We're ready for a new year!

It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the end of another year already. It seems like just yesterday that were on the Bead Shop Hop, just last week that we were having a great time at the OC Fair, and just last month that we were starting this very blog. 

This year has been one of grand adventures and small moments of happiness for us. We’ve had great times with friends and family, celebrating birthdays and holidays. We’ve been on trips long and short. We’ve seen the mountains, the beach, and the desert. Through it all, though, there has been one common thread.

When we learned to install a car seat, when we spent time at the zoo, when we posed for photos with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, we wished we were doing all those things as parents. When we learned about children’s books and remembered our many favorites from when we were children, we longed to read to our to our own child. When we decorated our Christmas tree, we wondered how many more Christmases it would be before we see our child’s face light up with wonder.

We did a lot in 2012 with the goal of making our adoption plans a reality. Everything from creating our website and starting this blog, placing online ads, and expanding our social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest was part of that. We joined new communities online and Susan’s interview in November with Melinda, another adoption blogger, was part of that. Those of you on our Christmas card list got a few of our contact cards and a holiday letter along with the season’s greetings. We did all this because we want to send next year's Christmas cards as a family of three, instead of just the two of us.

The year that’s ending has been a hard one for us, as our wait has stretched out longer than we thought possible. Many of the people who read this blog or follow us on Facebook have helped us through tough times this year. The kind words we’ve received from many of you have made the process a little more tolerable, and we thank you for that.

2012 did have its charms, but we're ready to leave it behind. We hope that 2013 will bring us the baby boy or girl we've been waiting for. And we wish you a Happy New Year!  May 2013 bring you closer to your dreams and be filled with much love, happiness, and joy!

P.S. Let’s all hope that this is the last time we have to wish you a happy new year from just the two of us.

Mitch's Christmas Wish

Mitch reviewing the ornaments before we decorate our Christmas tree.

We’re going to do something a little different with this blog post. Normally, our posts are from both of us, and are written in a shared voice. This post, however, is coming just from Mitch. It’s a look at what Christmas means to a prospective adoptive father, and it is written from Mitch’s point of view.

I like Christmas. I like the lights and decorations. I like the holiday spirit in the air. I even like fruitcake! Christmas is a time to celebrate with family and friends, and to share with the people we love. I’m a very lucky guy: I have my wonderful wife Susan and friends and family near and far. But Christmas is, more than any other time of year, a holiday made for children. We adults trade gifts and listen to Christmas songs, but Santa and Rudolph and presents under the tree are there for the junior set.

We’ve been trying to adopt for almost two years. This is the second Christmas we’ve spent hoping we would be able to hang a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament on the tree, the second Christmas we wanted to be able to put a tiny stocking up for our little one. While part of the spirit of the season is to share love with the ones we have, it’s hard not to dwell on the member of the family we’ve been waiting to join us for so long.

I don’t want this to sound too sad. I am happy and grateful to have the many people whom we love and who love us. But I want to dress up as Santa. I want to make Popsicle stick and glitter ornaments at craft time with our little one. I want to watch Rudolph and Charlie Brown with our beloved child. I want to be a dad.

That’s really all I want this Christmas, and all the other days of the year. I want to be a father. I want to be a force of good for a child. I want to make a little person feel safe and loved. I want to help a young mind to develop, and a young spirit to love. I want to share what I know, and learn more myself. That’s my Christmas wish.

These are a few of our favorite things...

One of the things we like most about Christmas is decorating our tree with the many ornaments we've collected over the years. We enjoy going through our little collection as we get ready to decorate and love remembering details about each ornament. This year we decided to consider which ornaments are the most special to us and share our favorite ten. 

1. 2007 picture frame:  Ornaments dated with the year are always good for memories. This picture frame ornament was given to us by our dear friend M a few weeks after we got married in November 2007. It's a fun ornament and it is a great way to add a memory of that special day to our Christmas tree.  

2. Crochet covered ornament: Handmade ornaments are also among our favorites. This ornament is one of a set of four that our dear friend M gave us. We love them because they're beautiful and she made them.  

3. 2002 zoo ornament: The San Diego Zoo is one of our favorite places to go and this tiger ornament is dated with the year we first started going to the zoo together. It reminds us of all the good times we've had there and the fun times we hope to have with our child someday, hopefully soon.

4. Snoopy & Woodstock: Snoopy is one of our favorite characters and course he's got to have a place on our tree.

5.  Felted bunny: Many of the ornaments on our tree are animals because we like them so much. This bunny is very sweet and cozy. We couldn't resist when we saw her in the store a couple of years ago. She'll always a special place on our tree. 

