No less than 5 people asked me that question today at work. They said I looked “stressed” or “upset.” I don’t feel particularily stressed or upset, but I guess it’s showing on my face.
Sunday we agreed with our buyer on a price. So, our house is sold, and since we had a contingency on our Gardner house, we can buy it! We move on May 21st. We have to be out of our current house by May 31st. Our realtor actually came over to the baby shower after it had wound down so we could sign the papers. So, within a couple weeks, we’ve found out we’re adopting a baby and sold our house.
Talked to the social worker again today. No new changes - the birth mom is still scheduled to be induced Wednesday between 7 and 8 am. I asked the social worker if we could go to the hospital but she said no, we need to wait for her to call. The birth mom didn’t want us there for the birth, and the current plan is for her to go to another room and have Donald and I care for the baby for 2 days in the hospital, then take him home. Our social worker has told the hospital about these plans, and they’ve agreed we can stay there if they have room.
Having our social worker tell us we can’t come to the hospital until she says so put me in a little bit of a panic. “What if the birth mom changes her mind?!?!” Well, I guess she could. Seems very unlikely since no one in her family knows she’s pregnant, she doesn’t want to meet us or see the baby at all, and she wants a totally closed situation. If she changes her mind it will be a big change in all her thinking up to this point, but she can’t sign away the child for 48 hours. I will definitely feel a lot better when the 48 hours are up!
We’re planning on still taking off Wednesday because I don’t think either of us will be able to even think, let alone work. It’s been hard enough the past week. Wednesday we drop our dog off at the vet to be boarded and then we’ll pick her up on Saturday; that will give us some time to hang at the hospital for a couple of days.
I feel so weird. Can’t even explain it.
Got an offer today on our house!!!! It was a low offer (very low) so we countered back. Hopefully, he’ll work with us and come a little closer to our asking price. We at least want a little left over in profit to pay for our H-ome D-epot card and to put towards our adoption and our new house. However, we may just have to settle with being happy to break even…. we’ll see what he does back!
Haven’t heard anything from the social worker today. The baby shower is tomorrow for the family, which should be fun. It’s actually snowing today here….isn’t it supposed to be spring???!?!?
So, we are working on a baby and closing on our house and possibly moving within 2 months….Hubby said yesterday, “Bring it on!”
Our social worker called about 4pm…the birth mom went to the hospital!
But then, she was sent back home….
We’ll just have to wait and see! Mom in law suggested we pack a bag just in case, which I think is a good idea. I’ve had a bag packed for the baby since last week, but hadn’t thought about packing a bag for ourselves.
also, our realtor told us we should be getting an offer on our house tonight.
W0000!
We have made an offer on a house in Gardner, KS. It’s contingent on our house selling, but we’ve had a lot of people look at our house and our realtor tells us that a couple people are working on offers and/or deciding if they want to buy ours. Much more exciting than last year!
Nothing new on the adoption front — I haven’t heard from our social worker regarding the uninsured birth mom due in April, so I’m assuming we weren’t picked by her. I suppose it’s all for the best!
The only thing about the house we’re buying is the siding either needs to be repaired and repainted, or we need to get all new siding. Anyone had siding done on their home? Any recommendations for types of siding?
Very exciting - we’re hoping to close in May or June, and we need a contract on our house by May 22nd for this house offer to go through. Hoping it will work out!
ADDENDUM: If you want more information (ie photos, address, etc.,) email me at [watermelonjessie at yahoo dot com] and I’ll email you the listing with photos!
Hubby told me we had another house showing today. That’s 7 since our house was put on the market February 15th.
Last year, I think we had 12 showings total in the 6 months the house was on the market, so this is a great improvement over last year. There is one person who is very interested in buying our duplex and the other side, so that is a great encouragement. All last year we never heard about anything even wanting to buy our house, so this is pretty cool. If my hubby can sell the house for me while I’m in California, that would be fantastic.
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.
Thursday at 1pm I have my individual interiew with our social worker. The Thursday after Thanksgiving hubby and I have our couple interview. EVERYTHING in the homestudy is done except: fingerprints, tax forms from the past 2 years, and letters from our bank and 2 creditors that we’ve dealt with. WOO HOO.
There is a guy at work, D.S, he and his wife adopted 2 3 and 4 year old boys from the Ukraine. I have had such a good time talking with him. He will come up to me and ask “How is the adoption coming? What stage are you at?” People who have adopted just get it. You just want to talk about it with somebody, but it’s nice to talk to someone who really understands what you’re talking about! He told a great story about one of his boys that made me cry. When one of the boys was taking a bath, he would put all his mom’s shoes in the bathroom with him. His logic was is that his mom couldn’t leave the house without coming in the bathroom first to get her shoes! It’s so strange the way kids, and orphans, cope with separation and the logic they use. Even though we’re going through a lot of pain in our infertility struggles, there are orphans out there, like D.S.’s little boys, who were left without family, without much food, and without much hope for the future. Now, they’re with parents that love them.
Just listening to D.S. get all teary talking about his boys really warmed my heart. THAT’S what all this is for, those babies and children that are orphans that need homes, or those babies born to moms that love them but just can’t take care of them right now. It’s also great to have someone at work to just chat with about it. He said to me on Friday “It feels like forever, and it feels like with all the paperwork it’s never going to end, and it’s never going to happen. Just keep going. Once you have your kids, it will be like you’re always had them. You’ll even forget sometimes that they’re adopted, you’ll always think that they’re your biological children.”
I keep thinking about that as we fill out all these papers, go to all these meetings, and lay our life out for the “Really Big Nosy Job Interview,” that it will never end and we’ll never get a child. I know others have been through this and we can make it through as well. I finally feel like it’s getting closer: just a little bit left on the home study and then it’s up to the social worker to complete it.
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.
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