Finalization and Our Final Post

It's been a while since we've posted, so this post is long overdue.  Amazingly, life with two kids is much busier than just with one!

Now that it's been 4 months since our last post, Ariel is 4 months old (math!).  A lot has changed as Ariel has gotten older, Dominic has gotten used to having a baby sister, and I feel like I've gotten a +5 bonus in multitasking.

Over the past few months, we've been in great contact with Ariel's birth parents and their families.  They've been very proactive about staying in contact and we've seen them several times since we brought home from the hospital.  While it will be tough to meet as often with Andy and I being back at work and life going back to normal with less time at home, we're definitely going to be keeping in close contact.

On the other side of things, we really hope to be able to see Dominic's birth parents again soon. While we've tried a few times to meet up and give them a chance to see Dominic and to meet Ariel, it's been a challenge to get things lined up.  We'll have our fingers crossed that we can get together soon.






Finalization

Family photo at finalization with the judge

Similar to Dominic's adoption, bringing Ariel home from the hospital wasn't the final step.  Finalizing Dominic's adoption took place several months after he was placed with us and we brought him home.  During those months, the adoption agency had follow up meetings at our house, the counselor wrote up a report, our lawyer also drafted some paper work, and then a court date was finally scheduled.

For Ariel, all of that process took a little over 4 months and we were able to go through finalization just last Tuesday!  In effect, this milestone marks the end of the adoption process.


Looking Ahead
While this represents our last post on the blog, the fact that both Dominic and Ariel were adopted through open adoptions means that we will continue to be connected to their birth families for the years to come.

There will also be a lot of fun watching these two grow up together.
She's already giving him judging looks from her car seat during car rides!

After starting our process in late 2011, it's been an eventful 5 years to reach the point where our little family is complete.  Thanks to everyone that has read the blog during our journey and provided so much wonderful feedback and support!

Ariel Claire Magee

This weekend has been an absolute whirlwind.  On Wednesday morning shortly after 11 while I was at work, I got a call from Andy that we had been chosen.  Luckily, I was working in my main office that morning and was right next to Andy's building.  I popped over to his office and we were able to sit together for 'the call' with one of the counselors from OA&FS, Delphine.  It was exciting, joyful, and nerve-wracking all at the same time to realize how much our lives could change during that time.

This is what you get when you search for 'exciting phone call at work.
Not totally what I was going for, but it's about on the same level of crazy!

Compared to our previous path to adopt Dominic, this case was a last minute placement.  With Dominic, we got 'the call' about 6 months before he was born which left plenty of time for everyone to get to know each other beforehand.  For a last minute placement, everything is accelerated.  In this case, this compressed our first meeting, getting to know each other, ensuring that everyone is still comfortable with moving forward, setting the framework for the open adoption agreement, having an entrustment ceremony, and then finally departing from the hospital in the span of about 24 hours!


First Meeting
After getting the call, Andy and I rushed to handle logistics to make sure Dominic would have someone to watch him that evening (thanks Uncle Matt!) as well as figuring out what each of us would do with our jobs.  Effectively, we went from being active employees one hour with loads of responsibilities to telling management that we were about to be out on leave...immediately.  We always knew this would be a possibility over the past 2 years, but it was still a challenge for us to shift gears so quickly!

Once we sorted all of that out in a mere 60 minutes, we drove directly to the hospital to meet the birth parents and little Ariel.  While we only first met them on Wednesday afternoon and spent time with them through that day and again on Thursday before we all left the hospital, both Andy and I found ourselves talking again and again about how they are amazing people.  They're caring, genuine, and loved by so many people.  I feel lucky that they not only chose us to parent Ariel, but that we'll be able to continue a long-term relationship with them as we all see Ariel grow and develop over the days, weeks, and years ahead.


The Choice
One of the key questions many adoptive families have once they're picked is, why us?  Not long after we met the birth parents, we got to hear some insights into this.  Among these were that we would likely get along well together in the long run, we had similar values and goals for an open adoption, and that Dominic would make a great older brother for Ariel.

