We Could Insist On The Impossible

Keeping busy during the adoption wait is vital to our mental stability.  I have mentioned in previous posts that John is in the Atlanta Curling Club (it is an ice sport, not curling like with weights... ahem..LJ, I am looking at you.)  John also sorta kinda has a band... long story?  Or short story that I don't actually know?  No story at all maybe?  Music is occasionally played in our basement.  That is all I know!

I have tried all sorts of things to keep busy.  I started yoga a couple of months ago, but not in a class setting, though I would love to find the right class. For now I am using doyogawithme.com and Yoga With Adrienne on Youtube.  Yoga isn't easy people.  Maybe it's just me, but I can really work up a sweat with these videos.  I just found a 30 day yoga challenge on Youtube, so I am going to challenge myself to stick with it for 30 days straight.  You know how there are those days where you get home from work and you just want to eat and watch TV in your jammies?  Or you want to sleep that extra 30 minutes after your alarm goes off?  Yeah, that isn't going to happen for 29 more days!  I can't wait to feel the difference from day 1 to day 30. 

Once it cools off a little, I want to restart C25K or "couch to 5k" for those of you who aren't down with the lingo.  Man, I do love my couch though.  I think next time we should buy a less comfortable couch, so I don't feel the magnetic pull of relaxation.  There is a 5k that I like to do in Smyrna in October called the Spooktacular Chase.  This will be my third year and I would love to cut my time down a little.  John doesn't like to do 5ks, but he works on his feet, so I get it.  He goes and hangs out with our nephew while the rest of us do the race.  This 5k winds around my brother's neighborhood and I will admit that jogging past his street on that last stretch is the hardest!  You picture the couch, the air conditioning, the bathroom!  I have forced myself to finish each time though. Finishing a 5k as someone who would have considered herself disabled by kidney failure only a 5 years ago, feels amazing.  Walking, jogging or running, it doesn't matter. It is all about finishing.  

I also have been working a little on the nursery.  There isn't a lot I can do until we know boy/girl, single birth/twins etc.  I do get tired of buying gender neutral everything, even though I don't really believe in enforcing gender stereotypes.  There is only so much yellow, green and gray you can buy!  Why must so many blue things say "little man" and pink say "princess".  It's 2014 after all!  What I did do lately is add a nightlight, Peter Rabbit to go with the crib bedding.  Thanks Pottery Barn Kids coupon!  I also bought a basket to store diaper related stuff that will go the changing station dresser.  I washed everything we have so far, just in case!  Do any other waiting families do kind of superstitious things?  Like, I thought to myself one day that if I wash the bedding and newborn stuff, I will demonstrate to the world that we are ready and baby will find us.  Or when we were going on our last trip, I was at the grocery store getting road snacks and I just felt the extreme need to buy something for baby and in my head it was like a lucky charm or something.  I bought a bottle and it wasn't lucky.  Obviously, impromptu baby supply shopping will not make it happen, but you start letting those thoughts slip in.

Corner of the nursery.  Details to be added once baby is here Extra furniture will be gone too..

It's so easy to start playing games in your head.  The wait will do that to you... make you a little weird.  You start thinking things like, of course we haven't been matched yet, we have dishes building up in the sink... we have yet to prove that we are good enough to be parents!  Silly things like that.  Of course parents let their dishes pile up sometimes.  Everyone does.  Of course there are no adoption gods watching the size of our laundry pile or measuring the amount of veggies we eat.  The truth is there is no rhyme or reason as to when that fateful day happens and you meet the woman who will trust you enough to raise her child.  There is no agenda for this process, just an outline with many variables.  There is no visible finish line ahead, just a lot of hurry up and wait.  Hurry up and get cleared by the FBI, the GBI, sex offender registry, child abuse registry, doctors, human resources, references from friends and family and then.... wait.  Just wait.

Ugh, waiting.  Not my strong point.  John is so laid back and patient.  I don't know how I got so lucky as to marry someone who is my exact opposite.  Believe me, that is a good thing.  If we both worried and let our type A personalities out as much as I do, this house would be full of anxious preparation and intense conversations.  He is indeed the yang to my yin, the sweet to my salty, and the calm to my storm.  I wouldn't say I am overly uptight, but I like things to be more predictable than this adoption process. 

