“Although it was many years ago, I still remember it better than yesterday. I was probably five or six. We had been out past my bedtime and I had fallen asleep on the long ride home. Upon arriving home I awakened, but did not stir. Instead I did what is sometimes typical of children: I played “possum.” I pretended to be asleep so that someone would carry me into the house and put me to bed.

Dad was a genuinely kind man. He had an active work life as a postal carrier, delivering mail and walking typically 4-5 miles each workday. It wasn’t in his nature to say many cross words to another person. Even though he had worked hard and was probably exhausted after a long day, Dad still picked up his tired son, carried him into the house, and put him to bed.”

To read the rest of the blog click here: Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt

“This is the mantra that has been on my mind the past few weeks. I love Dory from Finding Nemo. For all her faults, she is fearless and persistent. Surrounded by deep murky waters with unknown dangers, she doesn’t give up. Instead she hums a simple tune and keeps on swimming, trusting that everything will work out in the end. And her courage and tenacity doesn’t just help her own journey along, it also encourages Marlin to not give up hope.

So often I find myself weary of waiting. Waiting sucks! There’s really not a nicer way to describe it. We would all like to have a smooth, easy journey to parenthood, but for most adoptive couples the journey is more like a swim upstream against the current. There are disappointments, delays, and detours. There are days when it seems like it will never happen. There are days when hope is hard to find. Those are the days we especially need to take a deep breath and keep on swimming.”

To read the rest of the blog click here: Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt

Waiting to Adopt: Planning a Welcome Home Celebration

Waiting to Adopt: Older Sibling Adoption Books

Waiting to Adopt: Baby Announcements

Waiting to Adopt: Preparing with Parenting and Adoption Books

Waiting to Adopt: Selecting Child Care Provider

Waiting to Adopt: Selecting a Pediatrician

Waiting to Adopt: Shop for Baby Furniture

Waiting to Adopt: Select A Name for Baby

To get started visit the American Red Cross for a list of nearby training courses including First Aid/CPR, Caregiving and Babysitting. They also have an extensive list of items to include in your family first aid kit. Buy extra supplies so that you can keep an extra kit in your car. They provide detailed information on everything from the flu to natural disasters. Red Cross covers all ground necessary to stay prepared. You can also find plenty of pre-packaged, kid-friendly first aid kits.

It’s also important to make you home a safe environment for kids. One Step Ahead features child safety products for home and on-the-go. For an interactive learning experience visit, KidsHealth, a website that and helps you stay informed about your child’s health and safety. It has an advice site for parents, as well as a kids and teens section that explains the importance of safety and what’s happening to their growing bodies.

It never hurts to be prepared!

The first tip from Coach T was to prepare.

In cross country, this involved stretching and coming to the race with a good attitude. Muscles needed to be warmed up for the grueling work ahead. A positive attitude kept the mind focused so that I could “push through the pain.”

In adoption, preparation is also important. My husband and I spent months researching adoption and deciding what path was right for us. We talked about our expectations, made a plan for our finances, and gathered our friends and family for emotional and prayer support.

The second tip from Coach T was to pace yourself.

Cross-country races are not sprints. At a sprint pace, I would run out of breath and wouldn’t be able to draw upon the resources needed to finish the race.

Adoption is not a sprint either. For most of us, our adoption journey involves a long distance run. Some of us are one milers, some two milers, for some it may even seem like a marathon. The longer the journey, the more important pacing is. We could easily be consumed by all the work involved in adoption: the homestudy, the birthmother letter, and networking. Pacing ourselves, by setting small, manageable goals and taking breaks, is the best way to ensure success.

The third tip from Coach T was to press in.

In cross-country the course is varied. There are flat runs, twists and turns, uneven ground and even obstacles like steep hills to overcome. Coach T taught us that the most important time to press in was when there was an obstacle. Most runners lose steam going up a hill, so he taught us to take that opportunity to push harder and pass up our opponent. There is something very empowering about tackling a hill at 100 percent.