Andy and I with Ariel at the hospital

Every birth family has a different reason for choosing an adoptive family, so it's always interesting to hear these sorts of things.  One key thing I enjoyed hearing from the birth dad was that he wished he could give a baby to every single adoptive family he looked at.  Again, just a really kind and caring example of the type of guy he is.


Wednesday Night and Thursday Morning

Andy holding Ariel on Wednesday night

We had the great chance to stay at the hospital and care for Ariel overnight while the birth parents went home for some much needed rest.  Andy stayed there with Ariel.  A key difference for this experience compared to when we were preparing to be placed with Dominic was that we already had a child that needed to be taken care of!  With some key family and friends out of town or departing town first thing in the morning, I drove back home to relieve Uncle Matt and make sure someone would be home with Dominic.  After that, I energetically (hah!) threw together some baby items and attempted to install an infant car seat and then reinstall Dominic's car seat from the middle of the backseat to the side.  Being rather exhausted at 11:30pm, that was way harder than it likely would have been otherwise!

In the morning, I took Dominic in to day care.  We would have loved to have brought him down to the hospital to meet Ariel's birth family and friends, but caring for him for that long of a time would have taken away the focus from those that really needed it for the day.  I know we're all looking forward to having Ariel's older brother meet everyone soon.


Thursday Afternoon
The afternoon was a bit long because Ariel couldn't leave the hospital until she passed a continuous 90-minute test while being restrained in a car seat.  We waited to do this until some final members of the birth family stopped by to meet her and us.

During the test, we were all crowded around Ariel.  Delphine walked the birth parents, Andy, and I through the entrustment ceremony.  All of us were very informal about it, but it was a key event as we talked about our hopes for Ariel and our feelings.  It was quite moving.

The decision for a birth parent to entrust their child to someone else is a powerful thing.  It is not a decision that is made lightly and it has the ability to affect the lives of everyone involved in a very profound way.  During these final hours at the hospital, I wished that I could do something that would free the birth parents from any feelings of anguish and sadness, but there really were no special words or actions that would do so.  

Thinking back to Dominic's favorite movie, Inside Out, one of the lessons is that while society always tells us to put on a smile and be happy that it is ok to embrace sadness as well.  The ability to feel sad about something means that someone truly cares and may feel a sense of loss.  Building on this, Inside Out also shows us that sadness and joy can coexist in transformative moments of our lives.  For myself, the entrustment ceremony was exactly one of those moments.  Despite the sadness I know we all felt that afternoon, I feel joy knowing that both Andy and I will be the best adoptive parents for baby Ariel that we can be and that we will be able to help her birth parents see her grow and develop.

(Full disclosure: Inside Out is easily one of my favorite movies as well for this and many other great reasons!)

Dominic meeting his baby sister for the first time

Like I noted in a post the night we brought Dominic home, today's goodbye will become tomorrow's hello.  Already today, we have been trading texts and photos of Ariel with her birth parents.  Compared to past times when closed adoptions were the norm and this would never happen, I am truly happy that we are able to have open adoptions for both of our children.

Approaching the Homestudy Update

Life is moving along these days and it's already mid-April.  Since our last post, we've continued to accrue more adoption waiting pool "experience" on our way to the two year mark.  From our earlier post on our adoption experience to date (back in February), the big item on the horizon for us was our homestudy renewal.

Since December, we've been waiting to get a new counselor.  Since February, we've learned that our agency was having some challenges getting a new counselor on board.  Rather than having a new counselor work with us to do our homestudy renewal, we'll be working directly with a former counselor who is now the regional supervisor for the local office.  On one side, it will be nice to work with an experienced counselor.  On the other side, knowing that we'll likely have a minimum of 4 counselors over our wait does represent a level of inconsistency in our course through the process.

Now that we know who will be doing our homestudy, we do have a meeting setup with her to do all of our interviews in one go.  During that time, she'll get to see our house, conduct one-on-one interviews with Andy and I, and then collect any other info she needs to update our homestudy report.  For us, it'll be an opportunity to connect back in to our process and feel like we're doing something active during our wait.

