Weekly Update 8/28/10

Monday: with the information that was received from the adoption counselor, we were a little nervous. We had decided to call the birth mom (Meghann) on Tuesday night to talk to her. Well, she beat us to the punch Tuesday morning, calling and talking to Mike for about 90 minutes. The conversation was easy and seemed very natural. That evening when Chris called her to talk again about another 90 minutes went by with them on the phone.

We have had almost daily contact since Tuesday with Meghann and in fact she even sent pictures of her daughter and of herself this week. They are both cute from what you can see in the pictures. Meghann looks like she is all baby, and needless to say looks big with the twins.

The fun of worrying about insurance, time off work, etc begins as well. It is so interesting how employers seem like they never face people asking to have time off for adoption. Mike works at a large University hospital and it seems like it was asking something completely off the wall when he talked to the human resource department. Would it be easier if they offered domestic partner benefits?

The fun also begins with checking out area hotels where we will have to stay for a couple weeks after the birth of the boys. How will we be able to afford the stay? Will the hotels give us any type of discounts? Can we get some friends and family members to donate points, resources they have, etc to help cover the expense?

The fun of also picking out potential names for the boys, we want the names to have good meanings, and then what first name and middle name combination do we use? Whose last name will we use? Both of us will be the last generation to pass on our family name. Does that really matter? We both have people we would like to honor with our family name. Do we do hyphenated names for their last name? That would make a long last name. Do we combine both of our last names and make a new last name?

These are just some of things we are now facing. Oh, I forgot to mention the fact of planning out the nursery for the boys. We want both boys in the same room, so that means repainting the spare room and making that into the nursery since it is a bigger room. It means picking out the colors and getting time to get the painting done. We need to also do some touch up paint to other areas of the house as well as a few other little projects and get them done before the boys come.

We thank you for reading and following our journey to complete our family. We also thank you for all your support and prayers as we take this journey.

Update 8/27/10

Several conversations with PBM (potential birth mom) in GA this week. She seems to be in good spirits and good health. She sent pictures of herself and her daughter yesterday via PictureMail. Both are very cute! Hoping to make a journey to GA next month to meet her and meet with the adoption social worker. And, if we get lucky, go to a doctor's appointment with her and see a sonogram. No firm travel plans yet though.

Chris & Mike

Information from IAC

We were able to follow up with the folks at IAC today concerning the call from a birth mother this weekend. it sounds like she is legitimate, which is very important! The counselor at IAC says she is still considering all options, including raising the boys herself. There is a ways to go before she'll make a decision to put the boys up for adoption, they think. And then, of course, she has to decide to match with someone. So we won't be flying off to Atlanta to meet her any time soon. But we are hoping to stay in touch with her via phone calls for now.

Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement. Since we aren't matched with her, we continue to be listed on IAC's website and they will continue to mail out our letters.

Chris and Mike

Potential contact!

We received a phone call this morning from a potential birth mother. She's 20 and lives in Georgia. She's 5 months pregnant with twin boys. and also has a little girl who is almost 2. She told us that raising 3 as a single mother would be very difficult, which is why she is considering adoption. She has already talked to the local IAC office in Atlanta and is excited about an open adoption. IAC mailed her a bunch of birthparent letters, including ours. She noticed us because of our experience with raising babies and thinks we can handle twins. We are definitely up for the challenge!

We still have a long road. She's due Dec 15th, but the doctor told her she might go early. She can still change her mind, obviously, until sometime after the birth. But the first phone call sounded very positive for both her and us. The next step is to see what information IAC has on her and on adoption laws in GA. If she's still interested, we'll have an official match meeting with a counselor where we'll talk about all the things associated with the pregnancy and adoption. After that we'll be considered officially matched, they will hide our profile on the IAC website, and they won't mail out more of our letters.

Thank you for all your prayers! Please continue to pray as we work our way through the process! Thanks!

July was a very quiet month for visits to our website. Something like 50-some visits. Most have been US visitors, although we picked up visitors from Brazil and Morocco this month. None of the visits have generated phone calls or emails yet.

We received our stats from IAC for July the other day. We had 14 letters (up from 7 in June) sent out to potential birth mothers as part of packets of letters that were sent out. Mike figured out that there were 20 packets sent out in July where we met the requirements of the birth mother (out of 35 total packets). So 14 out of 20 times, she saw our letter, which is almost 3/4 of the packets (up from 1/3 in June). We didn't have any online requests for our letter in July.

Please please please keep sharing the link to our website with friends and relatives! You never know who might have a friend or co-worker interested in adoption. The website is www.iheartadoption.org/users/chrisandmike

Oh....we also had 1 call on our baby bat phone, the cell phone that is specifically designated for birth mother phone calls. But the caller didn't leave a message. Oh well!

Thanks for all your support, thoughts and prayers!