Milk Sharing

I haven't written a lot about this topic, not because I haven't wanted to, but mainly because I keep forgetting to share this part of our story. So, this lovely article in our local newspaper about our story (and another family) has prompted me to share with you.

Click here to read the story:
Our Milk Sharing Story

Before Lilleth was born we knew that we wanted to give her the best start to life - breastmilk. I could have tried to figure out how to make my body start lactating, without a promise of success or possibly not producing even 1/2 of the amount of food she would need. Instead, I went with finding breastmilk donors, which has proven to be one of the best things we have done for Lilleth.

After a lot of research and some great advice by a friend (that has been both a donor and recipient) we were convinced this was an excellent choice for our family. We found donors in so many different ways, everything from a website www.milkshare.com to facebook (yes facebook!). We also found donors through local midwives and friends.

What an amazing gift all of our donors have given our family! We can't be anymore thankful to the incredible women that have given all of the liquid gold to us and Lilleth. With the help of many women, we have been able to feed L breastmilk until she was 4 and 1/2 months old and are still giving her it whenever we can get our hands on it.

What an incredible adventure we are on!

An Update

Yes we are still waiting, no news on the baby girl, but some great news on some adoption assistance we applied for a few months ago. Our application to Pathways for Little Feet was approved and we were awarded a $5,000 interest free loan to help with our adoption costs. Very exciting - thank goodness for all those years of grant writing!

Check out their website and help spread the word about this great organization to potential donors and to adoptive parents.

It has been an emotional week. A close member of my family passed away unexpectedly. He was my dad's best friend, my second dad, a wonderful husband, an amazing dad and the best papa. While the anticipation of the baby's arrival is heavy on our minds, so is Chuck and his family. Because of the birth being any day now, we are unable to fly back to WI - it doesn't feel right.

Many of you who read my blog may not know Chuck and his family, but if you all could send some positive thoughts and energy to them I would be grateful. Thank you.

Latest (Completed) Projects

The "babe" will soon have clothes! Thank you Sarah C. for the adorable book, can't wait to make more!

The owl is soft and fuzzy!

A new adorable pattern for making my own little shoes!

Felted teething rings!

A striped elephant friend!

Bathroom Remodel--98% done--Plus More!!

I realized that we never posted pictures of our 98% done bathroom remodel! The only thing we have left to do is finish the baseboards...so 98% done...let's hope that last 2% will be done soon!

In addition to completing the bathroom remodel we have gotten a lot accomplished, including some fun!

We just finished the last of our paperwork for the agency...our service plan which turned out to be 14 pages long was turned in and approved the agency. I guess that means we passed the long take home test. Our service plan required us to read a bunch of books, take some classes, and talk with friends and family about our adoption.

We also have been busy preserving the harvest (and making baby food)! A few weeks ago we processed the following: 20 pounds of pears, 16 pounds of plums, 11 pounds of blueberries, 25 pounds of peaches, made 20 quarts of dilly beans and pickles and are now preparing for a last process of tomatoes (we are aiming to can around 40 quarts). I think just maybe we will have food for the winter!

My birthday weekend was a blast too! We went to the coast and spent three lovely days enjoying the sun, watching whales and having some quiet time before the little lady arrives. Here are some pics of the aquarium...




























It has been a busy last few weeks! We can't wait for the little lady to arrive...only three more weeks!! Off to our shower!

Nesting - Not just for hormones

There is a widely known phenomena that happens when pregnant couples (usually around 8 months) feverishly start "nesting," you know, weeding the garden bare, cleaning every nook and cranny in the house, paint rooms, yada yada yada, you get the point.

Most people attribute this "nesting" phase to hormones...well I am pleased to announce that is just hogwash. Nesting has hit our house in full force.

As I write this, David is trying to get the windows back into the back porch after resealing the glass into the frames, adding extra insulation and soon to be repainted to look all spiffy (or so we think). In addition to our "backporch rennovation" this weekend we decided to redo our bathroom and have already removed the tile and bought more materials than I can even list. This is where you insert your "what the ...."