Admittedly, the wait has been getting tougher over the past few weeks.  Just recently, there was another urgent screening email which needed a reply in under 90 minutes.  After an urgent call between us during a morning at work, we opted to say yes.  On my end, I then promptly lost most of my work focus during the day and had my fingers crossed.  It was still a long shot, but every little chance we have to be chosen just feels more magnified.  Of the 17 families that joined the waiting pool in the 3 months after we entered, only 4 remain.  There are still 19 families who have waited longer than we have.  Collectively, I know all 20 of us are likely very anxious and ready to be chosen.

When we began the process for our first adoption, one segment during our pre-adoption seminar was all about managing grief.  We touched on these in our summary posts, but from our perspective there was very little grief to manage.  As a gay couple, we never have had an opportunity to control our process to building a family.  That was a basic expectation.  We were just thrilled to be at that seminar and take the first step.  However, I think that topic is applicable to our status now.  Being unable to control our process, our role has been to wait while time ticks by.  As that time goes by, Dominic grows older, we grow older, and not much effectively changes for us with respect to an adoption.  Just the same as it was when we entered the pool, we could be chosen 5 minutes from now or 5 years from now despite having 22 and a half months go by.

In the meantime, we're focusing on keeping busy.  Just today, Dominic had a fun trip to the park to get out and enjoy the nice weather.  He's a happy little guy who has changed so much over the past few weeks and months.

His independent, smart, and adventurous spirit helps keep us active and on our toes.


Both Andy and I are training for a half-marathon in May.  We've each run races before, but never a half-marathon together.  With some luck, we'll both manage to drag each other across the finish line in decent time.  While we may have no control over the finish line in our second adoption, the finish line for our race is one we can cross under our own power...and hopefully in under 2 hours!

21 Month Update

Hello again!

Now is a great time for an update after a busy February.  First up, Andy and I had an amazing trip out to Hawaii.  Similar to how we took one last big vacation before adopting Dominic, our week Hawaii was a great time to get away, recharge, and enjoy a rare opportunity.  Someday, we hope to take Dominic and a future sibling there for a vacation that all of us will enjoy.




Going to Hawaii was also a way to take our minds off of our longer than expected adoption wait.  Of course, we even got another screening email towards the end of our trip marking #18.  Overall, there was a significant amount of activity for OA&FS in February which resulted in 9(!) separate placements.  For an agency that has typically averaged 41 placements a year, this is a huge spike for a short time period and coincides with our jump in recent screening emails.

As we are up to 21 months in the pool, now is a good time for a fresh round of statistics on our waiting pool/wait:




As a final update, we took Dominic on a trip today.  We got to visit his birth dad Jason, play at the local children's museum, and then enjoy lunch afterwards.  It was great to connect again, and we'll be looking forward to a future visit his birth family!

Kicking Off 2016 - OA&FS Holiday Party

While we're nearly to the end of January, the Seattle office for our adoption agency held the yearly holiday party today.  Understanding that the holidays can be crazy busy, it's really helpful that this event is always planned during a quieter time when many of the adoptive families and OA&FS staff can attend.

Face painting + Cookies!

We got to talk to so many great people from OA&FS.  It was great to reconnect in person since the last time we saw everyone was in August.  Our original counselor, Katie, was there.  We also got to chat with Heather, Delphine, Megan, and Maria.  Since our most recent counselor, Alissa, has moved on recently, it was very helpful to reconnect in a bit in person while we're in transition.

Dominic especially enjoyed the party.  Even though he was a bit shy to start out, he broke out of his shell and got in a few laps running around, loading up on sugar, and having a grand time.  He even got his face painted like a gorilla/monkey!

For Andy and I, we enjoyed being able to chat with some of the other adoptive families.  Being able to trade war stories and cute updates about our current kids is always a treat.  Personally, talking with the OA&FS staff was good for me.  It was exciting to hear that our letter was just sent out in collective books to potential birthfamilies just this week.  While that doesn't mean anything direct, it's heartening to hear that there are opportunities for birthfamilies considering adoption to get to know us as a potential option for their child!

Day 457 - Stats of the Pool

Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone!  I've been eagerly looking forward to a slightly longer weekend away from work, college football, and the impending availability of pumpkin spice flavoring.