6. Sleepytime bear: Susan's mom was the original inspiration for collecting special ornaments. When Susan was growing up her mom bought an angel ornament each year for the family tree. Then when Susan was older, she and her mom would also select a bear ornament. When Susan got married, the bears came with her and now decorate our tree. We want to share the same tradition of adding a special ornament each year for our child and wonder what type he or she will want to collect.

7. Fiesta ornament: We love Fiesta ware and began a collection when we got married. Last year we couldn't resist adding this fun ornament in the 75th Anniversary Fiesta color, marigold.

8. Fox: Animal ornaments are always a big temptation when we are shopping. We've have a number of them in our collection and this fox is one we like most.

9.  Pair of hedgehogs: More animals. These hedgehogs were too cute to buy just one, so we bought a pair and we always hang them together. 

10. Beaded snowflake: Susan made this ornament and combined two things she loves, snowflakes and beads. It catches the light and sparkles on our tree.

Of course we keep adding new favorites to our collection. This year we found a Big Ben ornament to remind us of the great times we've had with friends in London. And we found a few ornaments to celebrate our new annual passes to Disneyland including our first dinosaur ornament, Rex from Toy Story.

We have to admit that we have mixed feelings this year about Christmas. We appreciate the joy and beauty of the season, but it's hard not to feel some sadness too. We were sure we'd be celebrating the holidays as a family of three. It is being a bit tough this year, but fortunately rituals such as going through our ornaments and decorating for Christmas help keep us focused on all the love and good things we have in our lives. Hopefully 2013 will be our year for a "baby's first Christmas" ornament, which of course will become our most favorite of all. 

Halfway done with the cross-stitch, but what about our wait?

As far as our adoption journey goes, it's been more than 19 months so we hope we're much more than halfway there. But of course as we've mentioned several times on this blog, it's unclear how long our wait to adopt to will be and therefore it's impossible to know how far along we are. Everything could happen suddenly so it might turn out we're 99.9% there, or it could be another 19 months. Who knows!

Progress as of 12/9/12. The project is definitely getting there!

However, we can easily determine the progress Susan is making on the cross-stitch project. As we discussed in the "A journey of a 1,000 miles..." post when Susan began, clear indications of progress are easy to see as she stitches and now it is clear that she's about halfway done. 5 of 10 blocks are nearly completed and just waiting for the final touches of outlining and French knots. It's being tough to wait as long as we have, so it's reassuring to see the blocks fall into place as each gets finished. 

The 5th block with the giraffe seemed to take much longer than we thought. When we last posted on the progress of the project at the end of October, it seemed like that block would be done soon enough. November wound up being a lot busier than we planned and the 5th block seemed especially challenging. It might just be the hardest block of all. We had actually hoped to post with progress when Susan finished it several days ago, but internet problems kept us from posting. It turned out the delay was an unexpected bonus for the project. Since we had no internet for a few days, Susan had extra time to cross-stitch and now the 6th block is well underway.

Aside from the cross-stitch, we're definitely ready to become parents and keep hoping that call is almost here. In the meantime Susan will keep stitching and we'll see how far she can get before our child arrives. And it's ok by us if she doesn't finish before that happens!

The 5th block is complete and now we've got a giraffe and the number 4.

The "D is for Duck" block is shaping up.
See the curve of the letter D and see the start of the ducks' feet? 

Five Years, So Happy Together

It was five years ago this month that we joined our lives together.

Earlier this month we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. We took our own advice from our recent post about The Long Haul and filled a weekend trip with some things we’ve never done before, along with a few things we always enjoy and want to do again. The weather was warm, like it was on the day we married, and we took a short trip south to San Diego County to celebrate our five years together. It wasn’t exactly London and Paris, where we went on our honeymoon, but it was nice.

The traditional gift for the fifth anniversary is wood, and so, we gave ourselves the chance to see some wood up close and in its fall finery on our trip. Julian is a tiny town in northern San Diego County known for its Old West feel and its apple crop. You might know Julian as the home of one of the stores on the Bead Shop Hop, but there is a lot more to this town than beads.

High up in the mountains, the palm and eucalyptus trees give way to oaks and pines. A walk through town, even on a fairly warm day, brings the scent of wood stoves and fallen leaves. And everywhere you look, Julian presents its apples. It seems like every other storefront along the main road sells apple pies, apple cider, apple turnovers, apple donuts, candy apples and even bushel baskets of fresh local apples. You really can’t visit without trying at least one of these apple delights, and we were no exception, enjoying some apple crisp and a piece of apple-pumpkin pie.