Ok, onward and conclusion-ward.  We have basically nothing coming up.  Perfect time for a special arrival AMIRIGHT?!  I leave you with something that I posted on our adoption Facebook page that got about 50 likes (thanks guys! it was totally spur of the moment and straight from the depths of my aching, childless heart)

I wrote a long blog post about infertility and how people say the craziest things. About doctors and ultrasound techs and learning how to bite my tongue. I wrote about darkness and the light I see ahead.

But after sitting in a room full of newborn babies today, all I want to say is this:

Dear Future Baby, Your parents are ready for you now. We have your room ready, some pretty awesome name possibilities, and serious amount of love to give. We feel lost without you. We feel you are close and we know we are all meant to be together. We want to watch as you eat your first cookie, use your first crayon and help you dip your feet in the ocean for the first time. We want to kiss your boo boos, make up silly songs with you and teach you right from wrong. Don't stay away too long, as we have adventures to go on.

Hopelessly hopeful. 

Musings of a Future Adoptive Mom

So, I have been trying to put myself in the position of a woman who is having to make the choice to parent, terminate her pregnancy or place her baby for adoption.  Of course I have never been in that position, but when I was a college student, I had people close to me who did have to make those difficult decisions.  I believe that a woman should be able to choose whatever is best for her and her baby at that given time in her life.  I have come to the conclusion, as someone who has yet to have a viable pregnancy, that I cannot and will never be able to fully understand the emotions that go along with such a decision. All I can do is make our family available in the case that a woman wants to place her baby and finds our type of family suitable.

What makes a family suitable?

I guess first of all, we have to pass a bunch of health and criminal screenings every year for our home study, so there is that, but can that really be it?  I don't think so, only being healthy and having a lack of a criminal past does not a suitable parent make! (Though we have squeaky clean pasts and that certainly is good!)  There are other factors as to what will make us the family for our future baby.  There is so much that brings people together.  Think about how you met your best friend or your significant other.  What sort of predestined things occurred to create that scenario where you first met or saw each other from a distance?  When you first talked to him or her, what made you feel connected?  I think the woman who will be our baby's birth mom could very well be brought to us in the same serendipitous way.  I often wonder these things:  Will she be drawn to us based on our geographic location?  Our love of music?  A look in our eyes in the profile?  A tiny detail we mentioned in the profile or in this blog?  Will she see something in us that just calls out that we are the right people to raise her child?  What about us will she find suitable?

I have had so many adoptive parents tell us that when it is the right person, she knows and you know.  Just like when you meet the other most important people in your life.  I can't say that I have heard that all of the situations turn out like that.  Some are last minute, so you do not have that time to get to know her beforehand.  Sometimes she wants more privacy, but she still has to decide that we will parent her baby.  Something about us has to pop out at her.  It's like you want to include every detail about yourself just in case she loves UGA or Frank Turner or curling or even cats.  Does she want her child's parents to take him or her on vacations around the world?  Does she have dreams of her child playing musical instruments or joining sports in school?  Do our dreams for our children align?  I personally just dream of giving our child the opportunity to do any and all of it if they choose to.

I guess we wont know until it happens.  For July, we have very little going on after this weekend.  We went to two housewarming parties this weekend.  We are partied out and over-filled with tasty food.  John has some time before the next curling bonspiel and the beginning of the upcoming curling league. I have taken up yoga and am looking into possible kickboxing classes.  I have to decide this week if I want to take a class for my master's program in the Fall. I feel like I have nothing to lose, but the cost of books, if baby comes and I can't hack both, since my job pays tuition.  I do hate to waste any resources they may be putting towards it though.  I have a tendency to try and juggle a lot at once to make the wait feel less excruciatingly long.

Well, here we sit, waiting for our baby as always.  Hoping for the right phone call, email, or text (YES! We can be contacted via text now! 408-414-7245) .  Google voice had absolutely no Georgia numbers, so we had to be assigned a California area code.  Odd.  Anyway the texts go straight to my cell phone and also our email sarahandjohnadopt@gmail.com, so I can get them immediately.

Check out the cover photo with our contact info that I made for our Facebook page!

That is actually the inside of our crib! So ready!

 

I leave you with a series of photos I found of John and I over the years.  I was looking over old pictures and thought, how lovely it is to be with someone for so long and  still get excited to see his face day after day.

Our one year dating anniversary 2002!

