Song of a Waiting Mother

I’m pregnant but my tummy isn’t showing,
And no one ever calls me “little mom”.
My neighbors simply aren’t overflowing
With questions that I’d handle with aplomb.
There are no special clothes to mark my waiting.
Nobody stops and smile as I pass by.
The absence of a due date is frustrating,
And looking at the nursery makes me cry.
When I’m “overdue”, no one will worry.
The phone won’t ring and ring as friends check in.
I can’t induce my labor in a hurry,
My new life as a parent to begin.
Adoption is a wearisome endeavour,
And waiting all alone is not much fun.
To be “with child” a year seems like forever …
Dear God, we’re ready: please send us our son or daughter!

Profile being shown!

Our Social worker emailed to let us know that our profile went out to a potential birth mother yesterday. This could be very exciting or it could turn out to be nothing. We are praying hard for this Birth mother and the decision she has to make. We don't have any details and we don't know how many profiles the birth mom is viewing. We should know something in a few weeks. At least our profile is being shown, that is very exciting considering we have only been waiting 3 months.
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**UPDATE**

Our social worker emailed to let us know that our profile was returned to the office. The birthfather's family is helping him to make a parenting plan. I totally understand and respect the decision this family has made. I pray it is in the best interest of the child.

Guest Room is finished!

I am so happy. The guest room is now completed. It started off with one purple while with darker purple Moon's and the rest of the walls white. Why I wanted purple, I have no idea. I just know that we would like 2 children and after our first child outgrows the Winnie the Pooh theme, I'd like the next child to go to the guest bedroom. We painted all of the walls a medium brown color. Then I found this cute border in Sioux Falls of lab puppies. So we hung the border in the middle of the wall all the way around. We moved in my blue chest of drawers and bed. I bought a light brown comforter for the bed. We also put light tan carpet down over the hardwood floor. Then I found some nice multi brown colored window panels and they looks so nice in the room. I love it. My Mom helped me do most of it. It looks great!!!!! I enlarged some pictures of Sam and Shadow and hung them in frames and put them in the room. The finishing touch was the blue lava lamp on top of the dresser. Now when we have a child ready to move into the room, the brown wals should be able to go, unless of course it's a girl and they really want pink, I think we'll deal with that when the time comes :-)

Going on Month #3

Well we're about a week away from being on the waiting list for 3 months. I can honestly say time is starting to pick up the pace a little bit. For me that is a darn good thing. I check in with our social worker every few weeks. I do know that our profile is being viewed which we are very thankful for. This week we were asked to consider a situation in which a baby to be born would be 75% African American and 25% Caucasion. We initially selected that we would be open to a biracial child, but African American was not one of our choices. We really thought this over and prayed a lot. We really aren't 100% sure if this is right for us or not. That being said, at this point we don't believe our family is the best fit for this child.

Currently I am working on our spare bedroom getting it fixed up and moving some furniture out of the Pooh room to be placed in the spare bedroom. Ross laid the carpet in the spare bedroom and now we need to get the curtain panels hemed and the border put up. Then the furniture can go in. Once that is done, then we can really begin getting the nursery set up.

Well that's our update for now. Hope all is well with everyone!!! I can't believe Easter is right around the corner.

Keeping Busy!

Well I have been getting involved in a few projects around the house to keep myself busy. Ross is starting to work a little later at night, he will soon be preparing to get back into the field. I am currently working on a few Winnie the Pooh cross stitch projects that will be hung up in the "soon to be Nursery". I am also doing a few things in our guest bedroom that will keep me busy. My goal is to turn it into a "puppy" theme room. I have tons of pictures of Sam and Shadow so I know I could hang those up in there. I also found a cool puppy border that would work. I am excited to get it finished up. Hopefully the girls will like it and want to sleep in there when they come visit.

In a way it feels like time is creeping by, but yet our 2 month wait has gone pretty fast, if that makes any sense. We did make some revisions to our online and hardcopy profiles. The hardcopies at the offices have been changed. We're waiting for the online profile to get changed.

Keep checking back for any updates. Thanks for the continued support.

One Month Down...

Well we've been waiting for a little over a month now. In a way it's gone pretty fast, but yet in another way it's gone slow. The WAITING part is the hardest part of all. We basically have no idea when we will get picked. It could be 2 months from now, it could be 2 years from now. So in a nutshell I don't have much to report. I did receive an email from the Bethany Social worker who informed us that our profile has been looked at already, but unfortunately no takers.

We're starting to buy baby things here and there. Next weekend we're going to stop at Babies R Us and see if we can find a crib. We would like to get the Nursery set up in case we would be matched soon and wouldn't have time to complete it. I've also started registering online at Walmart. I decided not to post the link to our baby registry as it gives out identifying information, but for those of you who want to take a look, just search for our last name. I think I put in a fake due date of 1/3/08. Apparently websites that offer baby registries don't take into consideration that adoptive parents need registries too so therefore I ALWAYS have to put in a due date.

Well that's our update for now. Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Approved and Waiting

Well it's now official. As of January 3, 2007, Ross and I are officially waiting to adopt. We now wait for a birth mother to select us to adopt her baby. It could go fast and it could take a while. After speaking with our social worker, it is amazing how each birthmom has different likes and dislikes. Our social worker said a birthmom could like us because we share the same interest in a sport, because we have a dog, because we both work, because we live on a farm, because we're Baptist, the list could go on and on. I just hope and pray God leads our birthmom to us soon!! The homestudy process wasn't as hard as we anticipated. In fact it only took about 6 weeks to complete. There was a lot of paperwork to fill out but I am so happy that we don't have to redo that again. If we do have to renew our homestudy there are only a couple documents that have to be updated thankfully. We pray we don't have to update the homestudy though. It's all in God's hands now. Thanks for continuing to support us.

