Holidays and Adoption

The additional profiles have made it to Madonna Finney's Law Office in Florida. At least that's what FedEx tells me. We're happy with our books now and hoping to get some good news soon. What an awesome Christmas present that would be?!? I try not to get my hopes up, but it's so hard, especially this time of year. Christmas is that much more fun with little ones around.

I was with two of my nephews this past weekend at my grandpa's holiday party at the health care center ... anyway, Santa made a surprise visit and I saw their faces light up. Mason, 3, could hardly contain himself and when Santa made his rounds Mason promptly informed him he wanted drums for Christmas. Good luck there - I think Uncle Craig has that covered. We sang Christmas carols and nibbled on some snacks. It was a real treat to experience that with them. I don't get to see that level of Christmas excitement normally. At least not yet. But now I can't wait until we can experience it all for ourselves.

Enjoy the rest of your Christmas planning! And don't forget to enjoy the moments. They're all special. -Jodi

Movement (?)

Over the last couple of days we have heard from the Florida law office that things were in a bit of a lull, but have recently picked up. They have requested additional profile copies ASAP because there are potential matches they could send our profile out to. Encouraging news. I overnighted what I had last night and will order more online tonight. Unfortunately with the holidays, it is taking a while for delivery. I do know that they are working with around 20 couples at the moment. It's time to send positive thoughts, prayers and cross your fingers and toes for luck.
Thanks to everyone for still following our journey! -Jodi

November News

Just wanted to quickly update everyone that there was once again some movement. I inquired to our local agency - Adoption Services, Inc. - about any potential birthmothers and surprisingly, they were working with two. Our profile was shown, but not selected by either. One birthomother chose a couple where the woman was adopted and recently met her own birthmother. Can't compete against that. The other chose to meet three couples, but we were not one of them. I'm going to have to take a long, hard look at our profile.

We did make some updates to our profile that the law office in Florida will receive. We had more freedom there and used snapfish.com to create a photobook. I'm waiting for the first one to deliver but it seems to be backed up because of holiday orders. Other than that ... we're set.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
-Jodi

November update

It's been an entire month since the last post and things have been busy for Dan and I. My Busia had a terrible fall and was never able to recover. After several weeks, she passed away and I found myself thinking - a lot - that she was never going to meet my son or daughter. That makes me so sad, because she was such a supporter of our decision to adopt. She always had questions and wanted to know how it was going. But I know that if there is ANYTHING she can do from up above ... then it will only be a matter of time before Dan and I are parents.

We are officially renewed for another year. We've received the updated foster care license. We're signed with Adoption Services, Inc. and The Law Office of Madonna Finney. The wait continues, but I really feel like it won't be long. Can't explain why, it's just a feeling.

Take care everyone and thanks for your continuing support. It helps during this long wait to have such great friends and family. -Jodi

Tough Call

Late last week, I received a call at work from our new adoption partner - Madonna H. Finney's office. They had a situation in Florida and since it wasn't a "normal situation," they wanted to check in and see if we'd be interested in pursuing. WHAT?!?!? Movement so quickly. This was so foreign to us, but so exciting. Without going into a ton of detail to respect everyone involved, Dan and I decided the situation wasn't the right fit for us. It wasn't an easy decision and I still think about it, but deep down I know it was the right decision.

The good news is that we feel we definitely made the right call by signing up with the law office. They obviously have movement and we really feel it's only a matter of time before we're parents. -Jodi

Decisions, Decisions

It's been a whole month since an update, so I apologize and hope you all haven't fallen off the blog. Dan and I have decided to move forward with the Law Office of Madonna H. Finney in Tallahassee, FL. We had a conference call a couple of weeks ago and really liked what we heard. So, we're moving forward. Sometimes you just a gut and for the first time, I finally feel like things are going to happen for us. We will actually adopt in Florida and so we'll be following their adoption laws. Many are the same, but there are few differences. I'll post some of those later.

We have a homestudy meeting with the local agency this afternoon at our house. Then we'll be set for another year. We'll continue to be listed with Adoption Services, Inc. and we'll also use them for our post-placement visits.

There you have it. The most recent news in the adoption saga. -Jodi

Florida Adoption Law Firm

We have our consultation meeting set for late September with the adoption law firm in Florida. We're both very excited about it. We did get clarification that we can be listed with both our current agency as well as the law firm. In the meantime, we need to get our homestudy renewed. Believe it or not, it's been a whole year of waiting. So, that's what we're doing now. We need to go back and get employment, health, background checks, etc. done again. Hopefully it won't take too long to pull together since we did it once before. I've also joined a couple of adoption groups on Yahoo. One is for domestic agencies and the other is adoption scams. You can never be too careful. Dan and I are also reworking our profile that gets shared with prospective birthparents. The law firm doesn't need a whole binder, so we can play with the format a bit.
So, that's that for now. Until later ... -Jodi