How's the adoption coming?

We get this question a lot, and I'm pretty sure that the people who don't ask are just being shy. I'm also fairly certain that most of our loving friends and family who ask have no idea what they are actually asking, so I thought I would take a moment to offer for anyone who is interested--

"Adoption 101: The 4 Step Process."

Step 1: Make the decision to adopt and choose an agency.

This is a very big, very scary for many people, and a very important step. It includes getting a lot of information about how different agencies work (very differently) and making a decision and usually some kind of payment to your agency of choice. (With LDS Familly Services, it is a very reasonable $1000.00.)

You get a case worker and a very large stack of paper (or passwords to a very large stack of electronic online forms).

Step 2: The Application Process, Home Study and Approval.

After selecting an agency, you spend the next 2-6 months getting approved. The process includes:

1. Filling out an obscene amount of information including statistical (age, weight, race, location, etc.), financial (pretty much your taxes, plus your assetts, debts, and credit report), personal (likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests, relationships, career, education, etc.), religious (bishop writes a letter), and finally legal (birth certificates, marriage certificates, authorizing criminal background checks, etc.).

2. The Home Study: In addition to providing information on your home and everyone in your family, you prepare your home for a safety inspection.

3. The Profile: Summarize your life stories, everything that you value and that is important to you, your personalities, testimonies, etc. on one piece of paper. Don't worry, you get to use both sides :) Then you get to use both sides of an additional piece of paper to create an illustration of your family (a picture collage).

This is what a birth mother will use to chose you, so no pressure. ;)

(Can you tell this was the hardest part for me).

3A) After all this was approved, LDS Family Services switched to a new online profile system, so we got to build another profile online. We like the new system. It is not limited in the amount of information or pictures you can include (and as far as I can tell, it is not biased towards people with the ability to scrapbook). They may not require the physical profiles anymore.

Step 3: The Waiting/ Finding Game

LDS Family Services calls the next stage the Finding Stage. But, I think most adopting couples call it the Waiting Stage. There are lots of creative (and many might say awkward) things people can do to get the word out that they are adopting. Many people send their friends and family a letter and profile that they can share with anyone they may run across who is considering adoption. Some people purchase advertising online or in other sources. Slightly less assertive are methods such as sharing with people you know that you are trying to adopt. My good friend made beautiful "business" cards to hand out that included the information that they were trying to adopt.

And of course, your profile is out there on "itsaboutlove.org" for anyone searching to find.

There is no waiting list. There is not really an "estimated time to arrival." It could be 10 days or 10 years. Someday, a birth mother chooses to give her baby an eternal family with a mom and a dad, and from the thousands and thousands of waiting couples, she chooses you.

Step 4: Placement and Finalization

See, the question "How's the adoption going/ or how is it coming along..." Unless someone is in the process of an overseas adoption (which is an extensive process that does come along) or unless they are working with a birthmother before a birth or placement, adoptions don't "come along." You just wait... and wait... and wait... and then they happen. Sometimes suddenly. Sometimes you have a few weeks to get to know your birthparent(s) and get ready for the new arrival.

Please check out our updated profile, and yes we would LOVE feedback! :)

(PS I wrote this a couple of months ago, and am just getting around to posting it).

Blonds are more fun!!

So, it was my birthday, the first one with a zero in a long time, and I needed a fun change, so here it is, I'm blond :)

My dad is in denial. He says I'm not blond, I just have highlights.

I called my nieces to chat and found that my secret had been released as barter for top secret information (My mother-in-law traded my blond pictures for "If you tell me whether your new baby is going to be a boy or a girl, I'll give you pictures of Aunt Nicole's new hair!") I was surprised at the amount of anxiety it caused. Poor Grace!

"Aunt Nicole why did you change your hair! You don't even look like you! I would never be able to find you in Disney World now!"

I assured her that by the time she needs to find me in Disney World again, I'm pretty sure I'll be a brunette again. Not because I don't love it, but because I just don't spend enough time on my hair to keep it up.

I think she had a harder time getting used to it then Brent, who, by the way was very supportive.

Love you Honey!

Nicole's Hair

For some unknown reason* Nicole has recently been experimentally dying her hair. This is what we started with around last October: (and isn't she pretty!)

Apparently, I'm not supposed to take pictures during the dying processes, but I did:And viola` a few hours later:And then around Christmas she did it again, while I was running errands so I couldn't take a picture during:And THEN, for her birthday, we invited these shaddy characters over:
And the result:

Hmm... apparently, we didn't get a picture of her new hair (maybe one of the shaddy characters has the evidence). Nicole's dyed it again since then (but not too much) so I'll see if I can find a picture of that for next time.

*Actually, it is known, we're just not allowed to say. :(