extra money by helping friends and family with handiman type work. It’s amazing the things he can do. He’s specifically going to help us get our house ready to put back on the market. We’ve planned on finishing repainting, new flooring (laminate, which should be cat proof), and a new kitchen stove.
Tomorrow morning (if it doesn’t ice over) we’re supposed to take some boxes to our storage unit to begin clearing things so we have more room in the garage for the remodeling project.
A week ago we got a puppy! We’ve been waiting and looking into getting a corgi puppy for the past few years, and we finally decided to get one. I’ve been in the dumps emotionally about everything lately, so a puppy has been a good distraction. My medicine I think has kept me out of a deep, dark depression, but I’m pretty upset and heartsick about the infertility issues. I scheduled an appointment with a counselor for 2 weeks from now, and I cannot wait. Some days I’m fine, some days I can hardly function. It’s hard to explain or understand.
I am trying to convince a coworker of mine to buy our townhouse, so we can get outta dodge and live closer to work!
We’ve made an offer on home #3, but we haven’t heard back from the seller yet…they wanted us to pay more than we originally offered, but it’s a buyer’s market. They should just be dancing in the streets they have a contract! So, we’ll see how it goes, if they turn us down, we’ll just find something else. A lot of houses for sale.
Just feels like life has ground to a halt after being breakneck speed for a while. We were so gung ho about adoption paperwork and trying to hurry, and turning 30 this year didn’t help.
We’re going to get stuff taken care of with moving and then worry about the adoption paperwork. I know it will come together, but it’s just kind of frustrating. It seems like all good things come with mountains of paperwork.
On another note, our little girl cat, India, had to get a couple of stitches on her neck from a mysterious wound. In the examining room, she was very sweet and cuddly with the doctor and his assistant. They didn’t think it would be a big deal to throw in a couple stitches. I asked the doctor if he needed help, and he said no. He and 1 other assistant took her in the back room to do the stitches. I heard India yelling fit to be tied, and then I heard one of the assistants yell to the gal working at the front desk “Suzie, can you please help us??!!” It took 3 of them to hold her down, muzzle her, and put two stiches in her neck. She only weighs 6 pounds, but she can sure put up a fight. When the doctor brought her back to the back room, he explained that she was fine until she saw another cat back there, and then she was ready to tear the cat apart, which then made it harder to do the stitches. He suggested we keep her inside to keep her from fighting. Well, we’ll try.
I have played phone tag with the social worker that our attorney suggested - she is super swamped but she may be able to make time for us since we haven’t bought a new house yet. A lot of the actual home study photos and evaluations can come at a later date. We need to have family and friends write references for us, so I’ve been making a mental list of all the people I need to ask to do that for us. We also need to get writing our family book to give to our attorney and gathering up photos - it’s hard to do that when a lot of stuff is packed!
There is a house I really, really like that I’m showing the hubby tomorrow - it’s right at the top of our price range. There is another house that’s cheaper that we’re seeing tomorrow as well, but I don’t like it nearly as much. It should be interesting. Today I had a surprise visitor to look at our current home - and another appointment tomorrow. I just want to get moved so we have more room to work on this home study and paperwork we need to write!
Wow….sometimes things go slowly and sometimes everything happens at once!
Our house is on the market and photos were taken yesterday so we should start to be getting more “hits” of realtors visiting our house. So far, we’ve only had 1 business card on the piano when we’ve come home!
Our first meeting with the adoption attorney is May 30th. This meeting should be 1 1/2 hours and I bet we’ll have more questions than answers when we’re through. We have been putting adoption things on hold while we’ve been deciding about moving and getting our home ready to sell, so it’s nice to start moving forward on that again. It’s also nice to have settled on the way we’re going to adopt. When you chose to adopt, there are so many choices out there. International, domestic, foster care adoption, etc. It’s overwhelming. I feel at peace so far about what we’re doing. I’m praying our home sells quickly and moving won’t be too much of a bother.
Our house seems a little crowded with all of our boxes in the non-conforming bedroom and the garage, so I am tossing around the idea of getting a storage unit. It’s so hard sometimes, we’ve put out so much money here and there for new paint, carpet cleaners, organizational and cleaning supplies, new light fixtures…..I feel as if we’ve put so much money into this already it would be nice to save some money and not get a storage unit. However, I just worry the house may seem too crowded and no one will be interested!
Saturday I am going to mulch and make the front yard look a little better, so that should help. Any advice from anyone who has sold a house recently?
Tomorrow our realtor comes by to get some paperwork and then our house is officially on the market. I’ve been cleaning up and packing today…I will get up early tomorrow and continue. It’s exciting…I was thinking today that once we get moved the real adoption searching can begin. It’s been so hard putting that on the back burner to get our house ready. It seems as if every spare moment has been spent painting and packing. Man, and I wanted to have the house on the market over a month ago…oh, well. I guess later is better than never. It’s just been a really, really, frustrating process. I have just felt as if I’ve spent all my spare time at home, by myself, packing and painting. My husband has worked opposite hours as me, so I just feel as if I’m alone doing everything. It was great that my inlaws came last weekend and they helped out a lot. I have been really bummed….I feel as if I’ve lost contact with a lot of people and gotten really withdrawn in trying to get our house ready. Some weekends I don’t go outside at all and we’ve been missing church a lot, which I know isn’t helping. I have never felt isolated or lonely…but right now, I have never felt more alone. I just have been trying to pray but I don’t feel very close to God. I feel as if I’m plugging away by myself, just trying to get everything done, not moving very fast, everything has been a struggle. I think I’m a little depressed, not as bad as I’ve been at sometimes, but defintely lonely. This whole infertility thing just has made me kind of numb. I haven’t cried in a long time, and normally I cry at movies or even commercials.
Well, my in-laws came spur of the moment this past weekend to help us get the house on the market. Everything is painted, a lot of things are cleaned up and packed. On Saturday, our realtor is coming over and we’re finalizing eveything…we should hae a sign on our front lawn on Monday!
My brother and sister-in-law are staying with us this weekend on the way to a wedding, so that should be fun as well. I am just so excited that we’re so close to getting this house on the market to sell! It’s taken way longer than I anticipated.
We are having a cleaning service come over today to do an estimate to see how much it would cost to have everything deep cleaned in our house before we put it on the market. It seems as if everything is costing money! I got a quote from movers…its about $1000. I really don’t want to move all our heavy stuff (especially a piano and a pie safe) but $1000 is a lot of money.
Hopefully, all the painting and additions won’t be in vain, I hope we get a good price and some money to put a downpayment on a new home. I keep plugging along by thinking “When we move we can start adopting a baby.” That’s the only thing motivating me right now, because I’m exhausted. Monday I was up at 5 am to paint the kitchen before work, today I got up at 6:30 am to clean up and do laundry, every day it seems I’m doing things before and after work. Phew! I need a nap.
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