Adoption Finalization

April 8th saw the 4 of us and many family and friends going to court. It was our turn to visit the Probate Court in Wyandotte County, Kansas to finalize our adoption! Our court time was 4 p.m. and we were done within 20 minutes. Can't remember a word the judge said, but we have it on video. After that our friend Ann took a bunch of pictures, including the judge holding the boys! Here are a couple pictures from court...

4 months old

Ok ok! I'm a little behind! Flash back to mid-March. The boys turned 4 months old. Mike's sister works for the Portrait Studio at JC Penney and she took some pictures of them. Here's a few....

3 months old!

The boys turned 3 months old this week! Both are smiling and babbling. We're starting with a medium-flow nipple on the bottles and working on eating 6 ounces at a time. They are slowly starting to stretch their sleeping from 3 hours to 4 hours at night.

GA termination

We just got notice that GA has terminated the birthfather's rights. Another step closer to adoption. YIPPIE!

First day of daycare update

An update on the boys' progress....

They are 2 months old now and have doubled their birth weight. The pediatrician was very happy with their progress at their checkup last week. They are looking around more, holding their heads up better, and eating more. Evan is eating 5 ounces at a time and Ari is eating 4 ounces (usually). They still eat every 3 hours around the clock, though!

They started daycare today. I think they have been held practically all day, which is understandable since they are so cute! The staff has been looking forward to their arrival since last month when we picked up the paperwork to get them enrolled. I'll post a current picture as soon as I get it off the camera.

Update 11/11/10

A quick update for our family and friends:

BM had a doctor's appointment yesterday. She is officially 34 weeks and everything looks good. She starts going to the doctor weekly now. In addition she goes to the hospital twice a week for a non-stress test. She has monitors placed, then has to sit still for 30 minutes while they monitor the babies. The sitting still is the worst part, she says! All of this is normal for twins.

She is officially due 12/18 and is scheduled for a c-section on 12/14.

She told her mom that they need to start saving their pennies because they will be coming to Kansas in a year for the boys' first birthday.

Update 10/20/10

Our family and friends hosted a GREAT baby shower last Saturday. We think we had 50 people there who were VERY generous with their gifts for the boys. A double stroller, car seats, bouncy seat and swing, bottles, clothes, diapers, toys, and an awesome hand-knitted blanket (with 1 more on the way) were some of the gifts for the boys. Mike's sister did all the decorations and games. She made two great diaper cakes and a flock of diaper monkies! Our neighbor Dee took care of all the food and it was very good!

We made a quick trip to Georgia yesterday (which also happened to be Chris' birthday). Fortunately there are direct flights from KC to Atlanta early in the morning and late in the evening! And our friend Noli was gracious enough to provide the tickets (Thanks, Noli)! Chris rented a convertible for the day, figuring it would be the last time we could rent one of those for awhile. It was a great day to drive around with the top down!

We met with the adoption counselor and birth mom at the IAC office to complete and sign the match paperwork. Most of the items we had already discussed with birth mom, so it was a formality to get it all on paper. After that meeting, we headed to another sonogram. The last sonogram we saw was on 9/7/10 and the boys were about 2 pounds each. Now they are estimated to be 4 pounds 6 ounces for one and 4 pounds 12 ounces for the other. The technician estimated they should be close to 6 pounds at birth if they are full term. We also had a 4-D sonogram done, which shows movement. Not quite what we were expecting, but still really cool to watch. Baby A was being shy and wouldn't turn his face so we could see it. Baby B was much more of a ham and kept moving around and posing. We left there with new pictures and a DVD with an hour and a half of movement captures on it.

We went out to eat at Olive Garden with birth mom and her family (our new extended family) and had a great time! We made sure everyone had our phone numbers so when labor starts, someone will call us! We are guessing it'll take a couple hours to drop whatever we are doing, pack up, and get on the road, then it's about 12 hours of drive time to Georgia. Hopefully we'll have 14 hours of notice to get their for the birth!

We are less than 8 weeks to the estimated delivery date! Our next trip to Georgia should be for the birth! Thanks everyone for all your prayers and support!

Phone calls

Everyone knows (I think) that we have a special phone for birth mothers to call. We nicknamed it the Baby Bat Phone. One of us carries it during the day so that we're able to answer it when it rings.

Yesterday Mike received two calls. Evan called. His message was "Love you, Daddy!". Then Ari called. His message was "Come "see" us next week, Daddy!"

Guess what phone they used? The Baby Robin Phone! :)

Gotta have a little fun while we're waiting, right? :) Have a great day and thanks for all your love and support! Baby shower this Saturday should be a great time with a house full of people!

Update 9/20/10

The boys' rooms are done! We decided that our spare room was bigger than the room we had been using as a baby room with our foster children. So the spare room got a fresh coat of paint (light green and light blue), some cute pictures, and the cribs/dresser/changing table have been moved in there. The former baby room is set up as a guest room/feeding room right now with the idea that it will become a play room once the boys are mobile. We set up the spare bed in there in case anyone offers to spend the night and feed the little ones while we sleep! :) Eventually they'll have their own rooms.

We talked to a very nice attorney in Georgia about the process of termination of rights. Basically it will take 60-80 days to terminate birth father's rights if he is not identified. Fortunately, we don't have to stay in Georgia that long! As soon as we get permission from Georgia and Kansas, we can legally bring the boys back to Kansas. That should take 10 days to 2 weeks. The attorney will handle the termination process and we shouldn't have to return to Georgia for any hearings, etc. related to the termination.

We also talked to our attorney here about adoption. The initial adoption can be handled here or in Georgia and the boys' birth certificates will be updated with the adopting parent's name when that is done. The boys will always have Georgia birth certificates, since that is where they are born. We can't tell from an Internet search if Georgia will allow us to adopt as a couple or if one of us has to be the initial adopting parent. We'll have to follow-up with the attorney about that when the time comes. Kansas won't let us adopt as a couple, so we then have to file for a second parent adoption so that both of us will be officially their parents. That process takes about 30 days. We will then have adoption decrees that will show we are both their parents. The attorney here didn't know if Georgia would amend their birth certificates to show both of us. Kansas would if they had been born in Kansas.

Meeting PBM

So we flew to Atlanta today to meet our potential birth mom and her family. What a great day!! Everyone was super nice and very welcoming. It sounds like they've told everyone in town that we are the ones adopting the boys! And apparently we have the show Modern Family to thank for presenting the idea of a gay couple adopting. Here for another day and flying home tomorrow night. Hoping to get to see a sonogram of the boys tomorrow before we leave.

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

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!