Yes, as I said, nesting has hit our house as a strong as a gale wind.

We have had houseguests for a few weeks, which has somewhat suppressed our desires to create construction zones, but this weekend we woke up, houseguests were gone and realized that we have just 5 weeks to pull off all of our "before the baby comes" - which is a pretty long list and I am fairly positive we won't accomplish even half of the tasks.

Just 5 weeks, wow, October has really crept up on us.

I also realized that I never updated you all about our last trip to WA to see momma A. It was great. We didn't have the awkward first moments to deal with and we really got to spend some time talking, shopping, eating and seeing a movie - it was fun and relaxing. We are thrilled to have so much time to build a relationship with momma A before the baby comes, I really wouldn't want it any other way.

One of our friends here in Eugene is hoping to plan a shower for us, so stay tuned if you are in the area for your invitation.

Gotta get back to the bathroom remodel, building toys, knitting clothes, making curtains, sewing blankets, and oh yeah sleeping, working, eating....

Projects

Here are a few sneak peeks of some of my latest creations for the little one. More pics to come, almost finished with the crib bedding and a couple of new sweaters! Enjoy.

This sweater was actually for a friend's new baby, but it is so cute I had to share!

Little miss eggplant. I just finished a pumpkin hat for another friend's newborn.

My speciality - baby booties!

This sweater is by far my favorite piece...as of yet. It is 100% cotton and just so dang cute.

Honoring the Past

One of the things our service plan requires us to think about and prepare for is how we are going to honor the child's past. One of the ways we are going to do this is to talk with her about where she came from and about her birth family. In addition to talking about the birth family, we are fortunate enough that we have built a strong relationship with the birth mom and the birth mom's grandmother. This will help us to ensure she has a strong sense of herself.

Another way we are already honoring her past is celebrating the awesome gift her birth mom is giving to her...her name. We are excited to be a part in the naming process and think that the gift of her name from her birth mom is such an important gift and way she will always know how much she is loved. We are waiting to announce it until she arrives, but we know you will love it just as much as we do!

Part of honoring the past is taking the opportunities to talk about her birth family when we can. It is important for us (and all of you that will meet her someday) to have these conversations and not shy away from them. Being open and honest is the best way to support her while she is growing up and discovering her sense of self. She is going to go through those stages with or without us, so we prefer it to be with us!

We need to not worry about being rejected as her parents. One of the books we read in our preparation (Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge) talks a lot about this fear and how it is just that, a fear. The author points out that in actuality, adoptees feel completely committed and connected to their adoptive families.

Honoring the little girl's past is going to be a lifelong journey as all parenting is, it is just going to be a journey that our family takes.

Preparation

We have been busy. By busy I mean canning strawberry jam, blueberry jam, raspberry jam, strawberry rhubarb jam, rhubarb chutney and freezing blueberries and strawberries. For those of you who know David and I, this is our courting history! Yes we are food and garden geeks, but who can blame us? We already have so much good food preserved for the winter it is fabulous and with another little mouth to feed, we will have lots of healthy, organic fruits and veggies to feed her!

Speaking of adoption, we have also been consumed with doing our homework. Our agency requires us to complete a "service plan" before we bring our child home. The service plan includes everything from reading adoption books, attachment parenting books, educating ourselves and our family and friends on positive adoption language, take a parenting class, get life insurance, write a will, and so on and so on. It is a lot, but so far it has all been really helpful in getting our life in order to bring home a baby.

We are also planning a trip for next week to visit with momma A in Washington. She and I have been exchanging texts and sharing funny pictures with each other. I am really looking forward to hanging out with her again.

Finally, I have been up to my ears in crafts - collages, knitting, sewing, scrapbooking and so much more. I will share pictures soon. Thanks all for coming along with us on this adventure. Here is one picture of the nursery that I just had to share!

P.S. Have you seen how close we are to reaching our $5,000 goal?! Very exciting. We can't thank you all enough for your donations and support!

