Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts

Monday, April 23, 2012

Getting Closer!

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you are all having a great start to the week so far! Today, Russell called our case worker to inquire as to the status of the adoption, and we got some great news! One of her colleagues is mailing us paperwork on children that need to be adopted. Once we get the paperwork, we can choose a child we are interested in adopting and will go forward with meeting the child and pursuing adoption.

We will be sure to update you all when we receive the paperwork. We are so excited!!! Finally getting closer!!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Let's play Match Game!

Hello all! I know it's been awhile since we've blogged but there has not been alot to blog about lately. Well, anything worthwhile, anyway. During the last month, somehow pieces of our paperwork got messed up (Again?!?!?!?!) and the ages of the children we wanted were confused. The ages we have requested are 0-10, and we have told the case workers that from day 1. At one point, they had that we would only accept children ages 1-4 or ages 0-5. We have never said either of these ranges so we don't know where they came up with this craziness. :)

Fast forward to this past Monday, the 19th. We called the case worker to find out the status of our paperwork, and we were able to get everything straight over the phone. For example, we confirmed (again) our age range (0-10) and discussed the level of special needs we will accept for a child. We will not go into this publicly on our blog because it violates our future child's privacy.

According to our case worker, our file for the State Adoption Unit has been updated to reflect these changes and the case workers throughout the state begin finding us a matching child (or children). Here's a cool dialogue of part of our conversation:

Case Worker: "We will begin finding a matching child or children for you starting next Monday."
Us: "That's great, but that will probably take awhile, right? Like, 6 months or so?"
Case Worker: "Actually, no. This part usually moves quicker than you think."

Wow! Maybe quicker than we think would be less than 6 months, lol. On a serious note, it is so exciting that case workers around the state (and especially our case worker) will be working hard to match us with a child (or children)!

If you remember that old game show "Match Game", this is where we got the title of this blog post from. We are so ready to be matched!! Not only are we playing the Match Game, we are also playing the Waiting Game. We certainly hope the matching game will be much more fun then the waiting game has been!

Thursday, December 29, 2011

2011-a look back

Hello! No new child news yet, but I thought I would take this time to reflect back on our year. It has been an eventful year, full of ups and downs. Here is a (brief) list of things I consider important that happened to us this year.

January-I traveled to New Jersey/New York with my Mom to help her with arrangements for my Uncle's funeral. He was my Mom's only brother and they were very close. It was difficult, not only to see everything, but it was hard to watch my Mom get upset knowing there was nothing I could do to help. The positive side was that I got to meet alot of my New York family that I didn't know so that was great. I got to meet my Great Aunt who is one of the most wonderful women on this planet. She is just a terrific lady who, at 81 years old, is more feisty than I am at times!

February-We officially begin the adoption process by attending orientation at the local DFCS office. We were so excited that we could not hold in our news and we began telling family and friends our good news. This is when we officially became "paper pregnant". Also, Russell began his new job!

March/April-Slowly begin paperwork, first home study completed. On April 20, our new niece Kylie was born! On April 25, our baby Sunny turned 8!

May-We unexpectedly lose Russell's mother on May 20. This was definitely, by far, the most difficult and saddest event of the year for both of us. It is extremely heartbreaking knowing that our child will never get to know either of their paternal grandparents. However, Russell's mother knew about and supported our adoption very much. She was one of our biggest cheerleaders. I am grateful that my parents have been supportive of both Russell and I through this ordeal.

June-Taryn's very busy summer reading program at work. Parenting classes start at the end of June. We meet some wonderful couples and single people who we hope, for their sake, are farther along in the process than we are. We hope that they have not had to deal with as much loss of paperwork and miscommunication as we have! During the classes, we received over 100 pages of paperwork to fill out.

July-Complete our 100+ page paperwork "Bible" for the adoption. Our first great nephew, Aiden, is born! Taryn breathes a sigh of relief as the summer reading program is over....until next year. :) 

August-Nothing exciting happens because our paperwork was stuck under someone's desk for a month!! Talk about miscommunication...

September-Taryn turns the Big "3-0". Ouch! More miscommunication and paperwork from the case workers.... We begin going back to church and are enjoying the services, pastor, and meeting new people.

October-All paperwork is completed. Home study #2 is scheduled for November 1! Russell and I celebrated 8 wonderful years of marriage on the 11th.

November-Home studies #2 and #3 completed and passed with flying colors!

December-Case worker says we are in the middle of the approval process and everything is going as planned.

So what does 2012 hold in store for us? I'm not sure, but I hope that, by this time next year, I will posting about the cute things our child does or says, and hopefully asking advice from other parents!

Russell and I hope each and every one of you have a happy and safe New Year's holiday!

-Taryn

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Classes!

Hello all! It's been awhile since I've last blogged, but there really hasn't been anything going on. When not much happens, it makes me wonder "Is this really happening? Are we really adopting a child?". But yes, it's happening, and we couldn't be more excited!

Today, we received a letter regarding our parenting classes, which is the next major step in the process. They will be held all next week! We are sooooooooo excited! It will be interesting to see what they teach us next week about the children in the process.

I'm not 100% sure what will happen from here, so I'm not going to publicly speculate the next step on this blog until something happens.

This is just another step closer to getting our child-we cannot wait to be parents soon!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day!?!?

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! Happy Mother's Day to everyone who can get pregnant at the drop of a hat, or just by saying the word "pregnant"! OK I said it, now I got it out of my system. Mother's Day brings so many mixed emotions for me.

The first emotion is happiness and love for my own mother and mother-in-law. That one comes easy, I am so grateful for all they have done for us in life. Russ and I are so grateful for their support during this journey to bring a child into our home.

Next is sadness-for the last several years, it's hurt me that Sunny is my only baby. I always wondered "Why can't it be me? Why can't I join that illustrious Mom club? It's just not fair! I know I've done some things that I'm not proud of in life (but everyone does that sometime in their lives), but why does God choose to punish me this way?"

Then is hope-This is the first Mother's Day that I have considered myself a "mom-to-be". This is the first Mother's Day that I have actually not cried and been upset, so I think I'm heading in the right direction.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

-Taryn