A short, but nice break

We've enjoyed the month of July, mostly because we went to Carolina beach for a week and we haven't been thinking about adoption too much.

We had a blast at the beach...it went too quick!  We rode the waves on our boogie boards, played pool volleyball, kayaked in the canal, rode bikes to new places in the evening, and ate Britt's donuts everyday!

Riding bikes on the beach around sunset

SML double-fisting Britt's donuts

Sunrise

Family poker night

Waiting for the fireworks!

Having too much fun capturing our adventures on camera!

We've had a few contacts, but nothing came of them.  One contact was from Alabama who was about 14 weeks pregnant. We chatted online/via email with her for a few weeks, but she never could call into IAC.  She told us that she's decided to parent. Another was from OK who has an almost 12 month old.  Everything was taken from her when the tornados went through in May.  She too couldn't build up the courage to call into IAC and was a little all over the place.

We had 9 letters go out in June.

I completed my physical and we had our FBI fingerprints done.

SML starts work in 1.5 weeks!! She's getting anxious but excited! We've continued to really enjoy CrossFit and have made new friends.  We can see small changes in our bodies. :)

Well we move into month 20 of waiting....

Changes

Changes are happening....

...in our personal life; not with our adoption journey.

SML graduated nursing school from UNC Chapel Hill in May!



She took the board exam at the beginning of June and passed!!!!!  So, now she's relearning what it feels like to do nothing.  She's focusing on getting herself in better shape and completeing little projects around the house. 
We joined Crossfit at the beginning of May and are LOVING it!  It's a high intensity workout that utilizes functional movements and incorporates olympic weight lifting and circuits.  It's a lot of fun and the community is amazing.  Everyone is so supportive and encouraging, we receive great coaching, and the workouts vary so much.  We're both getting much stronger!!
We plan on putting the house on the market come fall, so SML is doing small projects around the house to get it in great condition.

I was offered and will start full-time weekends at work in August; the same week that SML starts her job!  I can't wait...only 2 nights per week, on the weekends, and I maintain full-time benefits.  My life will be more balanced soon.

As for the adoption journey, we continue to receive about 2 contacts per month with no follow through.  We had 11 letters go out in April and 11 in May. 
We acutally received a packet in the mail from our adoption agency stating they're sorry for the longer than normal wait, now that we are at 18 months and counting...
They offered to look at our birthparent letter and websites to improve them, however, we are going to decline the offer.  We know that we are attractive to birthmoms; we just want follow through.  We don't want to spend more money on redoing the letter.
We are again, renewing documents.  We just got our county criminal background check completed and will get fingerprinted and have annual physicals within the next month or two. 

We still don't find waiting easy, but this experience has taught us one thing...not to plan for the unknown. 

Please keep us in your thoughts and pass along our information to anyone that you think could benefit from it or pass it along, too.

Better late than never...

Sorry it's been awhile, but we've had a lot going on, both in our adoption and personal worlds.

First we want to show you the finished products of our reupholstered couch and new ottoman - we LOVE them!

We feel like we have a new living room. :)

We have been busy getting SML through her last semester of nursing school.  She's on the home stretch now and only has two finals between her and graduation!
I've been really busy at work and trying to balance home life for SML.

With a busy schedule, we've been receiving on average 2 contacts from birthmoms per month.  Some have been scams, of which we only invested about 24 hours into two of them, and all have lead to nothing.  The other contacts have been legit birthmothers that ended communication with us or decided to parent.  We feel like we have been playing a dating game and each result is "it's not you, it's me."

So needless to say we have been emotionally drained and exhausted from being "on" every time we receive a phone call or email.  We needed to take a break from anything that wasn't essential for us to live, hence the break in updates.

We feel like we are starting to get back on our feet, but are still waiting.  We have stopped our Facebook ad, increased our monthly contribution to our google ad, and increased our advertising with Adoptimist.  Adoptimist has actually been a good lead in some of our contacts and displays banner ads online for us, like this:


Our letter count has been pretty consistent; we had letters 8 go out in January, 8 in February, and 10 in March.

