At long last, we have finally finished our initial paperwork! I drove over to Sue's office at lunch to hand it to her personally, and we are now officially in the home study process. The next steps are having a meeting with Sue as a couple, then individual meetings with her, and finally another couples meeting with her at our house. I am slightly panicked about the house meeting, but from everything I have heard and read, we'll be fine. We still have classes and some other paperwork to work on, but we are over a big hurdle!

We hope to begin renovating the nursery at the end of October/beginning of November. We will be replacing part of the ceiling that is damaged and removing the texturing, removing the paneling, fixing and painting the walls and installing new trim. No problem! Any assistance/expert advice would not be turned away :)

In other news, my mom sold her house and we have established a moving date for her of 10/21. She flew in today and went straight to Janesville where she will be spending some time over the next week, signing papers and hiring carpenters, electricians and plumbers to get the house in tip-top shape before she moves in. On Thursday the 5th after work, we are flying to Kansas together to do some work and get loose ends wrapped up. Jeremy is out of town at his annual conference in Germany from the 6th through the 14th, and then on 10/19, Jeremy and I are going to fly down to Kansas to help with the moving. We plan to have the U-Haul loaded and on the road by Sunday morning at the latest, and we'll say a sad goodbye to my hometown of Manhattan, Kansas! I am so excited that my mom will be so close after ten years of being so far away, and will be a big part of our kids' lives! We're already discussing new curtains and paint colors, as well as a nursery room at her new house :)

Well, we attended our first class, "Adoption 101" from 9 am to around 4:30 pm today. We had to get up earlier than we do for work, so our day started early! We went to Dunkin Donuts on our way up to Evanston so we could fuel up on coffee and bagels...and that coffee was needed!!! We got to the Cradle a little after 8:30, just in time to catch the tour of the building, which had just started. We got to see pictures of the original building and staff and the original cradle that the babies were presented in when they met their new parents! VERY rickety! We also passed by the nursery where some babies stay in the time after birth and before placement, and oohed and aahed over the 5 babies in residence.

Then we went to the classroom. It was really full, we weren't sure where we would sit, but a nice couple waved us over to share their table. The morning class focused on a general overview of the adoption process, talking about some gains and losses that we may feel, openness in adoption and hearing from a birthmother and adoptive parents. The afternoon class touched on entitlement and attachment, becoming a multiracial family and which child would be right for us. It was a lot of information to think about and we've already chosen our program! I can't imagine processing all of that information without knowing which way you would go! The class was really helpful to Jeremy and I and we felt very secure in the choice we've made, and a renewed sense of comfort with The Cradle and their staff.

The only sucky part of the day was when I dumped a full cup of Diet Coke in my purse, down my front and onto my plate at lunch, because I am that klutzy. Geez. Everything in my purse had to be dried off as I had a good quarter inch of soda hanging out at the bottom, complete with 2 ice cubes. Why I am allowed out in public, I will never know.

Before we left, we got the email address and phone number of the couple we sat with, Ricardo and Denise, and we plan to meet up with them at our next class...on 9-14 :) We'll be moving along - sending in more paperwork, working steadily on our house, taking more classes and paying more money for the next few months, and looking forward to the time when we have our brand new baby.

I need some pictures for our profile, if you would like to be in our Family and Friends section, please email me your pictures!

We had our initial consultation meeting this evening with our counselor, Sue. Sue is probably in her sixties somewhere, definitely a grandma sort of lady, tall and slim with chin-length white hair. We made our introductions and settled in for the questions. It is definitely a little uncomfortable having to tell a perfect stranger such intimate details of our lives - medical and family histories, and things like that, but Sue was easy to talk to and tried to put us at ease. Of course I was nervous and babbled like a doofus, but I settled down after a while and let Jeremy answer a couple of questions.

Those of you who have adopted will understand what I am talking about when I tell you that there is a mountain of paperwork standing between us and our baby...you can skip this paragraph. For those of you who haven't experienced adoption, here's a short rundown:
**We will need to get our "Adopt Only" foster care license (which entails being fingerprinted, background checks for both of us, physicals for both of us, 10 different forms and a diagram of our house marked with fire exits).
**We have to provide a full income/asset balance sheet with our net worth and monthly expenses
**We have to provide our federal tax forms for the last 3 years
**We have to provide photocopies of our birth certificates and our marriage license
**We have to provide a statement of insurance and legal guardianship
**We have to fill out a questionnaire about what characteristics we want in our future children and what medical issues we would be willing to accept
**We have to fill out a questionnaire about transracial adoption
**We have to create a profile with autobiographies and family trees.
**Finally, we have to create our profile with the two-page "Dear Birthmother" letter and pictures of us, family and friends.

We also have to attend at least 5 classes totaling 18 hours. This was a lot to process - so much information all at once, but we got a 3 ring binder with some written info in it that we can go over at our leisure. I'm really glad that first meeting is over!

I had a half-day today (hooray for summer hours!) and I meandered home around two. I was home for about an hour when I got a phone call from our adoption counselor, Sue, to set up our initial consultation appointment. I asked if she was booked solid today, and unfortunately she was...I apologized for being so over-eager, and she said she hears it all the time!

We had a lovely chat, and set up our appointment for Wednesday the 30th at 6 pm, so I'll post about the results as soon as we get home from that! I am really looking forward to meeting her in person, she sounds like a really nice lady!

We've been busy, busy, busy - after we decided we were definitely pursuing adoption, we bought Adoption for Dummies and have been passing it back and forth trying to learn EVERYTHING about this process that stymies us both. We also took the advice of a friend who has adopted three times and attended some agency information meetings. So far, it was the best advice we've gotten!

Our first info meeting was with an agency called Sunny Ridge in Wheaton (www.sunnyridge.org), which we attended on 8/1. We learned quite a few new things in the meeting; we heard from a birthmother, learned about their domestic and international programs and the fee schedules. We went in thinking that we would go with a domestic adoption and walked out thinking international. We liked Sunny Ridge for the most part, they were informative and nice, plus they are pretty close to us.

A week later (8/9) we went to an info meeting for The Cradle (www.cradle.org) By the time we were driving home, we were sold. We felt so comfortable with them, and we felt like the information was so in depth - the fees are all up front, the process is written out in black and white, and they brought in an adoptive family to talk to us and answer our questions. It was a wonderful experience, through and through...and, we changed our minds back to domestic adoption going through their Sayers Program. (http://www.cradle.org/adopt_aa.html)

We sent our application and fee in this week, and I've gotten started working on our profile and the "Dear Birthmother" letter - I am sure I'll have to do a few re-writes, but I'm so excited I can't wait! Today when I got home from work and checked my email, we had an email message from the Cradle with the name of our adoption counselor!!! Her name is Sue and she will be calling us soon to schedule our initial consultation!

We're going to start remodeling the nursery over Labor Day - we have a lot of work to do so we want to get started ASAP! By this time next year, we could be bringing home a brand new baby!