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend. It was wonderful to get a chance to spend time together away from the buzz of daily life and it gave us a chance to reflect on our relationship and our life so far as a married couple. Five years seems like both a long time and like no time at all.  If you read our recent post about our adoption journey, you know how much can happen in a few years. While the last five years have been busy in so many ways and there have been a lot of changes, there are some things that haven’t changed a bit since we officially joined our lives together on that November day in 2007.

For one thing, we still love doing things together, whether it’s something big like a multi-day road trip, or something small like a trip to the mall for birthday cards. If you follow us on Facebook, you know we do a lot of stuff together. We feel that the time we spend with each other is precious, and we want to make the most of it.

When we got married, we made a vow to support each other no matter what. At the time, we didn’t think our lives together would involve a long road to become parents, but it has. We started our plan to grow our family almost right after we got married so it's been nearly five years for that too. Trying to become parents has been much more difficult than we imagined. While isn't always easy to face the stress and frustration that our wait to adopt brings, being together makes it better and we try every day to live up to our vows and support each other. Certainly some days are are better than others and some are tougher, but we make it through through all of them, and always side by side.

During these five years our love for each other has deepened and grown.  We’re closer now than we’ve ever been before. As we face challenges in our lives, whether related to the adoption or not, our bonds grow stronger. Waiting to adopt has brought us much closer together. It keeps us engaged with each other and our lives and the world around us. Our connection continues to strengthen through our travels and challenges. Whatever comes our way, good or bad, fun or trying, we know we’re a team.

You know what they say about first comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes the baby carriage. Five years into our marriage, we are happy and grateful that we've have each other and our love and marriage, but we're still hoping for the baby carriage. We had a lot of fun during our trip, as we always do. We always enjoy spending our time together and like exploring Southern California, whether it’s a quick visit to Disneyland or the Getty Villa or a weekend away in San Diego. We know we'll always want to spend time together, but we also know that no matter how good a time we have doing these things, a smile on the face of our child will make good times even better.  Someday, we will have a child to share our life with and we can't wait!  That will be a wonderful time, and our love will grow even more when we are parents. Traveling together gives us strength and comfort as we wait for that happy day.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is just a few days away and in some ways it's really tough. As you know, we've been waiting a lot longer than we anticipated to become a family. While we love the holidays, we admit that it is a bit painful to face the prospect of another Thanksgiving and possibly even another Christmas without a baby girl or boy sharing our lives and the holidays with us. We were certain that 2012 would be the year for "pass the baby" at Thanksgiving dinner. We really looked forward to choosing at least one "Baby's first Christmas" ornament and enjoying Christmas lights with a little person. That said, it's a very special time of year and we don't want to lose sight of all the good in our lives just because we are looking for more. We look around us and know we are very lucky and there is plenty to appreciate. This post is about our gratitude this Thanksgiving, both as a couple and as individuals.

Together we are very grateful for all the good in our lives. We are so lucky to share our lives together. While we may not be rich in money, we are rich in love, safety, comfort, opportunity, knowledge, and experience. We are very fortunate that the resources necessary to pursue our dream of becoming a family through open adoption have come our way as we needed them. We are also blessed by literally hundreds of people who have lent their support to our adoption efforts. We appreciate everyone who has helped us along our journey and we are thankful for all the kindnesses that have been shared with us, both great and small. Some folks have been with us from the beginning, others have just recently come on board. There are many people who have liked us on Facebook whom we have never met, and others are among our oldest friends. All of you have made the hard times a bit easier and we thank you. 

We've each also been thinking about what we are particularly grateful for this Thanksgiving. Mitch says...

• I am most grateful for my wonderful wife Susan. She is kind, smart, and loving, and she helps me be a better person than I ever could have been on my own. Anything I do, I would rather do with her. Anywhere I go, I would rather go with her. I consider myself very lucky to have her in my life, and I am more thankful for her presence than for anything else in the world. 
• I am also grateful for the rich cultural scene on offer in Southern California. My life has been enriched beyond measure by the myriad of museums, libraries, theaters, zoos and festivals here. 
• I have been able to enjoy all these things because of the excellent education I received. From elementary school to college, I had several teachers who fed and nurtured my sense of wonder and curiosity. I am particularly grateful for Mr. O’Malley, the principal at HB Lawrence Elementary School, Mr. Fitzgerald, my 9th grade History and Latin teacher, my 12th grade English teacher Ms. Jonkers, and Drs Walter Denny, Yvonne Haddad and Roland Sarti at the University of Massachusetts. 
• I’m thankful for the many parks, trails, beaches, and open spaces here in Orange County and around the area. Outside is one of my favorite places, and the weather here makes it easy to go there. I’m glad I’m able to hike in the hills, explore the coast, and see it all from a big orange balloon. 
• Lastly, I’m grateful for my wonderful wife Susan. I know I put her first on this list, but she’s the world to me, and she’s always in my heart, so I’m putting her on the list again. Anyone would be lucky to have someone as special in their lives. I hope you do, and I’m beyond grateful that I do. 