In adoption, there will inevitably be obstacles along the way: failed matches, long waits, delayed paperwork. This is the time to press in even harder. Facing these obstacles head-on will help us to grow stronger. This is the time to draw upon the resources of your faith, friends, and family.

The final tip from Coach T was to persist.

Finishing the race is what really matters. As I said before, I was not the fastest or strongest runner, but I enjoyed finishing the race. Whether I finished first or last, it didn’t matter as long as I did my personal best.

The adoption journey takes a lot of patience and persistence. There are days when it would be easy to give up, but then we would miss out on the prize of parenthood. It doesn’t matter whether we are first or last as long as we keep running and finish the race! Hebrews 12:1 “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

You probably want to wait a few weeks before planning a more formal gathering so that you have time to bond with your new child. Ehow and Adoptive Families has some tips on invitations, gifts, food, games and even themes.

When you’re done planning and ready to send out invitations check out Verseit.com to help you find the perfect wording for your invitations. TheSweetOccassion.com has a great idea for a thumb print family tree keepsake for your child and Amazon.com has a afghan throw blanket with a new baby welcome poem on it. Or consider creating a personalized website for your baby where you can send invitations, manage RSVPs and upload photo and video.

Here are some additional articles to help you plan:

Adoption & Foster Care Celebration Inspiration
Welcoming an Adopted Child

Remember: be creative with it and have fun! It’s time to celebrate!

I thought they were funny and savvy and sweet. I saw the musical Rent 14 times (more than any gay male I knew, just to dispel some stereotypes there) before it dawned on me that all that attractive androgyny could be mine in a slightly more female form. In other words, I had to discover a queer culture that seemed glamorous and exciting to me before I could own what I’d known about myself all along. It was almost like I had to convince myself that I’d chosen to be gay simply because it was more interesting than being straight.

Flash forward ten years. Cecilia and I get married in Vancouver. We visit our friendly neighborhood lesbian-owned sperm bank. I think, Maybe I won’t be a late bloomer this time! My over-achieving heart finds this incredibly appealing. A handful of our straight friends have kids, and we know two lesbian couples who’ve gotten pregnant on the second or third try. It all seems the same, plus or minus a couple hundred bucks for frozen sperm.

But three IUIs, one cycle of IVF and one miscarriage later, I know it’s not the same. I escalated to infertility treatment faster than any straight woman would have. In some ways, this appeased my impatience. But Cecilia and I never had the luxury of thinking, Maybe it will happen when we least expect it.

I know many infertile straight couples have wrestled feelings of inadequacy, loneliness and lack of control. (And, as the owner of a blocked fallopian tube, low progesterone, and “thick egg walls,” I can proudly count myself among the Infertiles as well as the Gays.) So maybe you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that, instead of feeling like I’d happily chosen a more fun and edgy life than my peers, I felt like a kid who’d been pushed out of the closet—kicking, screaming and unprepared.

Cecilia and I were always open to the idea of adoption, so having non-biological kids didn’t require a paradigm shift on our part. But realizing that our lives and our family will be different from those of our friends because of it? That’s taken some adjustment. We wonder if we should have a baby shower—what if the expectant mom decides to parent at the last minute? Will it be painful to have a house full of pastel onesies and ducky blankets?

Like most gay parents-to-be, Cecilia and I have thought about the day when our child will come home from school crying because of something ugly or confusing a classmate said about having two moms. Although our family and friends are uber-supportive of our decision to become parents, our culture at large is more skeptical. I’m not talking about flat-out homophobes—I’m talking about the people who “gently” suggest that having gay parents is “a lot for a kid to deal with.” You hear a similar refrain when it comes to adoption.

And it’s true: having two moms or two dads, plus a birthmom and a birthfather, is a lot for a kid to deal with. But you know what? So is starting kindergarten. So is moving to a new house. So is losing a tooth or a pet or a grandparent or a parent. So is the birth of a new sibling or the diagnosis of a learning difference or realizing that your best friend wants to be best friends with someone else.