Aside from all of these things, I have also been tinkering with data on the OA&FS waiting pool for the past several weeks.  It's been a while since we've had an update on the statistics, so a holiday weekend seems like a great time to put this together and try to come up with some relevant conclusions based on everything we have on hand!

How Has the Waiting Pool Changed Since We Joined?
Back on June 5th of 2014, we joined the waiting pool.  After joining the pool, more families entered.  Over time, some of those families were selected to by birth families while others like us continued to remain in the pool.

This table shows how families continued to enter the pool after we did.  By the end of 2014, 30 adoptive families had entered the pool.  As of today, 68 families have entered the pool since we did.  Of those 68 families, 23 left the pool and 45 still remain in the pool like us.

Building on the table, this chart provides a clearer visual.  The gray bars show the increasing number of families entering the pool over time.  Green and blue lines show the split between families leaving the pool and remaining in the pool over time.  One interesting thing to note is how the green and blue lines cross.  This illustrates how the majority of families entering the pool between June 5th and Dec 31st have already left the pool (green).  

Composition of the Waiting Pool
Given that the waiting pool is quite sizable, it is interesting to break it down into more manageable groups.  One of the easier metrics to track is orientation.

The chart above shows how the composition of the pool at each of the dates previously used above specific to families entering the waiting pool after we did on June 5, 2014.  The immediate takeaways show three interesting facts:

1. There have been very few lesbian families entering the pool since we entered.  While this is odd on the surface, it may just be a coincidence of timing.
2. The proportion of straight families in the pool has consistently risen over time (7%)
3. The proportion of gay families has shifted slightly and dropped up to 6%.

Rate of Selection

The data above on orientation is mainly surface level.  Digging a step deeper, we have enough information to clearly depict the rate at which each group is being "selected."  Here, I am using the term "selected" as these adoptive families may be selected by birth families or leave the pool due to personal circumstances without being chosen.

Tracking the rate of selection, there are two clear trends.  One is that straight couples typically accounted for 86-91% of the selected families.  The other is that gay couples accounted for the remaining 9-14%.  

Why were the lesbian and single rates 0%?  Of the 68 families entering the pool after us, only 3 are lesbian/single which lowers the odds of selection and makes it difficult to establish any trends.

Can we make any broader statements on the rate of selection?  Based on this data, I would say yes.  Above, we established that straight couples were being selected at an 86-91% rate.  Meanwhile, the chart on waiting pool composition shows that straight couples routinely account for 65-72% of the waiting pool.  This means that straight couples are being selected at a rate higher.  Conversely, gay couples are chosen by adoptive couples at a lower rate.

What Does This All Mean?
To date, we can establish that it is likely we will have a longer wait in the adoption pool because we are gay parents.  This was something we were told by OA&FS our first time around and it makes sense as some birth families may feel more comfortable choosing what they view as a normal family for their child.  While this difference in rate of selection between straight and LGBT families may be narrowing, I think we can say that it still exists.

Also, we can note that our wait time is higher than our immediate peers who joined the pool right after us.  Between June 5, 2014 and Sept 5, 2014, a total of 17 families entered the pool.  Only 6 of those families now remain (35%).

Looking Ahead
Soon, OA&FS will be releasing their yearly report which reviews the past year spanning from July 2014 to June 2015.  We'll be looking forward to seeing if their data aligns with ours and to see if they note any expected trends in wait times, locations of birth families, etc.  On the adoption front, we just received the monthly bulletin on Friday highlighting.  Over the past month, two families entered adoption planning and three families welcomed new children into their lives.  Very exciting to see great news for others as it's a great reminder to us as well that anything can happen at any time.

New Materials!

Today is like going shopping for that new outfit and bringing it home.  Except shopping for that new outfit took nearly 3 months, you tried on 30 different things, went to 1 store, then found out someone thought everything in that store looked horrible on you, went to 3 new stores hundreds of miles apart, and eventually got your snazzy new outfit, took it home, and waited a week before posting selfies online.  In case that was a bit vague, our online OA&FS profile has been updated!

Now what does it mean that our profile has been updated?  Really, we revised our entire library of materials that potential birthfamilies see when they are looking at adoptive families in the waiting pool.  It may not be a big deal, but it's really the biggest thing we've done since entering the waiting pool.