And Susan says...

• I am so grateful for my husband Mitch, who is the most important person in my life. I am incredibly lucky we are together and share our lives. I am thankful every day for his unconditional love, the warmth of his enormous heart, and his kind, gentle spirit. 
• I am thankful we have the opportunity to have a stable, healthy, comfortable life filled with love and many good things.
• I am also thankful for the freedom to be myself and pursue my hopes and dreams. 
• I appreciate all the lessons I've learned in life, both in and out of school. Some of them haven't been easy, but I am thankful for them nonetheless. I am lucky that many people have shared their wisdom with me throughout my life. I am grateful to all the people who have helped me grow and become a better person.
• I am thankful for all the local adventures and fun experiences we've had during our wait. The wait will never be easy, but it's definitely better when I can see great works of art, take a good road trip, or be a kid again at Disneyland.

We wish you and yours the best this holiday season. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

2012 Adoption Bloggers Interview Project

The Open Adoption Bloggers site is a great resource for different perspectives on adoption. We discovered it in October 2011 a few months before we even started blogging. Once we had written a few posts in 2012, we submitted our blog to their blogroll. We've been tempted to join in every time we've seen one of their roundtable prompts, but we always wind up chickening out. However, this October we saw calls to participate in the 2012 Adoption Bloggers Interview Project and Susan decided it was time to get involved so she signed up.

Before we get started on the interview, I want to say thank you to two women involved in this project. The first is Heather Schade who blogs at Production, Not Reproduction and is the caretaker for Open Adoption Bloggers. She's done an amazing job of coordinating over 100 participants for this year's project and keeping us on schedule. The second is my interview partner, Melinda Oklamchak who blogs at He's our heart; She's our hero. Melinda is a very kind person and is so organized. She kept us both on track as we exchanged emails and our questions & answers. I'm so happy to be part of this project and I appreciate everything they did to make this happen. Thank you both!

Melinda, Noah, and Joe - happy to become a family in 2012! 

Melinda and her husband adopted their son earlier this year. She started her blog during her wait and has continued to blog about life as a new mom. I was very lucky to be matched with Melinda and thoroughly appreciated reading her blog. Melinda knows how difficult it can be to wait to adopt. I was very moved by her story and related to it as our own wait continues. My hope is always renewed when I hear about new families formed through adoption and I was glad to see their journey worked out. 

This project was very interesting because while Melinda and I have things in common, we both blog very differently. Her blog is focused on feelings, while our blog tends to be a lot of thoughts and details about us and our experiences, without a lot of feelings. I am grateful for the different perspective I got from my interview partner and her blog.  Now enough of the introduction, it's time for the interview!

1. Congratulations on adopting your son Noah earlier this year. What’s the best thing so far about being a parent? What’s the most surprising thing?

Everything, on both accounts! No honestly the best thing is just the love, I have never known such unconditional love in such a sort time. I have had instant love for my niece and nephew but this is so different. And it is not just the love we have for him but the love he has for us. I think the most surprising thing is how fast my momma bear kicked in, I didn’t expect it to happen that quickly, to bond with him that fast. I knew the second I saw him being born my life was never going to be the same and then when the consent papers were signed I was proven right. Also how fast they grow. It seems like yesterday that he was born and now we are just 3 short months from his 1st birthday.

2. It looks like you started blogging about a year into your wait to adopt. What inspired you to start blogging at that point? Did you find it helped to blog during the wait?

It was about a year after we started the paper work and we had been on the waiting list for about 6 or 7 months at that point. We met a couple at a training session and she and I became friends instantly and she told me about her blog. I thought it was a great idea and way to keep family and friends posted on what was going on. Before I realized it I have started to write about my feelings during the process and not just what was going on. For me it helped to just be able to write about what was going on and therapeutic just to get it off my chest, to be able to say what I was feeling. You can talk to family and friends but unless they have walked in these foot steps we are all walking in they don’t know, they don’t understand. They can love you and support you but they don’t understand.

