Almost 40 days!!!!

I've been watching the American Adoptions forum and following the "waiting..." thread. It's kind of confusing. There is NO way to gauge anything on that forum. Some people have been waiting for 16 months, some have been waiting a month. Each profile is different, the budget vs. the flexibility doesn't seem to matter. A few ladies started to talk about checking in monthly with their social worker. I emailed Kelli and she said that she keeps a close eye on her people and that if the exposure level falls below average that she gets in touch with you. So, in the meantime, we wait, and wait and wait. We wait for a phone call from some birth mother's social worker or from Kelli to say that we need to change something. Tomorrow will be day 40.
Having Mom here and working on getting her settled has been a good distraction! I can't believe 2 weeks have practically flown by. Also the bluegrass festival is right around the corner and I'm working on the PR work for that. It's been a good few weeks.
Still praying for a call!!!! =)

Adoption Appointment 4/13

We made an appointment to go to American Adoptions in Overland Park to talk with our Adoption Specialist, Kelli, about our APQ (Adoptive Parent Questionaire). Usually they do this over the phone by conference call, but I emailed her and asked if we could come in and talk to her face to face instead. They always seem delighted to get to actually meet with you. So we showed up and got to meet Kelli face to face. She was very nice, easy to talk to and enthusiastic. She didn't talk she bubbled, and she smiled the whole time. One thing I really like about these people is that they seem to really be enjoying what they are doing! They instantly put you at ease, and you feel, within seconds, that you have known them your whole life! I was a little nervous that the APQ would need to be changed a lot. Kelli kept saying how wonderful it was that we were so open and broad in our APQ! She said that because we are so broad with it, that we will be exposed to a lot of birth mothers and have a great chance of getting several people interested. The only thing that she mentioned was our budget was a little low..but not too bad. She said any match that comes in between 1,000-5,000 over our budget will still be brought to our attention, so that we can make the decision if we can do it or not. But we are not required to do so. She told us a little what to expect in regard to the birth mother. She went over that the birth mothers only have our profile as far as information about us. When a birth mother selects us, and her social worker calls us to tell us, that we will receive everything the agency has on the birth mother, medical records, questionaires, financial records, ect. We have 48 hours from then to decide if we want to be matched with her. The birth mother's social worker has access to our APQ and is the one who will determine if it will be a good match before she calls us. We only have wiggle room if something is outside of our APQ or if we are not strict about something on our APQ. the birth mother is asked to choose up to three selections of adoptive families in case an APQ of one of the families doesn't fit her situation.
Since Kelli worked with birth mothers for quite a few years, before starting to work with the adoptive families, she gave us some ideas and encouragement in regards to the birth mother letter and what most birth mothers were looking for. When we get matched with someone we will have her cell phone number and will be able to reach her 24 hours a day. When a birth mother selects us, we will be dealing mainly with the birth mother's social worker thru our same agency. But Kelli said she will be kept up to date on everything and if we ever need to talk or have a question that we can call her. She is just there to make sure that we have everything we need, counselling for what to expect next, keep our rights protected, ect. Lastly, she said she thought it was awesome that we seem to both be on the same page with the whole thing and that that isn't always the case.
All in all, we had a fantastic visit with Kelli and are really looking forward to working with her.

Kelli Cox

Well, it's official! We've been assigned an Adoption Specialist! Her name is Kelli Cox. This is what the American Adoptions website has on her:

Kelli Cox - Adoption Specialist, LBSW
Hi my name is Kelli Cox and I am an Adoption Specialist here at the agency. My primary role is to work with birth parents on developing their adoption plan. I have my degree in Social Work and have been in the field for about three and a half years. I truly enjoy being able to guide birth parents and adoptive families through their adoption and provide support and education to them. It is an amazing experience to see the wonderful families that are created through adoption!"

We are getting SO close we can almost taste it. The realization is coming. My boss came up to me the other day and said, "You're planning on working full time in August right, during rush?" I started to answer then realized that I might not be working here in August. I might be at home with my new baby....I had to let it set in a little. I will feel really bad to leave my co-workers at such a busy time in our Department, but on the other hand....14 years is a long time to wait on a dream! My priorities will shift. I will no longer be Roxanne the Admin Assistant; I'll be Roxanne the Mommy...Roxanne the Mommy...wow! that's good stuff!!!! Anyhoo, we got an email from Kelli and we are to supply her with a few different dates/times when we can do a conference call to talk over our APQ. We are anxious to get this done, because it's basically our guidelines for our adoption. It will be interesting to see how we fare in relation to others. Were we broad enough in our preferences? Are we too restrictive? It will be interesting to know. We read a little manual that they provided before we filled out the APQ. It talked a little about the myths of adoption and such. It was eye-opening. So putting all our preconceived ideas in check, we prayfully filled out the APQ....and now we will see where we stand!

I sat down to write some more on the profile essays. I'm just at a writers block right now. SO I declared this Saturday, March 27th, Profile Writing day in our house. John and I will sit down and hopefully knock it out!!!! We are really wanting to turn it in by Wednesday, March 31st. So, the Agency got the APQ, we've been assigned an Adoption Specialist, and we are going to knock out our Profile Essays this weekend. Pray for us. =)

Adoption Tax Credit news!!!!!

