Getting Personal

I thought I'd do an update!  Well our contract was accepted and we are on to the next stage which has multiple stages to it.  We are currently filling out a packet that requires basic information that we have already filled out at least three or four times already.  But now we are required to submit copies of things such as our marriage licenses, birth certificates, W2's, tax forms, layout of our house, pay stubs, and a whole lot more stuff!  I have a huge chunk of it done but there is a lot we have to be patient and wait on.  Preston and I need our doctor to sign off on a form saying that we are healthy people.  But my doctor left for a family emergency and I couldn't get into the clinic until next week.  Preston on the other hand has to jump through a lot of hoops to see his corpsman.  Who knows when he will get someone to sign off on his paperwork.  Another thing we have to have is a will.  So tomorrow we get to venture to the lovely legal office with our favorite receptionist.  Fingers crossed she isn't working tomorrow!!  I am trying to get everything together before Friday morning.  On Friday Preston leaves for 6 weeks.  I want to get this packet in because once this is in we are one step closer to getting matched.

Another step I have been working on is our view book.  A view book is a photo book about us (essentially a scrap book) so that the birth mother is able to get to know us and have a choice in who her child is going to live with.  I am 90% done with it minus a few grammatical errors that I need to fix and add a few more pictures.  The hardest thing I have to do is write a letter to our potential birth mother.  I have no idea what to say to her that wont come across as stereotypical.  I want it to come from the heart.  I've googled some examples and read some blogs about what to say and what not to say.  I just want our book to stand out and that our birth mother will understand our personality.

On top of gathering all of our personal information and creating a view book I have been talking to two home study agencies.  And man oh man is this going to be expensive!! I about had a panic attack the other day.  For us to do our home study and post placement interviews it will come to a grand total of $6,651.  This also includes some education classes we will have to take on top of the ones we are already doing for our agency and some legal matters for the state.  Our new game plan is that we will be doing nothing from here on out!  Well sort of.  We agreed we are not going to eat out at all on non-payday weekends.  On payday weekends we can do ONE fun thing and eat out ONCE.  So to all of our friends if it seems like we are becoming hermits and turning you down we are sorry.  We are trying everything in our power to save as much money as we can.  I thought that we would be able to start our home study in May when Preston gets back from the boat but I don't think that will be possible.  So the new goal is to start it in July.  It kind of makes me sad because that will potentially push back our adoption but I want to make sure we are able to financially do this.

On a side note one of Preston's cousin's is doing a Thirty-One party for us right now.  She is AMAZINGLY not taking any of the profit from this party.  Any of the profit that she makes from the party she will be donating to us!! She is truly amazing to do this for us and we are forever grateful that she has offered this to us.  If you would like to participate in this event please message me.  I have added a few people but I didn't want to add a ton of people to this event because I don't want people to feel like that they are obligated to purchase anything.  So far we have had a great turnout and the party just started on Monday.

As always I will continue to keep you updated on everything!

-Kate

Approved

Well its been a few weeks since I've done an update so I figured tonight would be a great night for one!  Last update I said that we would be closing our Go Fund Me page but I guess I didn't understand how it really worked.  I thought once you did a withdrawal you had to close your page.  Well that isn't the case at all!  So we will keep that page open if you are interested.  And to be honest we wouldn't of been able to get this far without the help from all of our amazing family and friends out there!  Saying thank you isn't even enough!  

When I last gave our update we were just submitting our application.  Since then we have been accepted by our agency!  We both were thrilled with this news.  The next step was getting a sample contract that we were to go over and call our social worker if we had any questions about it.  After reading an 11 page contract we had a few questions.  Before I go into the questions or any further I think I need to clarify some information that I don't think I have really explained.

