Deleted posts

I received a call from one of the agencies we have our profile with. I completely forgot about the confidentiality agreement that we signed with them about not posting information about prospective BM's on any blogs/websites, etc. I feel so badly that I laid out the information the way I did without realizing that I was breaking that agreement.

They were very understanding and said that it would not hurt our chances. They just asked that they be removed. So that is why they are missing now.

I got the impression that the BM might make a decision in the next week or two. So our fingers are crossed!

Not much of an update

We didnt hear anything all weekend from the agency. They were closed yesterday for the holiday. I did get an email from our coordinator today saying that she did not deliver over the weekend and was contacting families. By that I took it to mean she picked other families that she was interested in. I did place a call to our coordinator to find out more information about the situation.

I also made a plea to her. This is going to sound so lame. But I asked her if she would be willing to ask the BM to call us as well. Maybe talking to us would give her a better feel for who we are versus just looking at our letters. I am sure they do not do that kind of thing or maybe they cannot do that kind of thing. But I thought I would ask just in case.

I am going to talk to our coordinator about an adoption expediter or faciliator. I wonder if hiring someone in that line of work would help to get our profile out there. They really push couples to put their profiles on other sites. We did that for 6 months and got ZERO hits. For that reason I wanted to pursue other options. But maybe the answer is putting our profile on a profile site that we did not try before. I'll be looking into it.

On the rollarcoaster again

We got another email from your agency. There is another last minute situtation in the works and our profile is being presented. We have been asked to keep our cell phones at our side all weekend. How crazy that this has happened twice in one week. And of course the skeptic in me is thinking this wont be it either. This will be our 5th possible match/baby.

We received our January letter count. We had 4 letters go out. Seems like a low number to me, but I guess February is turning out to be a much busier month for our agency.

Here's hoping this might be it.

We Move On Again

I just talked to our agency. They tried to show the woman profiles of couples and she refused to look at them. She asked them to call her back in a couple of hours and when they did she refused to take their call. So they think she has either gone with another agency or most likely decided to keep the baby. So we are back to waiting again.

Still Waiting...

I don't want to keep everyone in suspense all day long. We still haven't heard from our agency. I am hoping they will call some time today. I barely slept last night thinking the phone would ring any minute. When it did ring this morning at 6:30 a.m. it was my mom and I thought for sure it would be the agency that early.

We are trying to just go along as normal and not get our hopes up, but its harder this time. I am just so ready, we are both just so ready. Its been a long road and I can't help but pray that this is our baby.

I was also thinking about how neat it would be to have a baby with a birthday so close to mine. I shared my birthday with my grandmother growing up and I loved it. This was the grandmother that just passed away. Her birthday was this past Saturday so we celebrated my birthday that night. Her and I would call each other on our birthdays. We would almost always buy each other something with purple in it since we shared the same birthstone. It was such a neat thing to have. I couldn't help but day dream about that with a son. Hopefully today the phone will ring again ... I'll keep the blog updated as soon as I hear anything.

Possible Baby!

We got a call about 2 hours ago from our agency. There is a woman in labor right now in a hospital only one hour from our home that wants to place for adoption. Our profile is one of the profiles she is looking at. Our coordinator will be calling us by end of today or tomorrow to let us know if we get picked. All I know at this point is that it is a caucasian boy.

I am praying this is it. And what a great birthday present that would be!

Statistics

I was looking online this afternoon at the statistics per month regarding birthmother intake with our adoption agency. Going back to January 2007 there were over 4o birthmothers that month. The number stays relatively the same until about October. Then there is a decline each month with December being only 10 birthmothers. I thought that was interesting.

What I am curious about is the following: is this decline something that is happening in the adoption world and we will continue to see a decline? Or was that number due to the time of year and starting this month numbers will go back up again? I am tempted to email my coordinator to see what her thoughts are on that subject.

I also checked to see how many last minute hospital lists there were. Over the past three months (October, November, December), the months we have been on that list, there have been 3 LMHL intakes. That does not mean there was a match, these are just statistics on potential matches. None were in our state. Now I wonder what the chances are of adopting from that list in our state. Looking back at the statistics over the year the majority of the time the LMHL potential matches were not located in our state.

Looking at these statistics it makes me wonder what would happen if we reach October again without a match. Does that mean no match until 2009 possibly? I suppose that could happen. Our first potential was almost a year after we signed on and the second one was just a couple of months after that. I can't help but think that we are due for one more woman/couple to be interested since so much time has gone by. I also cannot help but think that maybe we will not get a nibble until spring time.

There are definitely so many what if's in adoption. That is why I started to spend less time thinking about it. But there are days like today where I can't help but day dream about getting that call. In my day dream it happens as I type this post.

Saying Good-Bye

Wow its been a long time since I have written. To be honest, I have not thought about adoption that much lately. In November we had only 4 letters go out. In December I am sure the number was just as low given the holiday seasons. And now we are in January and hopefully things are picking up. We have not had any prospects though and we have just gotten into this routine of living our lives without a baby. You get used to it. And because of that you hardly think about it any more. At least that is the way it is for us.

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This weekend and week was a hard one for me and my family. My grandmother passed away on Friday and her funeral was on Tuesday. It was a very sad day. I was given the honor of reading the thoughts of loved ones at the service. I had a really hard time thinking about what I personally wanted to add to that. Eventually I wrote something. But when I got home that night something occurred to me. I remembered something even better about my grandmother that I wished I had taken the time to share. So I am going to share it now.

There was a common theme in what everyone wrote. The grand kids talked about going to her house when we were sick, about vacationing with her, about playing cards with her, shopping with her, etc. Her children and her friends all had similar things to say as well. I clearly remember all the times I had a really bad cold or the flu and would be out of school for days at a time and my mom would take me to my grandparents house. I think all of the grandkids were dropped off there when we were sick. The one memory that I hold dear to me is the fact that my grandmother did not stop caring for us when we were sick even as adults. She was very nurturing and that continued throughout her life.

My memory ... it brings me back to my first miscarriage. I woke up that morning to the bleeding and we immediately called my doctor. We then went to his office to learn that we were having the miscarriage. As you all know devastation hit and decided to settle itself in. When we got home I was told to stay on bed rest for the next couple of days. I called my mom to tell her the news and then went to bed and either slept or cried the rest of the day until my husband came home. Then he spent time with me to help me through this time. The next day when he left for work I was a mess! I was still crying, who wouldn't be? I will still in a lot of pain and all I wanted to do was mope around the house.

Shortly after he left there was a knock on our front door. I thought to my self who could this possibly be. All I wanted was to be alone. I went to the front door and standing there was my grandmother with her famous cup of McDonald's coffee. She was notorious for getting coffee there all the time. I stepped into her arms and cried my heart out. Even at 27 years old she still took care of me when I was sick. She drove an hour from her house to be with me that day and she stayed with me until 4 p.m. knowing my husband would be home shortly after. I will never forget that day. It was something that I actually kept to myself, I didn't even tell my husband about it. It was a special memory for me to have of my grandmother. Today in her honor I want to share that story.