On Sabbatical

Well, it’s been almost 2 months since we (I) have updated the blog. You could say we were on a sabbatical. August and September truly flew by. August was spent with last minute vacations, staff retreats, and end-of-summer fun. Oh right, and all the craziness that coincides with the beginning of the school year! September was a blur…a new school year, the beginning of football season, and Kirsten pretty much under the weather for most of it. (3 weeks with an upper respiratory infection!)

We did not take a sabbatical from the adoption, however. We did more researching and lots of reading. Fun read that I would recommend, Dan Savage’s (of the “It Gets Better" project) book: The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant.

Actually we’ve made some progress in our adoption journey. We’ve had some interest from potential birth parents, so we’ll see what happens and keep everyone posted! We hope there will be a match soon, but even if so we are acutely aware of the statistic that close to 50% of all “matches” end up not working out.

Recognizing that a baby might find us a year from now or weeks from now, there are a few staples that we wanted to have on-hand for the big moment. We now have bottles, a bassinet, and a car seat & carrier. The only other things we would need right away are diapers, formula, blankets, and some change of clothes. (Diapers and formula…we can pick up at the 24-hour Kroger. The rest, well – that’s what grandma is for!) We do have a few other things stored in a corner of our basement as well. A special thanks to Carrie and Eric for providing us with bottles, a stroller, and a high chair! And, my friend Jen and I hit a consignment sale last weekend (scored some cute baskets for the eventual nursery and an ever exciting bottle drying rack!). Oh, and the bassinet - $20 dollars at a garage sale. For you sport fans, the previous owner is the baby of a former Columbus Crew member. Pretty cool!

So, that is most of what we’ve been up to since we went on sabbatical. Hoping to post more frequently…

Crash Course in the Power of Friendships

Needless to say, the past week has taught us that this baby will indeed be loved and cherished by so many.  So, we slowly started networking and really spreading the word just last week to family and some friends.  And for some (now incomprehensible) reason we were scared to even start there!  We were once again reminded - we have some pretty amazing friends and family! 

Thank you to everyone (old friends, new friends, friends of friends, and family) who has offered us their thoughts, prayers, and well wishes.  We are so grateful to everyone who took our "blurb" and sent it on - through email, facebook, or word of mouth.  We're amazed at how many other friends then picked it up and shared it with their networks.  Sure, this is the entire purpose of networking, but it is still really remarkable to witness it actually happening!  (And, hopefully it keeps happening!)
Over the past week, many questions have arisen about the process - so here is a little more information:

• We have already completed our homestudy and have been approved to become adoptive parents. (So, if a birth parent and child finds his/her way to our home - we are already approved!
• Adoption is an expensive process.  In addition to homestudy costs (finger prints, safety inspections, etc.) and potential medical expenses, each agency or lawyer facilitates paperwork, court costs, and other "legal" type stuff.  Agency costs are usually higher than a private attorney because they provide more services to help facilitate finding "a match."  We are using a private (and experienced) attorney instead of an agency for many reasons, financial one of them.  However, it means more of the "finding" and "matching" is left up to us. 
• We did consider foster-adoption. And, perhaps we will pursue this avenue in the future!  However, for now we are hoping to build our family through open infant domestic adoption.
• We have not placed any limitations on race or ethnicity of a child. Both of us feel very strongly that love makes a family, and we would be incredibly blessed to be part of a transracial family.

We are always happy to answer questions, so please keep asking!!

Networking 101: Introduction to Networking/Marketing in Adoption

This may be one of the hardest "adoption courses" yet. The research and homestudy process was lengthy and required a lot of planning, organization, hard work, and commitment - but it was something that felt comfortable to both of us.  (Kirsten's response to mounds of paperwork, many file folders, and long task lists?  "Yay! I get to use my label maker and colored pens!!")

This next process is a little more unnatural for us: NETWORKING & MARKETING.

In our months of research, we consulted with numerous adoption agencies, attorneys, books, articles, and adoptive (& prospective) parents.  The one common theme: the importance of networking in an effort to locate a birth parent.  Is it comfortable? Nope. Is it important? Yep! Examples include: conversation, letter writing campaigns, emails, social media/internet outreach, and obviously blogging. 
We started this blog in June but have yet to send it out. Today is the day.  We can do it! We have never turned away from a challenge before and we sure as heck are not going to start now - not with the most important thing that we will ever do (becoming parents.) So, here it goes - our first networking assignment.

Our first venture in networking and marketing is this blog/email. As we embark on a process of searching for a birth parent, this assignment is actually a group project.  Many of our friends and family have provided an enormous amount of support in our difficult effort to become parents.  We are so blessed to have such an amazing and caring support network (and we know our future child will be loved by many!)  Now we could really use you to spread the word to help us locate a birth parent.