We are trying not to focus so much on adoption, since it's been 16 months, and planning things we want to do.  We joined a crossfit gym and will start that in May! We are excited to have a workout routine again and finally be able to get in the shape we once were.  Running has been fun, but we need to add to it.  We just completed a zombie mud run, which was a blast! Check out our pics on our Facebook adoption page.
We are going to go see Jillian Michaels this week...which SML is very excited about!  Since she is on SML's "list," I hope we don't get too close to her...otherwise I'll have to find another ride home.  We bought tickets to see the Lumineers in June.  And the day after SML finishes her exams, we are going to stay at a b&b that we enjoy at Sunset Beach for a couple of nights!

So, stay tuned...we don't have to put our life on hold anymore. :)

Increasing our advertising

Sorry, this is a little late; we don't have a reason for not posting.  We honestly have just been enjoying time together and preparing SML for her LAST semester of nursing school.  We've spent a lot of time in front of the tv, but in our "old people" recliners.  We're having our couch recovered.  Man, do we miss it!  I think Avs does as well...she doesn't have any good napping spots downstairs.  :)  So, at times it looks like a bachelor pad in our living room or depending on how much stuff has accumulated around the chairs, it looks like an older couple lives here.

We had 8 letters go out to birthparents in December and were favorited by one.  That's better than October and November.  We've had a couple contacts, but nothing serious. 
One was a scam, but she only stole 24 hours of our life and we nipped that in the butt quickly.
The other was a contact that we didn't feel comfortable with.  She had a 6 month old baby that she had only been taking care of for 2 months.  He was an ex-26 weeker preemie and seemed to have a stable hospital stay, but doesn't sound to be thriving/growing well and may have neurological issues.  Without a developmental study, we aren't sure, but he's only 10 pounds, sleeps ALL of the time, and can't tolerate being unswaddled at all. 

So, with nothing serious happening at 14 months on the books (but who's counting), we decided to increase our advertising.  We are paying almost double for our facebook and google ads.  We also joined another online networking/advertising adoption page called Adoptimist.  We hope to gain more attraction from legit birthparents and find our birthmom.

We'll post pics soon of our new living room do. :)

Mostly more of the same

We recieved our monthly update...only 5 letters out to birthmoms in November.  We were also favorited by a birthmother.

Along with the lower count of letters going out, our webpage has seen less visitors too.  We aren't too surprised though, since we are in the holiday season now.

It's been a year on the books now.  We are not where we though we'd be a year ago, but we are trying to trust the process.  We had lunch at the beginning of the month with a couple who worked with IAC and brought home their son last December.  It was nice to compare stories of the process and know that we aren't the only ones who have had multiple contacts/prospects without any closure yet.  It took them 18 months until they brought home their adorable son.  So, we try to stay hopeful and keep finding ways to put ourselves out there for birthmoms.

We've had some fun though this month welcoming our new nephew, Hunter, into the family. 

 

Happy Solstice!  Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!



Ups and downs

It's almost Thanksgiving; 11 months on the books.  We are still waiting.  We are not in the place where we thought we would be a year ago. 

Maybe we were too optimistic.  Too arrogant.  Too hopeful.

We've had less activity on our website.  The decrease in interest was apparent with our October stats - we only had 4 letters go out.  :(  We definitely saw less repeat visitors too.

We put together packets of our birth mother letter, IAC pamphlet, and cover letter to OB/GYN offices in NC, SC, and GA.  I'll be sending those out soon.


On a more positive note, things have happened for the better.  SML accepted a job offer on the unit she really wanted!  Come August 2013 she'll have graduated RN school, passed the boards, and will be starting her nursing career.
I have had the opportunity to rack up more PDO/PTO time at work.  Starting Jan. 1, 2013, coworkers can donate their PDO/PTO time again, which is fantastic news since I only have ~7 weeks saved.  It's amazing how you can save for over a year and still not have enough paid time off.  So, hopefully when future baby comes (probably in 2013), coworkers can gift me PDO/PTO time instead of baby gifts :)
Also, I will receive another bonus next month!

SML and I have had a great time just spending time together.  We finally purchased a game we've wanted and have played it over and over for the last few nights.

 

 

It's called Ticket to Ride.  A fun strategy game that we played last year with my dad & step mom.  We need to get the expansion set to add more routes and ways to play!  We're obsessed.  SML is especially loving it since she's kicking my butt.

 



New traffic

We had our record of 13 letters go out in September to birth moms!  Along with our record, we seem to have had a shift in traffic viewing us...lots of new visits with limited repeats.  So, we take this as good news that we have more exposure, but sad in that repeat visitors who were eyeing us may have moved on.