Item #1 - Family Introduction Letter
The Family Introduction Letter is the core of any adoptive family's profile with OA&FS.  It is your 2-minute elevator speech.  (It's a long elevator ride)  In one page, you get to introduce who you are, what your jobs are, where you live, who is in your family, your likes and dislikes, and your hopes with regards to an open adoption.

Ours hasn't changed significantly since last time, but it's a document that we still put a lot of thought into as it needs to be focused, informative, and yet personable.  Remember, we're engineers and communication is hard.  To get around that, I cheat the system.  For example, this morning I took donuts in to work just to remind people that I am awesome and they should like me.  Sadly, there isn't a similar parallel to speed up getting picked by a birthfamily...but I'd do countless trips of Top Pot if that was different!

Anyway..... when you look at our updated online profile page, this is all of the text that shows up.  OA&FS offices also now have hardcopies (hundreds) of our letter as well that is slightly different with images we built into the layout.  While we still need to work with OA&FS IT staff to make sure the bullets display properly in the online version, all of the content is now in place.


Item #2 - Photos
Admit it, when you look at anyone on anything like Facebook, the first thing you look at is their profile photo.  These photos are critical in projecting an image of who you are as an individual or as a family.  We have 2 photos in our Family Introduction Letter and 4 photos that can be viewed in our online profile page.  It's tough to choose the best photos that represent your family amongst the thousands that you can have on hand these days.  Luckily, we had it easy because even after going through all of our hundreds of photos, we still picked 3 of our 4 photos from the work of our favorite photographer  :)


Item #3 - Family Book
This was the toughest task for us to finish.  Technically we could have reused much of our old family book and just updated a few photos to show the passage of time now that Dominic is well over 2 years old.  Instead, I got overambitious and wanted the "fancy" outfit.

On the right side of our OA&FS profile page, there is a link to view our "Personalized Book".  While it displays and was printed in hardcopy through Shutterfly, we built the entire book outside of that website to provide a clean, visually impactful, and cohesive identity.  In short, I've spent way too much time with marketers at work.

I'm really proud of this though since it is completely unique from any other family book I've seen in the adoption pool and may even be more memorable.





While we want a birthfamily to choose us because they like us, it doesn't hurt to have a little professional touch that makes it easier for them to read our family book and get to know us!

 With all of this up, now what?  Well, we keep on waiting!  (Just keep waiting, just keep waiting, waiting, waiting waiting)  At some point we'll make it over to P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney, but it may be a longer wait/swim until we get there.

We're nearly 13 months into the waiting pool (as of July 5th), so that means my optimistic prediction of being chosen after 13 months and adopting a baby girl will be the next prediction that passes by.  However, that means Angie is up next!  She guessed a wait of 14 months and a baby boy.  Angie, I'll have my fingers crossed that you're right.  If not, you might owe us donuts :)

Managing "The Wait" - 1 Year

As of today, we have been waiting in the pool for a full year (our waiting pool-versary?).  In essence, we've spent a lot of time with Ginger.

Ginger, our "waiting" pool giraffe

Given that it's been such a long time (for us), Andy and I have adapted to manage the wait differently.  I think we have both been busy with Dominic, with work, family, friends, and various projects.  On top of all of that, it's hard to dwell too much on the wait for a 2nd child.

For me personally, I've been starting to get more and more anxious as we've neared this milestone.  Dominic is now over 2 1/2 years old and we have started the process of updating all of our adoption materials because life changes quite a bit in a year.  Also, if we are still waiting at this time next year, we will likely be updating all of our adoption materials again and redo-ing our homestudy.

Looking back at our post reviewing everyone's predictions on gender and when we would get picked, I think it's been proven that we have a lot of optimistic family and friends.  Out of 10 guesses, only 3 estimate the wait at longer than 1 year.  At present, my prediction of 13 months is currently on deck and will quickly be followed by Angie and Andy's guesses.  Everyone else....stay away from Vegas  :)

From talking to our new counselor (Alissa), the average wait may have shifted down closer to 16 months, but there are still a large number of families waiting to be chosen.  As of today, we are one of 90 families in the pool.

