Home Study and other Happenings

Photo by Art of Her

Home Study & Adoption updates:

• Just completed our Home Study interviews - 3 interviews over the span of 3 weeks, each about 1-1.5 hours long.  Definitely not as daunting as we were expecting!  If you're in the process - take a breath, it's not as scary as some say. :)
• Had our Dr.'s visits and blood work done and paperwork notarized - it's totally normal to bring a notary to the Dr.'s office, right?? ;)
• Working on finding a psychiatrist that doesn't cost +$500 to complete our psych eval - yikes!
• Once the psych eval is complete and we have all of the other documents notarized we will be able to send everything to the US government for approval - so excited!!

Happenings:

The last couple of months brought the most difficult challenge Joseph and I and our extended family has ever experienced. Something that rocks you to your core and leaves you breathless - unsure of what to do next and unsure of how you will change as a result, knowing full-well you will never be the same.  Through it all, I have been humbled and beyond grateful for the community of people we have in our lives and for the ones we call family by blood and by choice.  Thank you and please know you are all loved...

Reflecting on all that has happened and having just celebrated our 6 year anniversary, I am truly awed by how blessed I am to have a partner in life who is willing to laugh and cry with me.  Someone I can trust and who knows the real me - the good and the bad.  Thank you, Husby, for choosing to "live in" with me day after day.  I am so excited for this next adventure in life with you.

Te quiero.

Next Up:

• My Mom and sisters are coming to Denver at the end of the month - yay!! :) I cannot wait to spend quality time with them!! (pictures to come I'm sure)
• Garage Sale fundraiser at the end of the month - fingers crossed it goes well!
• Still fundraising here as well.
• If anyone has any other fundraising ideas, we'd love to hear them!! 
• If you have any questions about the adoption process in general feel free to leave a comment... Best of luck to anyone else out there going through the process - you're not alone! 

Adoption Timeline(ish) & FUNdraising ideas!

Photography by Art of Her 

Welcome!  Our last blog post went into detail about how we came to decide now is the time for us to begin the adoption process.  Since then, we've done a ton of research, asked a lot of questions, and read some incredible blogs from adoptive parents.  Below is a timeline(ish) of what the process is going to look like:

• Dec 2014 - decision to begin adoption process :)
• Jan-Feb 2015 - research adoption agencies and "interview" several to find the right fit. 
• Feb 2015 - chose Nightlight Adoption, specifically because of their Nicaragua program
• We choose Nicaragua for a variety of reasons which we will blog about at a later date. 
• Decided we are looking for a boy or girl, ages 2-6, with the potential of adopting a sibling pair.
• March 2015 - sent out initial paperwork to begin the Home Study which will take anywhere from 3-4 months
• July - September(ish) 2015 - finalize Home Study and US reviews to approve us as an adoptive couple.
• September(ish) 2015 - send additional documents to Nicaragua for review.
• ?? 2015 - ? - This is where the real waiting game begins.  We could be called in weeks or years with a "referral" for a little one (or ones).
• Once contacted we have 2 weeks to make a decision and make our way to Nicaragua.
• We will then spend 3 months in Nicaragua getting to know our little one (or ones) and finalizing the adoption!!

As you an imagine this is a fairly pricey endeavor we've set out on, so we've come up with a few different ways our family, friends, loved ones, and anyone else who has a heart for adoption can get involved:

1. Check out our fundraising page where you'll find a fun twist.
2. Do you like coffee?  Just Love Coffee roasters supports adoptive families by donating a portion of their sales.  You need to order through our "storefront" and we get $5 for every 12oz bag of coffee sold!!
• You can set up an automatic delivery (or "subscription) too.
3. Rummage sale anyone?  Or perhaps some spring cleaning?
• We are having a rummage sale in June 2015!  Do you have anything you've been meaning to get rid of that you would be willing to donate to us to sell?  Let us know!
4. Casino Night - details to come!! Think dressing up, poker, raffles, etc. 
5. Projects!  Take a look at the pictures below of some of the things we have worked on together. If something catches your eye and you would like to have it in your home - let us know and we can talk timeline and price.
• We can bring life to other ideas you may have as well...
• Ash enjoys painting indoors and refinishing furniture too!
• Basically we can customize anything you see below to fit what you would like!

Refinished this piece.

Can do other
 words!

Made this bar table and chairs
from several different pieces.

Custom barn door.

Can do other quotations.

"I love you to the moon and back"

Adoption Journey - Ground Zero

“I want our adopted child to know my Papa, and Nana & Grandy.” Ash said in the car as we drove through the wintery flatlands of Nebraska. The statement was profound and we both acknowledged it with a brief silence as we passed through the frozen countryside. We were on our way back from Christmas with her family in South Dakota and it was 10 degrees outside. The wind was creating mesmerizing swirls on the road as it forced the resistant snow flakes from their comfy place in the fields and pushed them into beautiful waves, skimming over the pavement.

Ash and I have been married for 5 ½ incredible years. Even as we got engaged back in 2008 we knew neither of us were convinced we wanted to have kids – definitely not anytime soon, and perhaps never. Equally as strong was the non-desire for our own biological children.  Even if we someday decided we wanted kids, we reasoned, we wanted to adopt a child who faced the prospect of a long and difficult life without the support of parents who loved them unconditionally. So I got a vasectomy. I was 22.

That’s how we make decisions together, especially big ones. We recognize and trust we’re on the same page about something, and, if it makes sense, we act. No need to second-guess or get lost in endless ‘what-ifs’ that could dead-end in indecision or missed opportunities. This is how we turned in our application for Peace Corps three weeks after we got married. Or how decided to buy a house. It just made sense.

But kids, we thought, were different. For the first five years of our marriage, we were extremely unsure we’d ever want to be parents. We felt we weren’t mature enough, weren’t ready, were too selfish, etc. Yet, in the last few months, slowly, we’ve started to drop comments to each other that perhaps adopting wouldn’t mean the end of our lives. That perhaps kids, five years off of course, could be a part of our lives. So this slow acceptance of realizing that we perhaps did indeed want to adopt someday, combined with Ash’s statement yesterday in Nebraska, set off our minds and hearts.

And so it begins. True to our style, in the last 24 hours we’ve decided that we indeed would start looking into adoption, signed up for two informational sessions at two different adoption agencies, created a Google Spreadsheet to gather research in, and have narrowed our search to either a domestic Foster-to-Adopt program, or an international adoption from a Latin American country. We’ve known for a long time that we’d want to find a child who is probably older than 2 years old, and that we didn’t have a strong gender or race preference.

So the journey has started. I’ll do my best to chronicle our progress, our thoughts, our desires, our fears, our successes and challenges. We want to journey through this with our family, with our friends. So please join us.

(Taken from Joseph's blog: Paradigms)