We expanded our networking a little more and now have a facebook adoption ad.  This is very similar to our google ad, but it is only published on facebook and takes birth parents directly to our facebook page.  They can still access our main adoption webpage, but they can see more of our day to day life on facebook.

We just returned from our annual wine trip to VA and per usual, it was fantastic!!  We hit the color change perfectly this year and had magazine quality surroundings.  Pictures to follow. :)  We revisited some of our favorite vineyards and found a couple more that we'll have to add to the repeat list for next year.
We just LOVE fall!

We will have an annual homestudy update this week, so in preparation for that, we've updated our federal fingerprints, criminal background checks, physicals, and driving records.  So silly.  A social worker will visit our home again to verify that all is as it should be...smoke detectors in place and working, fire extinguisher in kitchen, and a room for the baby.  Only if every couple had to be evaluated...

Short and sweet

August was a little bit of a different month for us.  This month was the first full one with having our google ad live and having a more open profile. 

We had 10 letters go out this month to birthmoms, which is pretty high again. :)

We've noticed more traffic to our website; some of which is coming through our google ad. 

So, birthparents are looking at us, with repeat visits as well.  We just wait for a phone call or email.

Contacts, but nothing serious

So, we've had two contacts within a week, but neither one is a reality.

We were called by TM Sunday afternoon and at first things were going okay.  Then she started saying things that I wouldn't think a birthmom would be thinking about initially, such as wanting to deliver away from home, stating that she does not need financial support, and specifics of her pregnancy.  She was very needy the rest of the day and constantly texted and emailed us.  We received a photo of her "belly."  She sent pictures of her and dad.  She also wanted us to go to Walmart and pick up a photo order, which ironically was not there that evening.

We skyped that first night, which was odd, since she was laying in bed and watching TV at the same time.  She told us that she came out to her family this past January, but had to text that piece of info to us while on skype.  But, if so, how did the baby come after knowing she was gay?

The next day, TM called us upset after trying to talk to a counselor at IAC, who supposedly was rude.  After finding another counselor to talk with her, she still wasn't content.  We also learned that at the time of conception she was legally married (to a homosexual man) to allow her to live off of military base with her girlfriend.  Things were just too coincidental and felt like they didn't add up.

We talked to our counselor about everything and determined that she was more than likely an emotional scam - regardless of being pregnant, wanting someone to be a best friend, someone to sympathize with her, someone to support her.  We felt that TM "being gay" was a way for her to relate to us.  We put up some boundaries for contacting us and after that, never heard back from her.

That same week, on Saturday, we had another birthmom, AF, contact us.  She was looking for someone to adopt her nine month old son.  We had little conversations via email with her and learned that she initially was looking for someone to adopt her son at birth, but it fell through.  Her Aunt became the guardian and caretaker for the boy while AF retained legal rights.  AF doesn't feel that she can provide for her son, already taking care of her 2 yr old daughter, and wants him to have a better home than with his aunt.  Supposedly the aunt is denying some visits and enforcing religion that AF doesn't agree with.  AF expressed concern wtih her son not being taken care of properly.

After talking and thinking for a few days, we decided that we are not at a position in our life where we can bring a nine month old into our home properly.  It'll take transition time, at least a dedicated three months off from work, and even though he will have a developmental and physical exam done, we don't know what sort of delays and issues he may have.  We know that there's another family that can properly give him 110%.

We are still having lots of visits to our website and continue to wait.

An increase in activity

After a week of very low activity to our website at the end of July, I looked into advertising ourselves more and improving our networking.  Other than tweeting, which we don't do, we are networking great.  However, we don't really have ourselves advertised that well.  I looked into the classifieds and found that no one really does that, or even looks at them too often.  I looked into more websites that will post our profile, but if they were free, they didn't offer much and the prices quickly jumped up for the same services we are already receiving via our agency.  Then I came across google adwords.  I still don't understand the whole process, but I managed to create an online ad that will populate based on certain keyword searches and the cost to get ourselves on the page.  So, for about $2/day, we are advertising ourselves on google search pages with a link to our website. :)

Since then, we have easily tripled our website visits...more exposure!  I don't believe that all visits are legit, but the more who know, the more opportunities for others to learn about us and open adoption.

As for July, we had 9 letters go out to birthmoms!!!  That's our record so far.  There were also a good number of birthmother intakes at our agency.  Supposedly they see this activity in July and August and then peak in September and October.

Fingers crossed!