Speaking of the pool, the OA&FS website lists families in the order they joined the waiting pool with the families waiting the longest showing up first.  When we joined the pool a year ago today, we were the last family on the list.  Today, we are 51st on the list out of the 90 families.  As of today, 50 families have been waiting longer than 12 months and another 39 families have been waiting less 12 months.  (There have also likely been several families that joined the pool after us and have already been selected which would influence these final numbers.)

While we haven't been picked yet, we have had a recent uptick in screening emails which has kept things interesting.  After 2 early screening emails last summer, we didn't have another until January.  In total since we joined the pool, we have now had 8 screening emails.


Looking ahead, what's next for us?  Well, we still need to finalize our family book updates to reflect fresh pictures of Dominic, ourselves, and a slightly revamped presentation of our book.  I'm definitely more inclined to tinker than Andy is (sorry Andy!), but this is definitely one way I'm managing the wait and feeling like I'm still managing some level of control in the process.

Thanks to everyone that has been so supportive over the last 12 months.  As we move forward, we'll have our fingers crossed that someday soon we'll have good news to share with all of you!

Managing the Wait + August Stats

When you're expecting to wait days, weeks, months, or even years for a single call, how tough is it to manage the wait?  For us, we have already waited 56 days.  Two months have gone by pretty fast, and it's strange to realize that over 50 days have gone by already.  Of course, there are occasional reminders that bring the wait to the forefront with thoughts like:

"I don't want to go to work today... it would be awesome if we got the call!"

Some of the thoughts like this are silly and make me smile.  Other times I catch myself dwelling on it more than I should.  Especially because dwelling on it won't change anything.  Time is starting to add up for us, but we have still waited a relatively short time.  Managing the wait is a huge topic for adoptive families.  It's one that our agency really focuses on as for many families, it can be tough to wait day after day for any sort of news about being selected.  Eventually, most families are picked.  It just takes time.


August Statistics
It's been relatively quiet in the pool.  The total number of families is the same and only 2 new families entered the waiting pool with 3 leaving and 1 returning.

Since we entered the waiting pool on June 5th, 9 other families have joined.

Looking back from today to January, 32 families have entered the pool since the start of the year and none of them have left the pool.  In total, that's a minimum wait of 7 months.  While this doesn't mean we're automatically going to wait 7 months, it does provide some perspective as to how we should be managing our wait.

Prediction Roundup

It's been a couple of weeks since our last post asking for predictions and we had quite a few predictions come in.  Just for fun, we put together a little chart that summarizes all of the guesses!

The top entry for "Average Wait" represents the low end of the average wait time for our agency.  We don't have up-to-date numbers, but this is likely 18-24 months.  Compared to this, everyone is very optimistic for us, so we appreciate your happy thoughts!  :)

Waiting Pool Entry!

Andy and I are officially in the waiting pool as of today!  This means that we are essentially "pregnant" but with an unknown due date.  With OA&FS (our agency), an adoptive family can be selected at any time once they are in the waiting pool.  There is not a set amount of time to wait until we have a placement.

So on average, what is our expected wait time?  In our last post about waiting pool stats, I noted that there were 98 families in the waiting pool at the start of June.  Our agency has about 35-45 placements each year.  Assuming 45 placements per year, it would take over 2 years for every family in the waiting pool to get selected.  For us, we're assuming an average wait time would be about 1.5 to 2 years.

This means we likely have plenty of time to splash around in the waiting pool.  A couple of years ago, we splashed around with Charley, the happy adoption waiting pool whale.  This time around, I think we'll hang out with Ginger, the glamorous waiting pool giraffe.  Considering that this time around, we'll likely be waiting much longer, I've upgraded us to have a slide and a fountain!  (It's entirely possible I might have to buy us one of these now that I've found it online...)

Ginger, our waiting pool giraffe

Pictures on the Fridge

Last week, we put up a whole bunch of pictures on the fridge. Brian and I have been saying for a while that we want more photos of our family and friends

around where Dominic can see them, but we just hadn't gotten around to it. So over the weekend I got a bunch of magnetic sleeves, had some prints made, and voilà! Instant portraits for Dominic.