Please read this blog, follow this blog, and share the link with your friends, family, and co-workers.  Ohio law allows us to locate a birth parent, but the birth parent/baby does not need to be in Ohio.  (Are you still reading New Jersey & Maryland/DC/Virginia friends and family?!)  And as mentioned, the networking is strongly encouraged by all adoption agencies and attorneys.  The only part of the adoption process worse than the networking is the waiting to become parents. (You can see where this is headed!) So, the more we network (and the more our friends and family share our story!), the sooner we will become parents and a family.

We have set up this blog and an adoption email address: kbfx2002@gmail.com that can be shared.  In addition, we are working with an experienced adoption attorney.  We can be contacted through him.  His contact information is:

    Thomas N. Taneff, Attorney 

    ttaneff@rrcol.com or 614.241.2181

Please remember to pass along the following:  Kirsten and Bill are a loving couple who very much want to be parents. If you know of anyone making the difficult, courageous, and loving decision to place their baby for adoption, please let them know about Kirsten and Bill!

Thank you,

Kirsten & Bill

History: The 2 of Us Through the Years

We actually first met (in passing) in 1998 while still in college.  We "re-met" a year later and started dating during the summer of 1999 during an internship in England.  We became engaged in 2001 and got married in July 2002.  It's hard to believe we've been married for 9 years already!  Though we have endured some tough times, we have had lots of fun along the way.  It is really great to be married to your best friend!  We know our strong relationship and great partnership will provide a solid foundation for us as parents.

As you can see in this slideshow, we have so much love for each other.  However, we have even more love to give to a child!  

Parent in Waiting: Prerequisite - The Home Study

Let the first term of the "Waiting Parents" class commence!  Unlike most courses, this "lesson" has no known end date.  It could be next month or next year.  There are no guidelines or course expectations.   

However, to get to this point, we had LOTS of homework.  Here is what we have successfully done so far:

·      Adoption Class - Pass

·      Stacks of Paperwork - Pass

·      Finger Prints - Pass

·      FBI/Background - Pass

·      Home Fire Inspection - Pass

·      Physical - Pass

·      Driving Records - Pass

·      Home Safety Inspection - Pass

·      Letters of Recommendation - Pass

·      Profile Book Submitted – Pass

Now that we have successfully passed the home study (approved as waiting parents), we begin the wait. We PROUDLY refer to ourselves as "Parents in Waiting" and "Paper Pregnant." 

The Homework for this term includes:

1.  Reading parenting books; 

2.  Spending time doing things we won't be able to do once we become  

     parents (movies, romantic dinners, vacations);

3.  Preparing our house for baby (Well, more than we are already prepared!  We have a pretty awesome fire safety plan that we hope to NEVER use.  This includes a fire latter, extinguisher throughout the house, and personlized (by room) fire exit floor plans!  Who knew our days as a Residence Hall Director and Sorority House Mom would pay off so well!)

Here's hoping for a short and successful term of waiting! :)

Intro to Blogging

After years of trying to become parents, we decided to build our family through adoption.  We started the process in the fall of 2010 and recently became approved as waiting parents!! (Or, as known in the adoption world - Paper Pregnant!)

We have established out Adoption Blog (parents2be) for 3 reasons and 3 sets of readers. 

1) To provide a way for prospective birth parents and your families to learn more about us as you make the difficult decision to place a child.  It is impossible to state how much we respect and admire you!  Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us and look at our profile. 

2) To provide our friends and family with information about our journey to parenthood. We are also hoping our friends and family will keep us in mind and remember that we want to grow our family through adoption.  Please share this blog and/or our adoption contact information with others making an adoption plan.

3) For ourselves.  Over the past 6 years, we have had our share of ups & downs.  A few of you have heard tales of our funny family building stories.  As we now wait for our “forever family”, we (ok, mainly Kirsten) have decided to chronicle the journey and share reflections of the process.  If a few of you are interested in following along, even better!

This is our first real experience with both blogging and adoption...and this venue will be a learning process for both.  Actually, blogging and the adoption process have much in common.  Neither are easy tasks.  Both require perseverance, deep self-reflection, and patience.  Both will be approached with thoughtfulness, care, concern, and yes, the occasional mistake.  Both depend on elements of timing & luck.

As most of you know, we are also both college educators.  As a result, we approach most situations as "valuable life lessons."  In an effort to remain (become?) witty, our posts will reflect the names of our lessons in our adoption journey.  Therefore, we hope some of our "course names" will be amusing, though we realize most will just be a tad bit corny!

Thanks for taking time to visit, read, and learn more about us and our journey to parenthood!