Why Foster Care Adoption?

As we are in the process of going through foster care adoption, some of you have asked how we have come to this decision. I thought it was best to tell you all a little bit about what has led us to foster care adoption.

When we got married in October of 2003, we always knew we wanted children. Our plan was to have our first child by the time Russell turned 35. He's 40 now. (We even had a pregnancy plan, my how life doesn't always seem to go the way you plan it, lol) In fact, we started trying to get pregnant in 2005 when we moved to Orlando. When we moved back to Tallahassee in December of 2006, we thought it just wasn't the right time. So we waited another year before we would try again. We began trying again in early 2008. When we were not getting pregnant, we decided to see our doctor, who then referred us to a fertility specialist in Jacksonville. We spent approximately 1.5 years with fertility treatments and surgeries. When our fertility specialist told us there was a 96% chance we would never be able to get pregnant, it seemed as if our hopes of having our own little family came crashing down.

We had always thought about adoption over the years, especially when our beautiful niece was adopted from China. Although we respect and admire my brother's decision and love this little girl more than words can express, we knew that international adoption was not for us. We knew that, if we were going to adopt, it would be from within the United States. Just over a year ago, we were online and found information on foster children that needed to be adopted. Russell and I had a LOT of discussions about this, and we had conducted TONS of research; we decided we would pursue adopting an older child from the foster care system.  We are so happy with our decision and could not imagine building our family any other way now. We know that this is God's plan for us, and it is awesome to finally realize His plan. We just can't wait until we get our child. We know it will be tough, but it will be worth it in the end because we'll finally have a child of our own!

Update!

Yesterday, we received a call from our social worker/resource coordinator regarding the timetable for our adoption. The next step is parenting classes in June; however, they have moved them to July due to budget cuts. I certainly hope this does not put a major delay in the date we will be able to get the child. I can't wait for this fall-it's going to be so exciting!

Also, we have our drug screening scheduled for May 31st in the afternoon. That is the last major test we have to do. We still have to get some other paperwork finished, but it should be pretty easy.

Oh yeah I finally announced our adoption on Facebook! It was great to see so many positive comments and likes from family and friends.

Until next time...

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

Did you know?

Happy Monday everyone! I am off from work today so I thought I would share some infertility statistics with all of you. Nothing new is happening in the process; I really don't expect much to happen until June, so we are enjoying the lull right now. In the family, we are expecting a new niece any day and are expecting our first great-nephew in July! I think 2011 is definitely the year for new children in our family!

One of my favorite websites to read about infertility at is http://www.resolve.org/. I highly recommend you visit it because most people don't know much about infertility or how it affects couples. I will post a few infertility statistics here, taken from this website and from the Infertility stats page at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/fertile.htm.

Did you know...

• 1 out of 8 couples struggle with infertility? Chances are, we're not the only couple you know who has infertility issues. Most couples don't make this public.
• Approximately one-third of infertility is attributed to the female partner, one-third attributed to the male partner and one-third is caused by a combination of problems in both partners or, is unexplained. 
• Number of women ages 15-44 with impaired fecundity (impaired ability to have children): 7.3 million
• A couple ages 29-33 with a normal functioning reproductive system has only a 20-25% chance of conceiving in any given month (National Women’s Health Resource Center). After six months of trying, 60% of couples will conceive without medical assistance.

Enjoy! Again, happy Monday everyone!

Home Study and Everything Else!

OK, OK, I'm sorry I haven't posted since last week! I've been super busy with work (as usual), and I know you've been asking me to post about the home study!

The most amazing thing was that Sunny was the best behaved dog. EVER. She was sooo wonderful. When the social worker arrived at our house, Sunny did not bark. She was sweet, friendly, and minded her own business when we were inside. Maybe she knew what was at stake. WOW.

The home study was actually much easier than I thought it would be. The social worker inspected the room that the child would be sleeping in and looked at all of the child safety materials (such as the safety locks and plug protectors). She seemed very impressed with everything we had done to make the house child-proof. At the end, she told us that we have a nice house that would be suitable for a child to live in. YEAH!!!

The next step for us is parenting classes in June. Thank goodness they are on Saturdays so it won't interfere with my work schedule-June is the craziest month of the year for me with work. After June, the process should be much more exciting! So right now is the waiting time, the calm before the storm. We are sooo excited! We can't wait to see what the future holds!!

Wow! What a surprise!

(This actually happened on Thursday, but I did not get the chance to post until today. A follow-up blog will be posted soon!)

So the most amazing thing happened today! This afternoon, I got off early and Russell and I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. While we were standing in line, I got a phone call from the resource coordinator to set up our home study!! Our home study will be TOMORROW morning! Yes, I said TOMORROW!! I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. OK I better get off now so I can start cleaning and preparing!!

I will post again after it's over!!

Nothing yet...

Some of you have asked me whats going on in the process since I haven't blogged lately. We are still waiting on a call to schedule our home study. The one thing about these adoptions is that they take a VERY long time. But we don't care, we know all the waiting will be worth it when we get our child.

I'm not worried about the waiting yet, because there is still so much to do before the home study. The major things we still have to do are:

• Get Georgia driver's licenses
• Get fingerprints
• Take a drug test
• Have our car insurance changed from FL to GA
• And of course, get ready for the home study!

 There's a bunch of other stuff to do, but those are the most important things. While we are waiting for the call, I'll probably post some things on infertility since I know so many people have not been exposed to the world of infertility.

In other news, I am going to a baby shower this weekend (We will have a new niece near the end of April! Yeah!!) and it will probably be the first baby shower I've been to in over 5 years that I don't come home feeling depressed and wonder when (or if) we will ever have a child.

Until next time...