We just received some exciting news about our adoption tax credit. This is what it says:

According to the Joint Council on International Children's Services:

"Joint Council is pleased to confirm that the Adoption Tax Credit (ATC), which was scheduled to expire in 2010, was extended for one-year (through December 31, 2011). The highlights of the ATC are:

1) The maximum credit was increased from $ 12,150 to $ 13,170
2) The ATC is now retroactive to January 1, 2009. This represents a potential increase of $ 1,000 for adoptive families.
3) The ATC was made refundable. If a family has no tax liability, the IRS will refund the amount due."

So, summarizing what this means to us, is that we will get an extra $ 1,000 back that we weren't counting on before! yahoo!!!! AND we won't have to complete it this year to get all of it back, although we hope to.

God is good! He is continuing to provide the necessary monies to complete this. =)

APQ

The APQ is finished! John has read it, approved it, and signed it. I got a few pictures printed and paperclipped them onto the APQ...it's going out tomorrow. They usually get it the next day! We also put the rest of the activation fee in the savings account. Next paycheck we will have more than enough to go active! We are trying to finish up the Profile essays now and we have started a file on the desktop for the 50+ pictures we are supposed to enclose with the profile essays. We are on our way...I see the light at the end of the tunnel! =)

Continuing Paperwork

Well, I finished the APQ (Adoptive Parents Questionaire) last night. John just needs to read over it and I need to print off a few pictures of us to include. Then that is finished. I'm hoping to mail it tomorrow. After they receive it, they assign us an Adoptive Parent Specialist. He or she will contact us and set up a meeting to go over our questionaire and to they will be our contact from then on. They will be the one looking out for our best interests. The birth Mom has her own specialist and we have our own.

We also went to the bank today and signed the closing papers on the rest of our financing. So that will be available whenever we need it.

We are starting to get excited and a little nervous at how far we have come and at the prospect of what is ahead. I'm more than ready to quit my job and stay home with a baby. My heart isn't even there anymore! I will continue working until we get the little one though.

We are continuing to work on our profile. There is a list of subjects in which we have to write short essay style answers. Some of the subjects include:
*What does it mean to be parents and what do you like most or expect to like most about being parents.
*How did you meet?
*What is your most memorable moment?
*What is your cultural heritage?
*How will you address cultural diversity?
*What makes you unique?
....and on and on. We also had to fill out short explanations of 70 of our favorite things, write short essay style (anywhere between 50-500 words, depending on the subject) descriptions of our job descriptions, profile introduction, education, extended family, house and neighborhood, and write a letter to the birth parents. I think I have about six of these done so far. I want John to write some of it, because he's the writer in the family! So, we can send in the APQ, and then finish the profile stuff and our stuff is finished!

Financing is well on track

We got word on Friday that our home equity increase was going thru. They are going to contact us next week for the closing info. We will close in Lawrence at our bank. Yay! We also heard from Alli's supervisor and the homestudy is complete as well. We got our application in to AA and so we are officially signed up with them. We are furiously working on our APQ and our profile essay questions. We are hoping to have at least the APQ done by the end of next week. We'll see! The profile essays are taking some time. I think my writer friend, Kristi is going to help me with that some this week when I get off work. SO we are still making progress. I'm STILL thankful that I have something to do and that we're not in the waiting phase yet. I went thru a bunch of pictures last night and picked out some of the 50 some we have to come up with. We will get it done. I'd like to have the profile stuff to our Media Specialist no later than the end of this month. That would make us active in April. Keep praying for us. =)

More steps...

We got all of our papers in the homestudy in and Alli is going to get them to her supervisor and once they are approved by her, we get a hard copy and it is finished!
SO we were thinking that the next part was signing the contract and giving them a chunk of money; however, that is NOT what is next. They recommend you read their little handbook before filling out your preferences/wishes concerning the child and the birth mother. So I read the manual (100 pages worth), then scanned the blank pages. So according to the manual there are a few more steps to take before the contract and money, which I'm actually really happy about. If I have something to do, that means I have more to do than just sitting and waiting. SO I'm really pysched! So the next steps are:
1. Turning in the application for the Agency with the application fee (waived)
2. Filling out the APQ (Adoption Planning Questionaire) attaching a couple pictures and
turning it in.
3. Meeting with our newly appointed Adoptive Family Specialist for a question & answer time.
4. Writing our profile and finding 50+ pictures to send to the the Media Specialist
5. The Media Specialist has no more than 2 weeks to get the proof back to us for our approval,
then we are ready for contract and activation.
We become active 24 hours after they receive our contract and fee. We are then shown to the birth mothers and we could be matched at any time after that.
I am mailing the application tomorow. Our adoption coordinator, Wade, waived the application fee because he said that we got to come in and visit in person, opposed to most people who hire them who just do things by email or phone. So we saved $ 200. SO, we will mail that tomorrow, we filled out the 'favorite' part of the profile (70 things that were our favorites), we filled out most of the APQ, the rest we have to talk about and decide (e.g. illnesses or medical conditions of the birth mother and immediate family), we also have to write a bunch of mini-essays for the profile. It should be interesting. Anyway, I can't wait to get started!

John spoke to the bank and they put in our application for some additional funding. A few days later they called for some additonal paperwork and we are waiting for their answer. In the meantime, Alli emailed us a few more questions to answer as well. We got them back to her in a timely fashion, and TODAY WE RECEIVED THE DRAFT! There are a few facts on there that are not correct, so we will make the corrections and send it back to her. Then we get the final report and our homestudy is FINISHED!!!!! I'm SO excited!!!!