And wow, were they a hit. Without fail, every morning since then the first thing he does after coming downstairs is to run to the fridge and start pointing at all the people. He loves it! I was surprised by how much he enjoys looking at all the pictures, and also at how well he can identify everyone. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends - he knows every name, and can even say some of them!

One of the reasons we chose to pursue open adoption was that we wanted our children to know where they came from, and to be able to have a relationship with their birth families. To that end, we've seen Dominic's birth family a number of times over the past year and a half, and I'm confident we'll continue on that route throughout the course of Dominic's life. But the kid's only 17 months old - I assumed that even though he's seen his birth family often, he didn't yet understand who they were. Surprisingly, the fridge has proven me wrong.

Dominic's birth parents are both on our fridge, and somehow Dominic already knew who they were without us having to prompt him at all! He can identify them by both name and relationship: when I say "Carly" or "birth mom", and "Jason" or "birth dad," he knows them both. And he smiles when he points to them, but there's one other picture that he gets even more excited about: the one of him with his birth brother Mickee. I guess he knows a cute picture when he sees it!

We spent a lot of time during adoption preparation worrying about how we'd interact with a birth family. And we still worry about it sometimes; any human relationship has to be approached with care and sincerity. But it's nice to know that at least for now, things seem to be off to a good start!

Waiting Pool - April Stats

It's a new month which means that it's time for a fresh round of stats!

After some graphs showing some less than exciting changes in the pool over the last month, time for a new chart!  Now that we're going through the pool a second time, we have an entirely new perspective considering that our family is different from so many others in the pool.  We have already tracked waiting families by orientation, but this time around it made sense to do a quick look to see how many other families have children as well.

As shown above, only 17 families out of the 94 total have children right now.  Each birthfamily will look at the available waiting families differently.  Some might want to choose a family without kids while others might choose an adoptive family with kids to guarantee that the child will grow up with at least one sibling.  Admittedly, we're hoping for a family with the latter perspective or one that is open to either case!

Homestudy and Transracial Adoption

In February, we had all of our homestudy meetings with our counselor, Katie.  We also turned in a giant pile of paperwork...

Office Kitty is not impressed with our papers

...recorded a video of the two of us that will go online with our profile where we answered the typical questions of "What do you like about your spouse?" and "Why does openness appeal to you?"...

Oh dear god, never do an image search on "openness."  Kids, the internets are scary.

...and then we also talked a lot with Katie about some major adoption topics like transracial adoption, attachment, and exposures.  Since we have plenty of time coming up and will review some of these later, I'll keep this focused on transracial adoption.

What does transracial adoption actually mean?
It's a fancy term for when you adopt a child of a race different from your own.  For us, Andy and I are both white.  A transracial adoption for us means that we could be adopting a child that is hispanic, asian, african american, etc.  The end result is that the child may look obviously different from us.  Looking at our first child, Dominic is a white baby that easily fits into the societal mold where people can easily assume that we are his parents.

With two dads and an old brother that are white, some of these kids might look the same as us while others would look different and be confusing to people that don't know our family

Even the folks from Avenue Q tell us that our family
will be judged at least a little bit whether we're a
transracial family or if we're all white

One point that really stuck out the most to me is that our future family could all be together in one place (Andy, myself, Dominic, and a future little brother or sister), and someone walks up and talks to Dominic about his "friend".  Thinking about how we perceive families, typically a child that looks different would normally be a friend or relative rather than part of the family.  It's something that would come up over and over again: at the grocery store, at security with TSA when we fly anywhere, on the playground, at school, and many other instances.  These are situations where adoptive parents and children are outside of societal norms and need to educate those around them.  For our family, we're already a little unique and adding one more layer of depth to our family isn't really that big of a deal to us!

So looking ahead, where are we at in the process?

Information Meeting

Pre-Adoption Seminar

Application Submission

Application & Intake Interview

Homestudy Interview #1

Homestudy Interview #2

Homestudy Interview #3

Homestudy Interview #4

Homestudy Completion

Pool Entry

Waiting in the Pool [0 months to 2+ years]

Chosen by Birthfamily

We're moving right along!  There are still several weeks of wrapping up our homestudy and getting background checks done by the FBI.  Beyond that, we also need to write and prepare all of our materials for our online profile for the OA&FS website.  Still a fair amount of work left, but we're likely less than 3 months away from the pool and should be "swimming" with Charley the Waiting pool whale again before summer starts!