We will be doing an out of state adoption.  Which means we will not be doing an adoption from the state of California.  Why would we do that you might ask?  When we finally made the decision to adopt we googled top rated agencies and had an open mind to not adopting in the current state we lived in.  Yes that would be extremely convenient for us to do.  But we really wanted to go with an agency that was invested in both the birth parents and adoptive parents.  We also wanted to have a warm fuzzy feeling about our agency as well.  We did contact an agency located in Fresno, CA (Fresno is about 45 mins from us) but we never heard back from them.  So we took that as a big sign and did not further pursue that agency.  At this time we are not allowed to say what state we will be adopting from due to our contract.  But it is a southern state in the AMAZING SEC country! Sorry I had to throw that in there for Preston.

The next question we get asked quite often is how old will our child be?  We are actually adopting an infant.  And when I say infant we are talking he or she will be 1 or 2 days old.  Why not an older child?  We want this process to be as normal as it can be.  We want those sleepless nights, the teething cranky baby, the cute little baby wrinkles, and the opportunity to raise our child from day 1.

Remember how I said we will be adopting our baby from another state?  Well once our birth mother goes into labor we will get a phone call telling us to stand by.  Then another phone call once our child is born.  Lastly and most importantly the go ahead to come get our baby.  Our baby's birth mother has 72 hrs to either sign away her rights and or change her mind.  So for those 72 hrs after our child is born we will be on pins and needles because it does happen that once the baby is born the birth mother can change her mind.  Once we are given the go ahead we will have to book our flight and get to the hospital as soon as we can.  Then will pick up our baby at the hospital and live in a hotel for the next two weeks!  We will cannot cross state lines for at the max two weeks until we are given a court order stating we can leave the state.  I have been doing A LOT of research on traveling with a newborn on an air plane.  We will have to bring a lot of light weight items with us so it can be as "normal" as possible in those first 2 weeks in the hotel room.  A travel bassinet, just enough baby bottles, clothes for the 3 of us, something to bathe the baby with, and a whole lot more.  I get anxious about it all sometimes and then I am thankful that I am a type A personality and I will over prepare for this.

On Monday I asked our social worker a small list of questions and after she answered them I told her we were ready to move on and we would like the official contract.  On Tuesday we received our contract via email.  All we had to do was get everything notarized and signed.  On Wednesday we went to legal to have the contracted looked at and it notarized.  I honestly thought it would be a quick and smooth thing to do.  Boy was I wrong!  For some reason the lady who did all the notarizing in the legal office did not like us at all.  She gave Preston a super hard time about his drivers license and told him he was a liar about Ohio's law with active duty members not having to update their drivers license if they are not able to go back to the state to do so.  Then she didn't want to notarize our contract because it had the wrong date on it.  We were given the contract on the 9th and we went into the office on the 11th.  I later found out that she had no clue what she was talking about.  Apparently it doesn't matter what date was on the contract.  So an hour and half later we were good to go.  Preston went home right away and wrote a check to our agency and sent out contract along with it.  The contract fee is $2,500.  That seems like a lot of money but from here on out it just gets more and more expensive.

The next three steps will be getting activated into the waiting pool, starting to get our view book together, and our home study.  I am not too sure about how much the view book will cost but I know its something we will be ordering from Shutterfly.  The home study will be the longest process we have to do.  And boy will it be tricky to fit it in.  Preston leaves in two weeks for a 6 week boat det.  When he returns he will be home for a month and then leaves again for another 6 weeks.  So fingers crossed we can do this quickly.  From what we have researched a home study in the state of California can cost any where from $1,000-$2,500.  So in an effort to save as much money as possible we have dropped our cable package to the lowest you can go, got rid of our fun subscriptions to birtchbox,  have agreed that we wont eat out on the weekends, and whatever is leftover in our account after each paycheck we put directly into our savings.  My hope is that we will have a good chunk of our home study money saved by the time he gets home from the boat.  As for the rest of the fees: $7,000 once we are matched with our birthmother and $7,000 once the baby is born and we have been given the rights to our child.  Then after placement we will have to have a social worker come check on us to make sure everything is going well.  I believe that is another $2,000 for that service.  So needless to say once we are approved from home study we will be applying for as many grants as we can.

Our contract is supposed to get to our agency tomorrow (Friday) at some point.  So let the craziness begin!

-Kate