Positive Adoption Language

The way we talk about adoption, including the words we choose, are extremely important. During our adoption class we learned about positive adoption words and we wanted to share them with all of you.

Positive Language	Negative Language
Birthparent	Real parent
Biological parent	Natural parent
Birth child	Own Child
My child	Adopted child
Born to unmarried parents	Illegitimate
Terminate parental rights	Give up
Make an adoption plan	Give away
To parent	Adoptable child
Making contact with	Reunion
Parent	Adoptive parent
Permission to sign a release	Disclosure
Search	Track down parents
Child placed for adoption	Unwanted child
Court termination	Child taken away
Was adopted	Is adopted

Positive language is so important for setting the stage for everyone, including children, parents, relatives, etc. This is just a short list of positive words to choose when talking with anyone about adoption.

10 Is My Lucky Number

10 is really, no seriously, one of my lucky numbers, I am not just making it up. Okay, since that is off my chest, October 10, 2010 (10-10-10) we will be parents - unless of course the little one comes early or late. By the way the "little one" is a she.

Yesterday was intense, amazing and so surreal. We drove up to Washington and met with momma A (which I will fondly call the birth mom from here on out). She is a strong and wonderful woman who has a beautiful soul. Yes, I was that moved by the experience and introductions. We already feel so blessed to have her in our lives and our family.

Our meeting was scheduled to be a lunch meeting, a couple of hours of getting to know each other, however, we didn't leave Washington until 8 pm! We just kept talking, laughing, smiling and genuinely enjoying each others company. As we were driving away, momma A and I traded texts and smiley icons. Already we are planning our next trip to Washington to spend more time before the baby girl arrives.

Honestly, the few moments before the meeting were extremely nerve racking...would she like us? Would we be cool enough for her? Would she like the gift we brought? Should we hug her or shake her hand? Plus hundreds of other questions that went through our heads. While the first few moments were understandably awkward, we all got through them, together and spent 8 hours ignoring the first few awkward moments and establishing a really strong relationship.

Together - this is the key word for the rest of our lives. By the end of the day we ate lunch together, walked in the park together, drank coffee together, laughed at a squirrel together, combed through antique and thrift stores together, ate dinner together, smelled roses together, took pictures together and had an unbelievable first meeting together.

The day ended with momma A sharing something so special with us - she left us with the ultrasound pics of her baby. She knew they would be as important and special to us as they are to her. I am in awe of momma A.

P.S. Garage Sale update. The Adoption Benefit Garage Sale in Eugene, OR is THIS WEEKEND! More than 12 families have donated great items for the sale and you don't want to miss it! Stop by if you are in the neighborhood. In addition, garage sale in the Twin Cities location is happening this weekend! Email me if you want more details about that one.

We Love Garage Sales and Craigslist

And the waiting period officially begins...

I know, I know, I have mentioned the waiting period as if we were "really" in the waiting pool, but I swear now we are officially waiting. Hurry and wait - that has been our motto and our life lately. Now that the paperwork is turned in, our family book is complete and sitting on agency coffee tables and baby gear is being collected from garage sales and craigslist - we have an opportunity to be carefree and revel in spending time with each other and our lovely pup, Ursa. The calm before the storm as the saying goes.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we just got back from an adoption class weekend. I could tell you all about how amazing it was, the incredible stories we heard, the extremely useful advice we received, the inspiring people we met, how much the class confirmed our commitment and excitement for this journey and so much more, but instead I am going to share some powerful words with you that I think reflect some of the important lessons we learned last weekend.

Adopted Children's Rights
From Making Sense of Adoption by Lois Melina

1. Children have the right to know who they are and how they joined their families, and how to grow up knowing the truth.

2. Children have the right to freely ask questions and express their feelings about being adopted.

3. Children have the right to a positive attitude about their birth parents.

4. Children have the right to be accepted as individuals with a unique genetic heritage.

5. Children have the right to be recognized by society as full and equal members of their adoptive families.

6. Information about our children's origin is private and belongs to them. They have the right to choose to share certain information.