New Year!

Well here we are in 2007. Boy did the holidays seem to go by so fast. All is well here. We are oficially done with our Adoption homestudy and are on the Bethany Website for waiting families. We're hoping to bring a miracle home this year!!! I've joined a couple online adoption boards so I am really hoping that will help with the wait. It's amazing how fast some placements go while others take a while. It all depends on the birthparent(s) likes and dislikes. We originally thought about going with International adoption but with that, there are a lot of hoops to jump through when dealing with other countries. Plus the travel time and not knowing if we can be away from the farm for an extended period of time. So we believe domestic (US) is the way to go. Thanks for everybody's support .

1st Homestudy Interview Completed

Yesterday Ross and I had our first Homestudy Interview at the agency. It was pretty painless. We were asked a lot of questions about our marriage, how we plan to parent, why we want to adopt, about our infertility, if our family is supportive and so on. We have our 2nd interview in early December. These will be individual interviews about ourselves, growing up, relationships with our family, and characteristics of our family members. The third interview is at our home. The social worker will take a look at the house, ask a few more questions and give us the opportunity to ask any questions we might have. Hopefully we can get these interviews completed before Christmas. Things are progressing quickly. I never realized how much work goes into just getting approved for adoption. Thanks for all the support.

Starting the ADOPTION Process

Well as some of you may already know, Ross and I have been trying to conceive for quite some time. We have done IVF with Dr. Hansen of Sioux Falls, which was unsuccessful. Instead of going through more fertility medications and heartache with no guarantee we have decided to move onto the adoption process. Yesterday we sent in our paperwork. Now we wait for it to be processed and to set up an appointment. I hope this is a much quicker process then the last 2 1/2 years have been. Thanks for your support.

House Project!

Ross finally got my house project done last month and I am very pleased how it turned out. Only took 3 years to get it done :-) He put in all new pavers for our patio. He also planted the rose bushes I
wanted with the help of his Mom. I think the house looks great now!!! I love it and the rose bushes are so pretty when in bloom. Thanks to Janelle, Nolan and Roger the project got done!!!! Yeah...now what other project can I find for Ross to do???? Hmmm.

This is the little corner between the garage and entry way. I love how it turned out. Janelle even found a little pig to stick in with the roses.

This is in front of the house. Now the cats can't lay in the dirt and use it as a litter box!!! Ha!

This is the patio right by the entry way. I love how it turned out. Now we need some steps leading to the door. I wonder how many years it will take for that to be completed.

And last but not least, here is the house. It looks so nice doesn't it?

Kittens on the Farm

Today is such a nice day out. The kittens are quite playful today, and some are now exhausted. I captured a few pictures, couldn't seem to find Tiggy anywhere, maybe shes off hunting for a snack!!! Here are pictures of Nemo, Lucy and Tubby!!!! What a trio!!

Nemo sitting in the leaves.

I thought this was the cutest picture. If you can't tell he's sitting by the water hose.

Lucy sleeping on a nice fall day!

Tubby sitting on the patio chair. He's such a funny kitty! I miss his bright blue eyes.

Ryan & Michelle's Wedding Celebration

Ryan & Michelle had their wedding celebration on September 22nd in Rochester. Many family members and friends were there. We had such a wonderful time. My brother even asked me to dance, how about that. I am so happy for them and we all LOVE Michelle. We stayed in a nice motel that had a pool and slides for the kids. Kim and Emily and Daryan really loved it. They spent some of the reception in the pool. There were a lot of kids at the reception so that was nice, they even had some kid games. We really enjoyed the weekend, but it went by way too fast as usual. Here are a few pictures of the wonderful time we had. I also love being an Aunt if you couldn't tell. Norah Ann is a sweetie!

Aunt Amber & Norah...special bonding time!

Uncle Ross, Aunt Amber, and Norah. So cute!


Ryan and Amber dancing...this doesn't happen often!!!!


Amber & Ross at the reception!


The Happy Couple!

Greetings

Well I just got into the blogging business (ha ha)! Life on the farm is great. Ross is busy farming and raising hogs. He started combining tonight. I can't believe it's almost October, where has the time gone. Seems like just yesterday Ross and I were getting married and here we are 3 years later. I am still working in town at the law office and enjoying it.
Our lab/golden retriever Sam is so happy we rescued him from the Humane Society. He is the center of attention and loves it. I always wanted a lap dog but never dreamed it would be a 90 pound lap dog. We love him dearly though.

There hasn't been too much excitement in our lives. Now that it is harvest season Ross is spending more time outside and doesn't get in until 9 or 10 o'clock at night. So we don't see as much of each other. I'm always happy when the end of harvest rolls around. It's nice to be able to sit down together and have a meal. I don't care too much for eating at 9:00 at night so needless to say I make supper, and Ross just eats his whenever he gets in. It works for us I guess. I did tell him that once we have children, I really don't think they'll want to eat supper at 9:00 at night so he may just have to find a way to come in and then go back out. It's easier when he's farming at our place but a lot of the time he's over by Nolan's or his Dad's which is a little harder for him to get away.

Ross and I have been making weekly visits to the doctor. I won't go into detail, but lets just say that will probably be coming to an end soon. Keep watching for updated posts and you see what I mean.

Thanks for reading my very first blog. I think I'm going to like blogging!!!!!