Life is a lot to deal with. And because new parents and pregnant couples tend to be idealistic, I suspect they don’t like to be reminded that there are certain realities they can’t protect their children from. When those challenges are known from the start—as is the case with LGBT parenting, single parenting and adoption—there’s a tendency to blame parents for bringing kids into a difficult situation on purpose. But I don’t think of it that way: The challenges you know about are the ones you can prepare for. We LGBT/single/adoptive parents can’t pretend our kids’ lives will be sheltered and easy. But I like to think that we’ll be better parents for it.

A few years ago, my friend Daisye and her partner Laura moved from Olympia, Washington—an idyllic city for hipsters, queers and other Portlandia types—to a tiny town on the Hood River. They opened a store where they sell secondhand oddities. Most of their friends and neighbors are straight and over sixty. The whole town is on a finicky septic system, and they help each other out when someone’s toilet breaks or someone’s house floods.

“We realized that we could live in Olympia for years,” Daisye told me, “or we could take a leap of faith and really embrace a different kind of life.”

Sometimes that life is a choice. Sometimes it’s not. But the embracing of it is always a choice. And when I imagine our future—birthmom dropping by, bouncing our child while she updates us about her new boyfriend or her college classes or the kids she’s raising herself—it looks like a different-kind-of-life I can love. I also know that, no matter what I imagine, the reality will be something different. And I think I can embrace that too.

My New Baby And Me: A First Year Record Book For Big Brothers And Big Sisters
The Big Sibling Book: Baby’s First Year According to ME
I’m a Big Brother
Dora the Explorer – Big Sister Dora – (DVD)
I’m Going to Be a Big Sister!
I’m Going to Be a Big Brother!
Babies Don’t Eat Pizza: A Big Kids’ Book About Baby Brothers and Sisters  (includes adoption)
Is That Your Sister?: True Story of Adoption – (cross cultural)

I’ve been working hard at that “networking” stuff the IAC advises hopeful adoptive parents to do. I’ve been keeping our Facebook page up to date with photos and posts that show WHAT A HAPPY, LOVING, READY-FOR-A-BABY COUPLE WE ARE! I’ve been blogging here and on our adoption website. And, like many things on the internet, it can feel kind of like a black hole. (See how I’m working that space metaphor?) It’s like homework for a moderately fun class, which bares minimal relation to Cecilia’s and my desire to parent an actual baby.

That desire is deep and real and personal, and it lives on a planet of its own.

So imagine my surprise when a number I didn’t recognize popped up on my cell phone and for once it wasn’t  a wrong number or the recorded voice of Congressman Javier Becerra or the woman from Carnival Cruise Lines asking if we’d planned our next vacation.

A crazy five days ensued. I won’t go into the details, because the woman who called us is real—so amazingly, fantastically real—and she and her husband are still out there living their lives and making plans for their baby. But I will say this: We talked to them on the phone. We Skyped with them for an hour. They saw one of our cats and we saw their dog. Paws were waved.

During this time two things became clear: 1) how much we liked and respected them and 2) that this wasn’t the right situation for us.

My parents raised me to work hard and not take things for granted. So if an opportunity arises and I don’t seize it, I panic that I’ll never get another because, clearly, I must not be serious about my goals. Cecilia looks at the world differently. She likes to live in that “maybe” zone, where anything could happen. For all you Meyers-Briggs fans out there, she is the P to my J.

So you can guess how our conversations went. And they were good conversations that we needed to have—and which we probably couldn’t have had without looking adoption square in the face.

It killed me to walk away from this couple. They hadn’t officially selected us yet, and maybe they never would have, but they told us, sincerely, that they thought we would make great parents. Our families and friends have said the same thing, but to hear it from two people who meant You would make great parents for OUR BABY may be the biggest compliment we’ve ever received.

It was the opposite of what the universe had seemed to be communicating during the course of our unsuccessful fertility treatments and miscarriage. Something inside me healed a little bit more.

Of course, ultimately we’re not in this for compliments. We’re in this because we want to raise a child, and it’s hard to return to the world of waiting. But we’ll never forget the couple who made the hypothetical seem probable.

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Fine stationary (as low as $.85)
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Minted.
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