It's a (Death) Trap!

In preparations for last week's homestudy interviews, I realized one super important thing that we'd completely forgotten.  Despite filling out or gathering over 32 separate pieces of paperwork for our homestudy documents such as reference letters, autobiographies, contracts, background checks, FBI background checks, birth certificates, marriage license, driver's licenses, self-assessments, tax returns, etc. etc., I realized that one key piece of making sure that our homestudy interviews pass with flying colors was having everything prepared on the homestudy checklist.  (Yet another list!)

This homestudy checklist requires us to have a home evacuation plan posted.   It also has lots of things on it that make sense for Katie to check off.  Basic items that legally need to be confirmed before saying a home is acceptable for a child.  You know, like running water, heat, smoke alarms, and that the house isn't a giant haunted house death trap. 

Back to the evacuation plan, it makes more sense for adopting older children, but it's kind of laughable to have to do one for a newborn baby.  Oh well, we did one last time around in our old house and I threw yet another copy of one together for our new house too.  While I didn't do a fancy version drawn up in CAD software this time around, I still took a little time make some pretty pictures for it in PowerPoint!

The next time any of you are over to visit, this will be conveniently posted next to our patio door.  Be sure to spend 2 minutes getting to know this while our house burns down around you before you take 2 steps evacuate along the golden path to freedom.

Also, since this is being posted after our homestudy interviews, I should probably mention that we passed with flying colors.  Hooray!  We'll likely post more follow up items in the future, but this is just a quick update for now.

Accepted!

It's official!

Dear Andy & Brian:

Open Adoption & Family Services is honored to welcome you into our program. Based on your Application & Intake meeting, it is apparent that your values and expectations for your adoption are well aligned with our commitment to creating healthy open adoption relationships. We feel that you will be a great candidate for our program and look forward to working with you.

We have officially received our acceptance letter from by OA&FS and are on track to continue work to prepare for our second adoption! On Tuesday, Andy and I went over to their office to have our official Intake Interview with our counselor, Katie.  Going through this process for the second time really provides a different perspective.  Compared to the first time we went through and did this interview, it was a lot more relaxed.  The fact that we already know Katie and that she knows us made it incredibly easy.  It has also helped that we have been very active with our agency since adopting Dominic as well.  We have been to two holiday parties (2013 and 2014), I was a guest speaker at one of the pre-adoption seminars, and we also attended their summer picnic back in August.  Sometimes I wonder why I always feel so busy... this might explain a trend.

So why did we have this interview?  OA&FS has every adoptive family go through this interview to make sure they are ready to 'buy in' to the concept of open adoption and that they are a good fit for the agency.  Interviews like this one help protect adoptive parents, birth families, the agency, and especially the children to make sure everyone is committed to working together towards an open adoption.  A few questions we had in our original intake interview which reflect this were:

• How did you decide on adoption?
• How do you feel about openness?
• How and when did each of you decide that you wanted to have children?

This time around, a good chunk of our time with Katie was spent talking about Dominic and our current relationships with his birth parents, Carly and Jason.  Beyond that, there was plenty of talk about personal perspectives, describing our experiences during Dominic's adoption, and what we expect for the second adoption.  (We certainly feel more prepared, but understand every adoption can be different!)

We also spent some time talking about the upcoming process for entering the waiting pool again.  There is still a lot to do (paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork!) which we'll likely touch on in some posts in the coming weeks and months.  Speaking of future posts, there are plenty of other topics we talked about with Katie that we'll be exploring further in depth as well such as:

• Homestudy interviews
• The chance of adopting a baby from another state and how that would be different for us
• The size of the waiting pool
• Preparing our photo book

Overall, we just reached a big milestone in our process, but there's plenty of work left to do.  Thinking about all of this on top of my regular duties at work, I'll be ready for a vacation soon.  Any place that's warm, sunny, and near an ocean sounds just about right. (*hint hint Andy)