7. Transracially adopted children have a right to a positive sense of racial or ethnic identity.

These are important rules to live by and David and I are committed to them as I hope you are too.

Now off to get some more weeding done in our garden before the sun goes down. I love summer.

A new look

Hello out there in blogger world. It has been a long time and now we have a new look, but don't you worry it is still about the same great adoption. Things have been fairly quiet in our adoption world, which we are very grateful for. We finished our interviews for the homestudy and it has been turned in to the agency. The next big milestone is our class which is coming up in two weeks.

There has been a lot of talk about the class and we are really looking forward to it. First, we will meet other prospective adoptive parents in our area. It has been amazing connecting with all of the bloggers out there. We love being part of a community even though we don't see you face to face (just screen to screen)! It will be equally amazing to meet some folks in person at our class.

In addition to meeting new folks, we also are looking forward to hearing the panels...adoptive parents, adopted children, adopted children from a transracial adoption, the list goes on. Hearing the stories will be amazing. We also are reading books that are required by our agency. Here is our reading list:

Making Room in our Hearts by Micky Duxbury

Inside Transracial Adoption by Gail Steinberg and Beth Hall

20 Things Adopted Children Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge

Family of Adoption by Joyce Pavao Maguire

All great books!

We have been enjoying sunshine and dry summer weather here in Oregon and haven't had much time inside. Our vegetable and flower beds are producing copious amounts of food and beauty and we just couldn't be happier right now.

Must run outside and pull more weeds before the sun goes down. Pictures of new crafts soon!

We are in...let the crafts begin!

Yesterday we had our final interview with the social worker and officially got the approval that we are now done with the home study! Great news and so relieving that that part is over. We already finished our family book as you all have seen, so we are just that many steps ahead. Things are moving fast and now we are just busying ourselves to get ready for our garage sale in July to raise some money.

One other thing that has officially begun is my craft season preparing and nesting. Check out the pics below of some of my beginning projects...

Here is the diaper bag made from an old skirt and two retired curtains






Here is the bird mobile for the baby's room...





Here are the collages ready for framing...





More crafts and pictures to come. I will just say this...my knitting is out of control!

Exhaling...

All together now...exhale...thanks, we needed that.

So the home visit took place on Saturday and go figure, it went great! Alexis came to our house and we spent six hours chatting. The interview was really wonderful - both of us had a chance to talk about our childhood, high school and college experiences, and our relationship with each other. It was a lot. Beyond just talking about ourselves, we also talked a lot about what it means to adopt, be a part of an open adoption and possibly a transracial adoption. Alexis even threw us a few curve ball questions for us to think about how we would react. We really appreciated the fact that she is an adopted child and had a lot of insight for us and is an excellent resource for our hundreds of questions. All in all, she is great and we feel lucky to have her helping us through this process.

We feel quite exhausted after this weekend - not only because it was a long day on Saturday but really because of the way we built the home visit up in our heads. We were nervous, not about "passing" the visit, but rather about how close we are really getting to the end of this 'hurry up and wait period.' It has been paperwork, fingerprints, family book making, etc up until now...now we need to talk about our motivation to adopt and our pasts...now we actually are reflecting and not just doing. It is exhausting to reflect and process.

We also had a lot of anticipation for what this home visit would be like. Of course we googled and checked out every blog out there to skim other experiences, but in the end still had no idea what it would be like for us. To our surprise the meeting was pretty uneventful and non-climatic. It was just a talk, nothing more, and quite easy. Of course for the rest of the evening I replayed every moment of the meeting in my head (and out loud to David) wondering if we impressed upon Alexis how much this meant to us and how great of parents we would be...thank goodness David is so patient! But as I said above, the visit was great and we feel good.

We have a final follow up meeting with Alexis in two weeks where we will see a draft of her write up and answer any final questions she may have. I look forward to seeing her final product! Then we have our class in June and we are officially in the pool. Can't wait to dive in.