Graduating from UGA- 2003

At our wedding reception - 2007

Playing rock band with my brother Noah -2009

2014!

Excuse Me Ma'am, Your Personal Life is Showing.

First up, I had a dream last night that I went to a Mongol Horde show and Frank Turner got too into it and punched me in the face. I woke up with a sore eye socket...someone tell me what this means!!!  Imagine my confusion upon waking up.

Oh man, the feedback I have been getting from keeping an adoption/life blog is surreal. You love me, you hate me, you think I "TMI" a little too often, you want more, you want less. Well, I have made a choice to share our adoption process - good and bad.  I think that being real is extremely important in life. I am always real with people, I see no point in pretending John and I are people that we are not. That being said, yeah, it's a little weird for me too. I know one day I may wish our faces weren't plastered all over the internet and it would be fruitless to try to remove every picture and personal note ever posted.  I am okay with that. So... onward to the latest updates.

It has officially been 9 stinkin' months of waiting live with the Independent Adoption Center.  That is long enough to have had a full-term baby, if my body would have allowed such growth of human life. Let's all remember one thing though, 9 months is still not that long to wait to adopt. I would feel incredibly lucky if our baby came to us at 9 months. Our home study renewal has been written and submitted, so now we just wait for the IAC to approve it. We continue with life and wait and wait- distracting ourselves with trips, yoga, records, seeing bands play, free HBO preview weekends and nights out with friends. Most days are filled with positive thoughts and optimism, others are really just hard as hell to get through.

We traveled to Wilmington, NC over the weekend for another curling bonspiel and some much needed beach time. This was a one day bonspiel, as opposed to Knoxville's two day event. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the city of Wilmington. There were some pretty sites, the beaches were nice, but mostly we sat in a lot of traffic. For a city of just over 100,000 in the summer (meaning UNC Wilmington was not so crowded), the roads sure were slow moving. The time spent at the beach was fabulous. I got a little beach cabana (because us pale people burn in like 2 seconds) and we made it our home base for half of Sunday.  Here are some pictures of the weekend, because what is a blog post without pictures, right?

Yep, they are all curlers.

John and his team getting ready to curl

Us at Wrightsville Beach (Siri calls it Riotsville which is kind of awesome)

John in our little cabana

Sarah in our little cabana

Carolina Beach- super crowded

Us on Carolina Beach

That really sums up the trip. No good pictures of food, because we didn't really have any unique meals whilst vacationing this time around. We all know I like food pictures too, so it is a quite a shock that there are none.

On the life agenda for the next little while is to keep up the hope that we will become parents soon and to not forget about the women out there who are having to make quite possibly the hardest decisions of their lives- to place their babies or to parent. The big plan is to be grateful that we do have this option, no matter how long it takes or how difficult it feels sometimes. Shall I end this with the usual?  We are ever so hopeful to become parents through open adoption, though our strength waivers, our hope never does.

Summertime (and the livin' is easy)

Let's talk about vacations and luxuries while being in the midst of the adoption wait.  I think it is absolutely necessary to still enjoy some of life's luxuries, even if we are a little nervous about the costs we are enduring for the adoption. We can't sit at home and think about nothing but waiting.  Distraction is the best coping mechanism I have found to get through this ever dragging process.

We do not have a "real" vacation planned for this summer, but we just went on a long weekend trip to Knoxville, TN for John's curling club.  For those who need a reminder or who for some crazy reason missed the winter Olympics, curling is an olympic sport that is played on ice. John is a part of Atlanta's first curling club and they happened to get into a bonspiel in Knoxville called the "Rocky Top Open Bonspiel" which is hosted by the Great Smoky Mountains Curling Club .  I had never been to Knoxville and I have to say I was really impressed.  It was a smaller city with big city features.  We ate some of the best food I have had in a while.  I would really recommend the French Market which is downtown on South Gay Street. We had some delicious crepes for breakfast our last morning there and got chocolate croissants to go! Did I mention they had free refills on iced coffee?  They know the way to my heart for sure. I thought I had more pictures from around town, but they turned out to be mostly food.  Shocker!

Chocolate croissant, fresh out of the oven!

Crepe!

John out on the ice (note the curling pants)

Spielin'

In a little over a week, we will be traveling to Wilmington, NC for another bonspiel.  The good news is that there is a beach in my future! The bad news is that I need to find a bathing suit (just about every woman's worst shopping nightmare).  We will pack up an emergency baby bag (because we can hope right?!), some SPF "insanity level" for the beach (because I basically glow in the dark), and some winter gear for the ice rink!

