The classes...

Our classes are complete! Well technically they've been done since the first part of February but I haven't been so great about keeping things updated. :)

The first class was an introduction to the process and after being there for a bit we soon began to realize that the majority of the night would be focused on foster parenting. After a brief show of hands, it seemed the majority of people there were interested in adoption but the direction of the introduction (and future classes) would be foster parenting. We were hoping for a little more focus on adoption (or at least a little more balance between the two) but it seems their biggest need is foster parents and so that's where they direct the information.

The first class included a panel of folks who came from different perspectives of the adoption/foster process. There was a married couple with biological children of their own who have been foster parents for a number of years. There was an older widow with her own grown children who had worked in the area of child welfare for many years and was a foster mom. And there was a young family who had a biological son, had adopted a son and were now foster parents primarily for infants in the system. The panel was lead by a DHS worker who asked them questions like what kinds of kids they took in, how they got started, why they are foster/adoptive parents, what their relationships with their case workers were like, how had their view of the system changed as time went on, etc. It was interesting but we only got brief glimpses into the adoption process which again, is what we were there for. Jen was glad she'd brought her notebook because there was much note passing and doodling to be done! :)

The subsequent classes were equally as long and as focused on foster parenting. Each session was taught by a different DHS professional as their experience related to the topic at hand. They dealt with therapy, abuse in its many forms, settling kids into the foster/adoptive parent home environment, domestic violence, and how to respect and honor the unique heritages and backgrounds of the kids who are placed in your home. They talked about emotional ages vs. physical ages of kids and how to deal with behavior and emotional issues. Jen having a degree in Health Promotion and a background working with kids and with my degree in Women's Studies, most of the material was pretty familiar and things we'd seen from one class or the other. We knew what the expect but it doesn't make the material and real life situations we heard about easier to swallow.

Honestly, the hardest thing to deal with in the classes were the other people there. It was actually kind of frightening that some of them wanted to be foster or adoptive parents. They didn't understand the most common sense ideas, asked unbelievable questions, and didn't pay attention. One woman in particular consistently asked questions that had literally just been answered or on information that had just been addressed. It got to the point where the minute she raised her hand, heads all over the room went back and you could sometimes hear quiet groans of exasperation from the other people in the class. Even the instructors seemed frustrated by her! It was a wonder some of the people there managed to get themselves to class, let alone be responsible for another human being! Maybe that's one of the things the background process weeds out...

Our last class we got our packet...the thing we'd been most wanting since we walked in the door the first night! Not that we were looking forward to the pages and pages and pages of personal information required of us in triplicate but we were excited! Being handed that packet felt like we were finally on our way to being parents. One more step in the adventure. :)

Now we're working on getting all the information together and just waiting. We have to wait to be paired up with a case worker and have a home visit scheduled. We've been told it can take a while to get the home visit scheduled because of how busy the case workers are. In the mean time, we're working on all the things required to make our home okay and safe. We don't have a lot of patience but we're doing the best we can. :) We know there are reasons for the processes and that it will be worth the wait!

first class!

Tonight is our first adoption class! It's just an orientation and starting Thursday, the heavy topics begin. We're excited and nervous and are so ready to get started. Jen has her notebook already out and ready to take notes (or doodle if she can't focus anymore, hee hee!). I have all of our paperwork together in a binder for easy access. Yes, we're dorks, but we're prepared dorks. ;)

Another update after class!

a new direction...

Thanks everyone for the sharing of personal stories and kind words after my last post! It means so much to Jen and I that we have so many people that love and care about us…and have faith in our parenting abilities! ;) We know what is meant to be will be and we’re excited about the new direction this adventure is taking us.

After being consistently disappointed we decided to sit back and regroup. We talked a lot about what we were hoping for and what it came down to for us is that we just want to be parents. We want to provide a good, loving home for a child and build a family. We both realized that for us, that doesn’t necessarily mean being a parent to an infant or a child that is biologically ours. So we started to look into adoption.

The research that we’ve done shows that most if not all countries outside of the US won’t adopt to gay and lesbian couples. While annoying, we had hoped for a child a little closer to home so we were fine to let that option go.

We spoke with some friends who had gone through a private open adoption about what that really means and how much contact they had with the birth parents. We talked with them about the pros and the cons and what the reality of an open adoption was from their perspective. They were amazingly helpful and it was nice to speak with someone who had been in our shoes and could shed light on a possible direction. I was much more comfortable with the idea of an open adoption than Jen even though neither of us really liked the idea of how “open” could have many interpretations or the feeling that we had to check in with the birth parents. Even so, we decided to look into some private agencies. We found one that we really liked that has a good reputation and a high percentage of placement with gay and lesbian couples. If any of you are familiar with Dan Savage (author, relationship advice columnist, and creator of the “It Get’s Better” Project) he and his partner went through this agency when they adopted their son. We were impressed with what we saw and so we called to sign up for the orientation/information session they hold. There we learned that the entire process with their agency costs $25,000. This doesn’t take away from the wonderful work they do and we know they have to pay their bills somehow, but it took the wind out of our sails so to speak. That combined with the fact that we weren’t incredibly sold on an open adoption, we decided to hold off on starting the process with their organization.