Stay tuned...

Lots to Update

We haven't updated the blog in a while - we have been busy. First, we have finally finished our family book and are ready to share it with the world! You can find the final version here. We spent days locating appropriate pictures and finding the right words and we are so happy with the final product - 15 copies are on their way to our agency for showing to birthparents! Thanks to Kathy and Josh for helping us put the final touches on the book!

Whew! Glad that hurdle has been jumped.

We also found out (finally) that David's background check has been cleared. So really the only thing we are waiting on is my medical form. My appointment is next week, so we can basically check that off.

Some more exciting news is that we are scheduled to have our homestudy interview completed this Saturday! The social worker called us yesterday and set up our 5 hour (yes, 5 hours) visit for this weekend. We are busy cleaning and trying not to be nervous.

Thanks again, can't wait to update you all after we have the homestudy interview complete!

Moving on up...

So we finished the darn family book...finally! We ordered our first copy a few days ago and are waiting to see the copy before we order all of the others for the agency to start showing families. They already have a brief letter and a few pictures of us that they printed out to show a birth mom, but now we will soon have a real family book. It feels good to have that done.

When thinking about all of the things that we had to do for the adoption (so far at least) the family book really didn't rise to the top as something that I thought would be so hard, boy was I wrong. Trying to encapsulate your life in 20 pages or less, mostly pictures, is really hard. Especially if you are trying to find pictures that make you look like you will be a good parent. I can tell you that all of the pictures I have taken over the years, not once did I ever think, "hmm, will this picture be good for my family book? Do I look like I would be a good parent?" It was hard, but I must say, the book is one fine album and I am quite happy with it. Once we approve it, I will share a link to the online version (in Shutterfly). However, I will warn you, when I do share it with you, they will all be printed and handed out, so if you notice something funny...don't mention it!

In other paperwork, my background and criminal history are all cleared (whew...) and David passed his medical physical (whew again).

1st Draft of Portfolio = DONE!

So we stayed up way too long last night working on our portfolio and trying to get our first draft to our agency - but we did it! For those of you not yet in touch with adoption lingo, our portfolio is essentially a family album, filled with pictures and stories about us, our lifestyle, our family, our friends, etc.

As a serious crafter I might even say it was fun to put together. Even above the crafting part, it was great fun to look at a bunch of our pictures and remember all of those great times. However, with that said, I also have to complain a little at how hard it was to find pictures of David and I together, without our sunglasses and not making funny faces! Who knew that would be the most difficult part of making the book.

Anyways, the draft link to the book has been sent and we are now so much closer to being officially in the waiting pool, even though we are practically their right now.

Our trip to MT was wonderful. Three of my close friends that I spent time with are either new moms or currently pregnant. It was a lot of fun to swap stories and experiences, we all had a lot to share! In addition to the story swaps, there was some generous hand me downs handed to me for the little one (we really need to come up with a better name than this, I know). Such cute stuff...pics to come soon of my favorite little clothes. My favorite part about the hand me downs is that when we dress the little one up in these clothes I will be also thinking about the ones who gave them to me.

Must get going on my day of work.

Fast Track

So last Thursday our agency called me and asked if we would be okay with quickly (i.e. doing Thursday evening) putting together a profile with a dear expectant parent letter and pictures. They wanted to show a birth mom our profile...huh? We haven't even turned in our contract?!

Apparently since we are from Oregon and completely open to race this birth mom was looking for folks like us. We were on our way out of town to hang with some friends in MT, so our drive there and back consisted of cobbling together a letter and starting to put together a portfolio. Crazy.

We were not expecting to be scurrying around this soon, but I do have to admit it is so exciting. It seems we are on the fast track now. For all of you still writing our reference letters...please get them in!

Fingerprints and Paperwork

Today we spent lots of time waiting in the cop shop to get our fingerprints...check out our great prints!




We also spent a lot of time working on our pile of paperwork...which is a lot!