In super awesome adoption news, all of our home study renewal stuff has been turned in and our home visit is complete!  We now wait for our home study to be re-written/copy and pasted/tweaked a bit and wait for approval for another year of waiting.... good lord, please no!  My zen state only comes easy when I picture baby with us.  On that note, let's all share our adoption Facebook page ! Hey, good idea! I promise to better about making update posts.  I know it is pretty boring at times.  OR here is an idea, follow us on instagram where I am attempting to post 100 days of happy stuff.  I thought it would be really easy and it would be IF I could just post cats, Frank Turner mega-fan stuff and coffee. I guess I could, but it might run some people off.

On the topic of life's luxuries and cutting back, I am doing living room yoga rather than going to a class, but hat could change if I find the right priced studio. I will also be attempting to make my own iced coffee with this recipe from the Pioneer Woman- rather than purchasing one every day (which I am so guilty of).  My apologies to my local coffee joint, which I single handedly keep in business.  I promise to visit you on special occasions and when I have friends to meet up with.

Everyone, please send our kitty Spike good vibes.  He hasn't been well and was still acting a little off this morning. The vet wants x-rays and blood work.  He means the world to us and we hate when he isn't in tip-top cat shape.  12 years old and still my baby.

A few more pictures from Knoxville.  The skies were beautiful the entire time.

We attended a party at the Concord Yacht Club

A rainbow greeted us as we drove in to Knoxville

Thanks everyone for reading and demanding more! Love getting comments and requests from everyone!  I am open to writing about topics that people want to hear about, so bring 'em on!

Struggling

I am not going to lie, some days of the adoption wait are just hard. There really is no rhyme or reason to which days are easy and which days are hard. I don't want to lie to those who are considering adoption to complete their families. Some days you wake up and feel like your baby is so close that you almost expect a phone call or email that day. Other days, like too many of my days lately, you wake up and see no end to the waiting in sight. Adoption and the quest to parenthood in general changes you. It makes you reevaluate your past, present and future choices.

I had such an amazing weekend and thought I could fly happy off of it for months. I finally got to meet my favorite musician, Frank Turner. After his show at the festival we went to, he played a surprise sidewalk show in Little Five Points. We found out about it on Twitter and rushed over immediately. I was in heaven (my swamp feet from the monsoon that nearly washed out the show were in hell, but I was on cloud nine). After the sidewalk show, which only had about 75 people in attendance, I weaseled my way over to him and said "Hi, can we take a picture together?" He said "sure"! Then he talked to John a bit about hardcore, because John was wearing a Botch shirt. Apparently Frank really "botched" Botch's tour in England years ago (see what I did there?) I didn't say much, as I was just kind of in shock that he was so cool about talking to us and taking a picture. Regrets! But really, what would I say that he hasn't heard? Your music rewired my brain? I may be either a better or worse person because of said rewire? Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from that evening.

Why yes, we are BFFs now... right?

Just completely amazing. But here is the thing, I just couldn't keep that sense of excitement and energy the following day. I woke up feeling empty and anxious. Not because Frank Turner isn't really my buddy, but because life was back to worry worry worry. Back to unanswered questions and uncertain timelines. Back to a job that really just doesn't cut it as far as making a difference in anyone's life. I know, I know, students need transfer credit applied to finish school and graduate and become engineers that advance humanity and save lives! (or whatever. yada yada yada). I'd much rather wake up each day and impact those around me on a much higher level.

The thing I am noticing is that I never had these feelings of uncertainty about my life path until I decided to become a parent. How can I make myself the best version of me so that my child has something to strive for and be proud to follow? How can I ensure that the struggles I have overcome so ferociously give hope to others and impact their lives in a way that helps them to keep going and never look back? How can I ensure that a woman who is looking to place her baby can also see that I am not a weak person who was once sick, but a fighter, survivor and mentor?

