Paper Pregnant!!

Finally we can announce we are officially PAPER PREGNANT! 

If anyone knows where i can get this necklace PLEASE TELL ME

We have been home study approved and we are now able to have a child join our home whenever we are found and chosen. This can happen quickly or slowly. Who wants to take a guess how many months we will be paper pregnant before we get chosen? 7? 9? 12? 18? 

We wanted to wait to take some pictures and make a cute announcement but let's face it, we have been waiting for 8 months and that is long enough!  Oh....we will still take pictures so beware ..

Our next steps: 

Throughout the next couple weeks we are going to be preparing all of our outreach materials. Some of these items include: 

• Photo shoot: we will be trying to come up with creative photos that will make us stick out as a couple for our profile photo.
• Business cards with our information on them: we will be handing these out to family, friends, strangers and more! We will be asking everyone to pass them on! I know it sounds crazy, but almost half of the adoptions last year through our adoption agency were through creative outreach techniques.
• Youtube video: My mom has taught herself how to make creative videos for weddings and other major family events. We will be working closely with her to come up with one that represents us as a couple.
• Jewelry: something our family can wear everyday which will cause someone to ask why they wear it. Maybe a unique bracelet or necklace?

Although we will be doing a LOT of outreach ourselves we still put our names on the waiting list for the family book! There are currently 10 families in front of us. The profile book has a list of 60 families that expectant parents look through when they are trying to find a waiting family. 

So far no morning sickness, but the paper cuts are terrible!!

Home Study Completed!!

Sorry for the delay in getting more information up! We've been so busy since the last post that we haven't been able to get a good update up.

This week we finally completed our home study! 

We spent a couple of hours with our adoption counselor last week getting to know her and helping her get to know us better. It was interesting telling essentially our whole life stories in such a short time, but it was actually pretty comfortable and it helped to better understand ourselves as a couple and help her know who we are and what we're all about.

Yesterday our adoption counselor came out to our house and spent a couple more hours finishing with learning about us and touring our home. Over the two-week period we discussed so many topics about our lives including:

- What our immediate and extended families are like
- What it was like growing up
- How we met, fell in love, and got married!
- Our personalities (including strengths, weaknesses, hobbies and interests, and lots more)
- Our values, morals, and beliefs
- What we expect from the adoption process
- How we plan to incorporate aspects of our child's culture into our lives
- Our thoughts about open adoption
-Our support system and how they feel about adoption

And many, many more topics. We really like our adoption counselor and had a great time getting to know each other. It sounds like sometime next week, she will be presenting our family to the agency for a decision about whether or not they'll accept us into the program, but she told us not to worry. We know the challenges that face us in the adoption process, but we're excited to meet them head on and overcome them together as a family.

We're so excited and anxious to officially enter the waiting family group and start getting the word out that we are officially a "waiting family".

The next week or two we will be preparing our materials that will help us get the word out that we are looking for our little one (and possibly some more extended family).

We should hear early next week if we were officially accepted!

Until then, thanks to everyone for your love and support!