In doing research, I had seen a series of children's photos at a local bookstore that was organized by a group called The Oregon Heart Gallery. It was part of a larger Heart Gallery group that paired children in foster care with professional photographers in order to create little online scrapbooks about the children who were hoping to be adopted. http://www.oregonheartgallery.org/gallery The idea is people can see the photos and inquire about the children shown or adoption in general. I’d been talking about the website and had forwarded Jen the link so she could see.

In the midst of all this, one night when we were relaxing after dinner, Jen told me about a dream that she’d been having over the last couple of nights. She and I enter a house where there is a woman waiting for us. There is a little boy playing with some puzzles in the living room and Jen asks the woman if it’s alright for her to go play with him. She nods yes and Jen heads over while I speak with the woman. She sits down on the floor next to the boy and asks his name. “What do you want to call me?” is his response. She jokingly says, “I’ll call youuuuu…Monkey!” He giggles and says “Ok, I’ll call you Tiger!”. They work on his puzzle together and after a while the little boy climbs into her lap, snuggles into her and they continue to play. Jen looks over at me, gives the thumbs up sign and I nod yes. She and the boy get up and head towards me. The woman says we’re fine to leave and the little boy takes my hand and says “Come on, Moose!” The three of us leave together holding hands and smiling. It was the same dream every night. She said that she had seen the same little boy in other dreams, but didn’t recognize him as “ours” until then.

After the dreams she remembered the link I’d sent her and decided to check it out. I got a message from her with just a number and the link. The child she had been seeing in her dreams was on the site. The little boy who was “ours” was there. His description said his favorite activity was playing with puzzles and he liked to snuggle by crawling into your lap. It was that day that we decided to go through the Department of Human Services to find our child. We filled out the online request for information and listed this little boy’s information specifically. We knew that there was a chance given the length of the process that we wouldn’t end up with this little guy but more than anything Jen’s dream, our conversations about what parenthood meant to us, seeing all the images of the wonderful kids that need homes through The Oregon Heart Gallery, confirmed for us that this was the route we were meant to take.

Since that day we have been paired up with a local case worker who has sent us all of the information about the process and we’re signed up for the training classes that start next week. The first is an orientation and then each class will be focused on the special needs of the children available for adoption. We’re nervous but SO excited to get started!

And for those of you who are wondering, we’re not giving up on having a child of our own. Everyone says, relax and it will happen, so that’s what we’re trying to do. :) We’re working on getting my body in order and taking things as they come. In our early conversations about having children, we’d always said one of our own and then adopt. So we’re just reversing things and starting to see that our prayers are being answered, just not in the order we originally planned. :)

the beginning...

There are a lot of emotions that go into deciding to become a parent. At least there were for Jen and I. Excitement, anticipation, nervousness. We never thought disappointment, frustration, and sadness would be included in that list. For those of you that know us well, know that we met and settled into life together fairly quickly. Legally domestic partnerized two months after we met, married in front of friends and family on our one year anniversary. We give a lot of thought to our major life decisions even if those decisions happen quickly. :) So when the conversations started about trying to have kids, true to our past, we decided right away that we wanted to start a family. We did our research, found a donor and made an appointment with our doctor. We were eager to get started with the process and were hopeful that like everything else in our life together, things would happen quickly and just the way we wanted them to. Our doctor recommended I start taking my temperature in order to track ovulation and determine when the best time to try would be. We started our journey in April and right away it was obvious my body wasn't in our plan to start a family right away. We knew that it would be expensive and our concern had been that we would run out of money for the required samples. Neither one of us thought it would be my body and lack of ovulation that would be the obstacle between us and parenthood.

A few months later, in late August, I took my temperature as normal and didn't see any kind of spike, which would be an indicator that I would soon be ovulating. Hoping that if the spike didn't occur but that maybe I would still be ovulating, Jen and I bought a month supply of ovulation predictor kits and decided to test every day. The morning of August 21st I was going about my routine as normal...shower, brush teeth, pee on a stick. :) The difference was this time, there were two lines. Finally! An indicator that I would be ovulating! An indicator that we could try! I ran into our room, scared the crap out of Jen by waking her up and made her look. I wanted to make sure I was actually seeing two lines! She confirmed it and we both squealed and hugged each other...so excited we were going to get a chance! I made an appointment for the next day and we walked around with perma-grins for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day we woke up more excited than we have ever been! It was the day! We were making a step towards being parents and we couldn't wait. It was a Saturday and even though the medical offices were closed, the nurse midwife on call was going to be meeting us. It felt so right. The office was quiet and it was just us. The midwife gave us time together before hand, answered all of our questions and let Jen help in the process. She was great and we left feeling so excited! I took the remainder of the day to rest and we started the wait to see if things worked, sure that they had...so positive! Jen read to my belly every night, we started picking out the things we wanted for the babies room, and narrowing down names. We just knew it was going to work and we were going to be one of those couples that got pregnant the first time. And then my period came. And we were devastated. We cried and felt sad for ourselves. Stung each time we heard of another friend who was pregnant. Not really sure what to do when things didn't go just as we planned.

It's now January and we haven't had the chance to try again. My body just won't cooperate. We have a sample all lined up, just waiting. And we're not good at waiting. Patience is not a virtue that really exists in this house.