As much as I only want to show strength, this adoption journey is hard! I could not deal with it today. I tried. I actually tried multiple times to man up and deal. Instead, I retreated home and thought about how to make this process easier, quicker, happier, and less anxiety ridden. I am still working through those thoughts, but with John as my anchor, we will get through it. My calm, solid anchor who keeps me from floating away into the depths of the sea of stress that swirls about constantly. As much as we are stressed over everything, there is a woman out there who will one day find us, who is in a much more stressful situation than we are. Having to make a choice no one should ever have to make. It isn't just about us and our family. It is about her, her baby, her family, her life. Keeping that in mind, we trudge on. We know our lives will all mesh one day and a new leg of this crazy journey will begin. So for now, we have bad days, we have good days, we even have apathetic days, but each day that passes is another step closer to the wait being over and the next chapter of the story to begin.

Eight Months of Waiting!

As of May 23rd, we have officially been waiting live with the Independent Adoption Center for eight months.  It feels both good and bad.  Good, because we are another month closer to having our baby and bad, because we waited yet another month.  Our profile of what we are open to as far as race and health is so broad, it is easy to convince ourselves that we wont be waiting long.  The reality of it is that no one actually knows.  I sure could use a crystal ball right now.  Life would be feel much easier if we just had some idea of when it would happen.  I think I speak for all people waiting to adopt on that one. 

I wanted to talk a little about the things people say that are not meant to be harmful, but can be.  Everyone asks me if I am sure if I want a baby when their kids are acting up around me.  Let's just get one thing straight, YES. YES. YES.  If I wasn't sure and if John wasn't sure, we would never be putting ourselves through this.  I know when people say that, they think of it as a light-hearted little joke, but after going through so much, my sense of humor fails me on this one.  Yes, we want the tantrums, the poop, the puking and the financial costs.  We want it all, because that is not all that being a parent is about.  It is also about the love and kisses and playing as hard as you can.  It is about the companionship and teaching a human being to be a human being.  It is also about how much children teach you about life.  So, yes, we are unquestionably SURE. 

Another thing that is being said to me again and again is "you will get pregnant as soon as you adopt a baby".  I have gone over this on the blog before, but it needs rehashing.  I cannot carry a baby.  I cannot get pregnant and stay pregnant.  People who know me are aware of this, yet keep telling me that life finds a way.  Lif finds a way?  No, just stop it.  We are adopting and that is the end of it.  If by some freak incident "life did find a way" or try to, the fetus would not survive.  My medications make sure of that.  It is hurtful for people to keep insisting I will be pregnant someday.  On top of that, we always spoke of adopting from month two of our relationship. This is our path. I am not trying to be ugly about it, but it needed to be said.

Lastly, something that really has gotten under my skin is when people ask if I am sure if I want an open adoption.  A million times yes, I and WE want an open adoption.  We chose the Independent Adoption Center, because they specialize in open adoption.  We are fully committed with keeping a relationship with the birth mother of our child and any members of her family that she would like to have contact.  The relationship is yet to be determined.  Could be as close as extended family with visits and holidays together or it could be that the birth mom only wants pictures and letters. We know this is the right way to do it, we have read the literature, taken the courses and feel it in our hearts.  People keep telling me I wont be the only mom if we do open adoption.  No, I guess I wont really be the only mother, because a woman who places her child for adoption is still a mother.  I will be mom, mommy, mama though.  Please read about open adoption before making assumptions   Click for open adoption FAQ

On a positive note, the NKF Atlanta Kidney Walk is this Saturday.  Our team The Walking Beans will be walking for the 6th year.  Our team is small this year, but it should still be really fun.  John and I are going to the Candler Park Food and Music Festival that day also to see my favorite musician, Frank Turner.  Trying not to nerd out too much about it. 

To wrap up my only partially positive blog post, we are still waiting, we are still hopeful.  It is hard to stay positive at all times, but most days are met with optimism and excitement that it will be the day that we get a contact or even meet our baby.  Going into month nine of this open adoption wait, we keep our eyes, ears and hearts open. 

Happy Not Quite a Mother('s) Day!

And that folks, was in my fortune cookie the other night.  I like it...like, a lot.  We can pretend I didn't rip it in the retrieval process.  Basically, ever since John's little health crisis, everything has been going really well.  We have had a lot of positive things happening, which we have been really lacking lately.  Perhaps the tides are turning in our favor.

