Hello! Just a very quick update in the middle of a very busy week! Russell spoke with our case worker on Monday and we should have our approval from the state by Friday! We need you all to cross your fingers, think about us, pray for us, and everything else you can do to keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we hope so desperately to be approved by Friday!
Have a great week everyone! Will blog again when we know more!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
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
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
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The Approval Process
Happy December! We are so excited about everything going on with our adoption process at this point! We are right in the middle of the approval process. As you may remember reading, once our home study and paperwork are completed, we go for local, regional, and state approval. Russell received a call from our social worker this afternoon to update us on the progress. We are currently in the stage of local approval. It needs just one more signature to be approved locally! It then goes on to regional and state approval. She said we should have regional and state approval by the middle of January! Wow!
So what's next? After we receive approval from the state, our social worker will work to find us a match. It could be one or even two children! If we get two children, it would be a sibling group of either two boys or two girls. How amazing would that be? Of course, we would be soo happy just to get a child. But the possibility that we could get siblings is AWESOME!! Now our expected timeline for a child is late January (at the extreme earliest) to March (in reality).
We hope all of you are getting ready for a very Merry Christmas! We will update as soon as we have more news!
So what's next? After we receive approval from the state, our social worker will work to find us a match. It could be one or even two children! If we get two children, it would be a sibling group of either two boys or two girls. How amazing would that be? Of course, we would be soo happy just to get a child. But the possibility that we could get siblings is AWESOME!! Now our expected timeline for a child is late January (at the extreme earliest) to March (in reality).
We hope all of you are getting ready for a very Merry Christmas! We will update as soon as we have more news!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Facebook statuses
Happy end of November everyone! Poor Russ is sick in bed, so I am taking care of him (well, actually he's sleeping right now). He's catching a cold and I really hope I don't catch it from him! There is not any exciting news on our child front, but I found this link on another infertility blog (which I am really enjoying right now) regarding Facebook statuses and pregnancies.
For those of you on Facebook, how many of you remember the breast cancer game where people put something down like "I'm 16 weeks and craving bananas". Read the post at http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2011/09/pretending-youre-pregnant-makes-people-truly-understand-breast-cancer. By the way, for those of you who posted that, it was very hurtful. One Facebook friend actually invited me to play that game! Ummmm...yeah, not playing that.
For those of you on Facebook, how many of you remember the breast cancer game where people put something down like "I'm 16 weeks and craving bananas". Read the post at http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2011/09/pretending-youre-pregnant-makes-people-truly-understand-breast-cancer. By the way, for those of you who posted that, it was very hurtful. One Facebook friend actually invited me to play that game! Ummmm...yeah, not playing that.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Results of the final home study!!
Okay, folks, it's what you've been waiting for! Final home study results!
We were so nervous about this final visit. The social worker showed up and Sunny was a complete angel. She remembered her from last time! She was soo cute, she only barked (again) when the case worker did not pet her! She still wanted that attention! All of us sat in the living room while the case worker asked a variety of questions. During that time, Sunny was sleeping on the couch between us. It's almost like if you didn't know she was there, you never would have guessed it.
The questions lasted for about 2 hours again. Then, she had a long checklist of items to look for in our home. She checked for the child safety locks, working fire extinguishers, and working smoke detectors. She noticed that we had two disaster plans - one in the child's room and one in the living room. She also noticed that our cords from the blinds in our home were properly placed so a child could not reach them. Another thing she checked was that all of our rugs in our house had the grip stuff on the bottom so they would not come loose.
We then signed some papers and she left us with one last "homework assignment". We had to create a three-generation family tree for each one of us. We also had to note if the family member was deceased, and the year they were deceased. Taryn's was pretty easy because her family is pretty small. Russell's was kind of difficult, because his Mom and Dad had at least 7 siblings each! But, we figured that out and came up with two great looking family trees! Right before she left, she told us that she thought we would make great parents! Yeah!!!
What happens next? The approval process. The social worker told us that these normally go pretty fast and that we should be approved by the end of the year. And then that's where the fun part begins-we start talking about a little one! Right now, we are expecting to hear about our child somewhere between January and February. So we are planning to enjoy December as one of our last months as "just a married couple"!
We were so nervous about this final visit. The social worker showed up and Sunny was a complete angel. She remembered her from last time! She was soo cute, she only barked (again) when the case worker did not pet her! She still wanted that attention! All of us sat in the living room while the case worker asked a variety of questions. During that time, Sunny was sleeping on the couch between us. It's almost like if you didn't know she was there, you never would have guessed it.
The questions lasted for about 2 hours again. Then, she had a long checklist of items to look for in our home. She checked for the child safety locks, working fire extinguishers, and working smoke detectors. She noticed that we had two disaster plans - one in the child's room and one in the living room. She also noticed that our cords from the blinds in our home were properly placed so a child could not reach them. Another thing she checked was that all of our rugs in our house had the grip stuff on the bottom so they would not come loose.
We then signed some papers and she left us with one last "homework assignment". We had to create a three-generation family tree for each one of us. We also had to note if the family member was deceased, and the year they were deceased. Taryn's was pretty easy because her family is pretty small. Russell's was kind of difficult, because his Mom and Dad had at least 7 siblings each! But, we figured that out and came up with two great looking family trees! Right before she left, she told us that she thought we would make great parents! Yeah!!!
What happens next? The approval process. The social worker told us that these normally go pretty fast and that we should be approved by the end of the year. And then that's where the fun part begins-we start talking about a little one! Right now, we are expecting to hear about our child somewhere between January and February. So we are planning to enjoy December as one of our last months as "just a married couple"!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Home Study #2 Results
I know, many of you have been waiting for this post! Today we will be having our final home study, and we are sooo excited! But, let me back up and tell you about the previous home study two weeks ago.