3. Is Noah’s birthmother D, aware of your blog? Did she read it before making her decision to place Noah with you and your husband?

No; not that I am aware of. That is something I would have to ask her. I really don’t think it was something she read before making her decision. She did find us on a website but it did not have our blog on it and there was no way to connect the two.

4. What’s the biggest challenge you've faced so far with open adoption? 

When she was still pregnant with Noah it was being involved with EVERYTHING that was going on in her life. Midnight phone calls and just everything. I will say she never wavered in her wanting to place him but there was still so much other stuff I didn’t talk about out of respect for her. Now it is the lack of contact or I should say the back and forth. After we left Las Vegas I think she was hurting, we were parenting a new born and just adjusting to our new life. She has made a lot of life changes and there are peaks and valleys in our relationship but all relationships are work and take time.

5. I saw in your blog that you would like to be more active as a source of information and support for those waiting to adopt. What advice would you give waiting families, especially if they have been waiting more than a year? 

Be pro active in your journey. For many months we just sort of went with the flow of things taking for granted that our agency would be doing all they could. And maybe to them they did but for us it wasn’t enough. Get your information out there, network, network, and network! List your profile on any on-line site you can. Send your homestudy to any agencies that will take it and have it on file without charging you. Ask attorneys, medical offices at colleges any place you can think of to keep your information on file. I know doing it that way you open yourself up to scams so you have to be cautions but you also need to make things happen for yourself.

6. You recently decided to move your blog from WordPress to Blogger. Can you tell me a bit more about that decision? Was it easy to move your blog or were there any challenges? 

The same friend I mentioned earlier had some give always on her blog I asked her about it and she said that she just got emails when she reached a certain amount of “traffic”, you cannot do that on wordpress. I want to become more active and thought that would be a cool added bonus to have. It was an easy process and took like maybe 15 minutes to move all my old posts over and start to blog. It was much easier than I thought it would be to be honest.

7. I noticed a couple of fundraisers mentioned in your blog and I’m curious how those worked. Can you tell me a bit more about them? Do you have any advice for waiting families who might be considering fundraising efforts of their own? 

In the area we live in basket parties are a big fundraiser for pretty much everyone. People put together theme baskets and donate them, also try to get much bigger items, like tickets to a local ball game, amusement party, large gift card amounts and you charge extra for those (get a roll of like 50/50 tickets and sale them 3 tickets for $5.) Also sale 50/50 tickets. You then charge a fee to get in and you get a sheet of tickets with 25 chances on them, (you can get the tickets on line). The object is to have a lot of baskets and nice baskets (tell people who donate you would like the baskets to be worth say $30). They are a lot of work but if done right they can be a big success. I know of several other fundraisers other families have had as well.

The advice I have is just ask, you never know who is willing to help. When we planned our first one I thought no one will want to help they won’t want to come. You will be surprised, I have people I hadn’t talked to in years call to offer help, and we have over 200 people at the 1st event. Just have faith in it all.

Anyone can email me and I help them with information I can. My email is on my blog.

8. Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently on your journey to adopt?

Part of me wants to say I would not change a thing because I have the most perfect little boy. What I have told people before if we do it again I would do things different like a live and learn type of thing. I would not get locked in with 1 agency and pay them a bunch of money up front. I would also get my homestudy done by independent place so I had control over it. That way we would have had more freedom as to what we could do. We were in the position we couldn’t be shown for some situations at other places I had networked with because we didn’t have our original homestudy. Also when we did have to use another agency to match with Noah’s birth mother we lost A LOT of money and couldn’t get a refund of it. I know that is a choice we made but I still struggle with how some places can do that and live with it.

I do need to state that is OUR personal experience, we have friends who used the same facility we used and loved them and some have even listed with them the 2nd time. Our experience was different, way different.

9. Were there any adoption blogs, websites, or other online resources you found helpful on your journey and would recommend to waiting families? 

I would say just research and find some blogs you connect with. There were 3 I followed and 2 of them I still do, plus several others but during the wait it was;

Jess at Her Womb, Our Hearts (she has since closed her blog since the adoption of her 2 children)

Rebekah at Heart Cries and Meg at God Will Fill This Nest.

I have also read the book about adoption in the 60’s and 70’s and it was a big eye opener for me to want to work hard to have a relationship with Noah’s birth family.

Curious about Susan's answers? You can check out Melinda's blog for her interview with Susan. There's also many more interviews to read from the current and past Adoption Bloggers Interview Projects at the links below.

• 2012
• 2011
• 2010