Saturday we went to our adoption agency's annual picnic.  We got to see so many families who have had successful adoptions, even some who were formerly in our support group.  It really is very motivating to see so many families built through our agency.  The picnic was at a nice little park in Norcross, GA right on the Chattahoochee River.  We got to catch up a bit with some other waiting families that we know through support group.  We also met a goose with a serious attitude problem.  I have experience with angry geese, so that was my cue to back off (the goose terror of 1999 haunts me to this day!).

A picture I took of a not so calm Chattahoochee:

After the picnic, we went to a house warming party for a couple of Atlanta Curling Club friends.  Saw one of my coffee baristas there, but thought it might be a little awkward to talk about my Rev Coffee obession at that moment.  I was that weird person who initially thought that maybe I should just hang out with the dogs (sudden social phobia that passed quickly). Totally wasn't necessary.  Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and the food was delicious!  We headed out a little early, because we were exhausted from our full day.  Sorry, no pictures of that party.  I try to take more pictures of stuff now that I have this blog, but I didn't think so many strangers would appreciate showing up randomly on the internet.

Sunday, I took my mom to Pure Taqueria for tamales.  Mother's day doesn't seem to be important to her, but really I have the best mom, so celebrating her just had to happen.  We checked out the new outlet stores in Woodstock.  Gave up, because we ate ourselves into true discomfort and didn't feel like walking around.  John met his mom at the Cheesecake Factory over in Dunwoody, so we did separate things this year.  We couldn't quite get the schedules to work out right.  I had a couple people wish me happy Mother's day, which came as a bit of a shock!  Still waiting, still not a mom! As one friend put it : "Adopting is like being pregnant without knowing your due date, so that qualifies you as a mom to be".  Thank you Katie, for being so thoughtful.  It wasn't necessarily a hard day for me, because there are so many other moms in my life to celebrate.  Ask me again next year if we are still waiting...

I have started a new exercise routine that I developed myself (it's called "Seriously, get off of your ass!") or at least that is what goes through my head when I just want to lay around and eat frozen yogurt.  So far, I have only missed one out of the 5 days I have been back at it.  I do it mostly to keep my head in the right place.  Exercising does amazing things for my happiness quotient.  Starting the day off active can change the entire tone of a day, it really is quite amazing.  There is a park about 1.2 miles from our house that has a track, so I gave it the ole foot to gravel try on Sunday and felt like a million bucks (a sore million bucks) afterward.  I can see this track and I becoming very close friends this summer.

The track:

If you follow us on http://instagram.com/johnandsarahadopt , you probably have already seen the pictures posted in this blog entry, because I am doing the  #100happydays challenge.  The challenge is to find something to be happy about every single day for 100 straight days.  Honestly, some days I have a hard time finding one thing and other days I have a hard time narrowing it down to just one.  I think it has been really beneficial to do this project, because even when I am feeling negative, my brain is searching for that happy moment to take a picture of and post.  Whoever came up with this idea is kind of a genius.  At first I thought it was a little cheesy, but I totally see the vision for it now.  Follow us and I will try to post things other than cats, coffee, and Frank Turner records (my three happiest topics!).

The NKF Kidney Walk is May 31st and I am something like $55 from my personal goal.  Sign up to join us in our laps around Turner Field or donate here. We have raised a lot less this year than usual, but my heart and brain has really been more with the adoption and renewing our home study, so my efforts have been minimal.  Sorry, NKF, maybe next year! Of course that night we are seeing Frank Turner for free at the Candler Park Food and Music festival.  I shall refrain from my usual Frank Turner is the best musician ever rave (um... he is).

Look what John got me:

Squeal!!!! An EP I didn't already have.  Yes please!  Seriously, I have the best husband ever.

 We have two trips in June for John's curling club.  One in Knoxville and one in Wilmington (you can find me at the ice rink in Knoxville, but at the beach in Wilmington!).  So so so looking forward to some beach time.  We are taking emergency baby supplies on both trips just in case. You never know! 

Longest blog post ever!  Wrapping up... We have support group tomorrow night on how to spot adoption scammers.  A serious shame that any adoptive couple has to worry about that at all.  This week I will continue to say we are ever hopeful for someone to find it fitting to place their baby with us.  We are dedicated to having an open adoption and keeping those lines of communication flowing.  We are ready to go at the drop of a dime.  Please share our adoption efforts with everyone you know.  There really just is no way of knowing how an expectant mother, who is thinking about adoption, could find us.  Feel free to share this blog, our facebook page , our official adoption profile , or any other link along the side of this blog.