When the woman arrived, it kinda made us do a double-take because she resembled Russell's mom. She was very nice, and Sunny absolutely loved her. She barked at first, but it was only when she would stop petting Sunny. I guess Sunny wanted lots of attention too! After the woman was at our home for awhile, Sunny settled down and went to sleep on the couch. She was a perfect angel through it all.
She arrived just after 10 a.m. on November 1 and did not leave until after 1 p.m. We did not think a home study could take that long! For the first two hours, she asked us all sorts of questions. It started off with general questions such as our job and education, and then there were lots of questions asked about our childhoods. We were reminded, while answering those questions, how different our childhoods were from each other. Not bad, just different. Russell came from the traditional family-Mom, Dad, Russell, and his brothers. Taryn's childhood was not as traditional because her parents divorced when she was young so there were stepfamilies to deal with at various points in her childhood and always had to figure out which parent she was spending different holidays with. Like we said, not bad, just different. She also asked us different questions on our beliefs on raising children.
After that was completed, we gave her a tour of our home. She was impressed with the child safety locks that we had in place and absolutely loved the room where our child will sleep. She was also excited that the child would have not just their own bedroom, but their own bathroom as well.
She informed us that there are two things we needed to complete before she came back for the final home study. We were to make a disaster plan (fire escapes and in case of severe weather) and we had to move the cords from our drapes high to where the child could not reach them.
Our next home study is scheduled for today at 10 a.m. Wish us luck!!
When the woman arrived, it kinda made us do a double-take because she resembled Russell's mom. She was very nice, and Sunny absolutely loved her. She barked at first, but it was only when she would stop petting Sunny. I guess Sunny wanted lots of attention too! After the woman was at our home for awhile, Sunny settled down and went to sleep on the couch. She was a perfect angel through it all.
She arrived just after 10 a.m. on November 1 and did not leave until after 1 p.m. We did not think a home study could take that long! For the first two hours, she asked us all sorts of questions. It started off with general questions such as our job and education, and then there were lots of questions asked about our childhoods. We were reminded, while answering those questions, how different our childhoods were from each other. Not bad, just different. Russell came from the traditional family-Mom, Dad, Russell, and his brothers. Taryn's childhood was not as traditional because her parents divorced when she was young so there were stepfamilies to deal with at various points in her childhood and always had to figure out which parent she was spending different holidays with. Like we said, not bad, just different. She also asked us different questions on our beliefs on raising children.
After that was completed, we gave her a tour of our home. She was impressed with the child safety locks that we had in place and absolutely loved the room where our child will sleep. She was also excited that the child would have not just their own bedroom, but their own bathroom as well.
She informed us that there are two things we needed to complete before she came back for the final home study. We were to make a disaster plan (fire escapes and in case of severe weather) and we had to move the cords from our drapes high to where the child could not reach them.
Our next home study is scheduled for today at 10 a.m. Wish us luck!!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
It's Time for a Home Study!!
Things have certainly been interesting around here! On Monday, I found out I was going to Kennedy Space Center for a fantastic children's librarian workshop! And I was one of 40 applicants selected. I was told they received over 100 applications, so that's pretty awesome.
On Tuesday, several things happened. Russell went to start his truck, moved about 1/4 mile, and discovered the alternator is out. Ughh. So now we are down to sharing one car until the alternator can come in (which will be Monday).
But the best thing happened on Tuesday! I was at lunch and I received a call to set up our home study!! Our home study is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, November 1, at 10 a.m. This is the call we have definitely been waiting on. I am told this home study should last at least 2-3 hours. This is the second home study (out of 3) that we will need to have. The third and final home study is supposed to be completed within a month from Tuesday. But, we know how these things go so we are not getting our hopes up too high about that.
We still have alot to do to get ready for this home study. We have been cleaning like crazy and putting the child locks back on our cabinets. We took them off after the first home study because there was no use keeping them on when it is just the two of us living at our house.
So what happens next? This home study is conducted by an outside vendor. They have 30 days to complete both home studies and write up their reports in order to get paid by DFCS. Next, we go for local, regional, and state approval (which could take at least 1-2 months) and then it gets really exciting!! That's when we will eventually find out details about our child!! And of course, that's the best part. :)
I'll be sure to post next week to update you all on our visit!!
-Taryn
On Tuesday, several things happened. Russell went to start his truck, moved about 1/4 mile, and discovered the alternator is out. Ughh. So now we are down to sharing one car until the alternator can come in (which will be Monday).
But the best thing happened on Tuesday! I was at lunch and I received a call to set up our home study!! Our home study is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, November 1, at 10 a.m. This is the call we have definitely been waiting on. I am told this home study should last at least 2-3 hours. This is the second home study (out of 3) that we will need to have. The third and final home study is supposed to be completed within a month from Tuesday. But, we know how these things go so we are not getting our hopes up too high about that.
We still have alot to do to get ready for this home study. We have been cleaning like crazy and putting the child locks back on our cabinets. We took them off after the first home study because there was no use keeping them on when it is just the two of us living at our house.
So what happens next? This home study is conducted by an outside vendor. They have 30 days to complete both home studies and write up their reports in order to get paid by DFCS. Next, we go for local, regional, and state approval (which could take at least 1-2 months) and then it gets really exciting!! That's when we will eventually find out details about our child!! And of course, that's the best part. :)
I'll be sure to post next week to update you all on our visit!!
-Taryn
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