Cocooning

Ever travelled?  It’s thrilling, but it’s also exhausting.  New sounds, new sights, new languages and even smells, maybe especially smells.  We’re overloaded with new sensations and it drains us, profoundly exciting as it is.  The best example of this is probably the airport, that’s where you get all of the drain with none of the thrill.  It’s just an airport, folks are all going somewhere and you’re just trying to find your gate and when you do, if you’re anything like me, you occasionally have this brief panic attack where you wonder if you’re in the right place so you check your ticket then the status boards that show where all the planes are at.  That’s only if you get there early, if you’re running late for a plane it’s an exercise in panic and unfamiliarity.  It sets you off balance.

Mother’s womb is all the baby knows prior to birth, it’s home.  Sounds of mom talking, the steady rhythm of her heart beat, they say even smells.  The connection between a baby and their birth mother is something profound and special.  I’ve said before that adoption is a mix of many things, a lot of joy, to be sure, but also pain and loss.  For a little while after a baby is born and taken away from all they’ve ever known they’re in limbo, at the airport, for a time.  Not knowing where they are or when they’re going home.  Everything unfamiliar.  Though they lack words to express it they’re grieving a loss and the ones who come to comfort them are people they don’t yet know.

The process of us becoming parents instead of strangers to our children is called attachment.  It can take time, longer than you might think, for a baby to understand who mom and dad are and that they can be trusted to provide all of their needs.  So for the purpose of attachment Suzanne and I are going to do something called ‘cocooning’.  It basically means we fall off the grid for a while, that we make the baby’s world very very small and then slowly grow it.  Practically, it means that for the first couple of months Suzanne and I will be the only ones fulfilling the baby’s needs, building trust over time.

For these first months only Suzanne or I will be holding the baby and providing for his needs.  It also means we’ll be staying home most of the time.  This doesn’t mean we don’t like you, it doesn’t mean we don’t trust you, it doesn’t mean we’re raising our baby in a bubble or we think you have the plague.  It’s just for this short while we want to keep the world small, we want the baby to know who mom and dad are, and we want them to know where home is so they don’t feel like they’re lost in the airport any longer than they need to.

Our baby boy could be here any day now.  If you don’t hear from us for a little while don’t be alarmed, we’re just turning our focus inward as we grow into a family.  If you’re reading this blog you likely played a part in this and we’re still beyond grateful, please be patient with us over this time.

Here are some links if you want to know a little more about cocooning and attachment:

• Bonding and Attachment: How Does Adoption Affect a Newborn?, this article is excellent and explains cocooning beautifully.
• This video is pretty long and talks about a broad array of topics related to cocooning.  Her children were adopted internationally so some of her challenges are different than ours but many of the principles remain the same.

• This one from Focus On The Family is pretty good too: Attachment: What Adoptive Families Need to Know

Nursery Room is Ready!

About a month (or two) ago James and I painted the nursery room and put together the crib.  You never know with adoption when the child will arrive so James and I figured it’s best to be ready!

This past weekend we did the fun part and hung up decorations. Here’s the finished look of our travel themed nursery! Let me know what you think 😀

We’re Done Fundraising!

We did it!

I am thrilled to announce that, as of this week, our fundraising is officially over!! We’ve completed the $3,000 matching grant (YAY!).  That money along with our prior fundraising efforts and what we’ve personally saved brings us to our total goal.

Suzanne and I feel all loved up! Family, friends, church, so many gave not just of their money but also their time in helping us organize our fundraisers, hosting events, buying granola, scooping ice cream, selling baked goods, joining in the paint night, sharing our blog and so much more. I want it to be known that the ‘we’ in the title is a pretty big collective ‘we’.

So, one more time, THANK YOU! From Suzanne, myself and our one day child who we can’t wait to introduce you all to.

We will still be keeping the blog going but will not be including a link to our funding page. Our hope is over the next few months to speak on adoption related topics as it’s our heart to share what we’ve learned about the unique challenges and joys of adoption with our friends and family.

The Waiting Game

It feels cliche to say it but ‘waiting is hard’. The expectation for most folks waiting to adopt in our situation is a few months to possibly a few years. I’d honestly been looking forward to the wait. Time to get my ducks in a row. Figure out the nursery, read some books, etc. etc. but it hasn’t really been like that. When you don’t know when the baby is coming the urgency to get things done sort of drains out of you. A little like a roller coaster easing to its peak just prior to a massive drop. Its in the holding position that you sort of forget the drop is coming and just enjoy the view.

Then you get a fact sheet, you look at the due date and your head starts spiraling. You hear some mechanism in the coaster click, and all the anxiety and joy of that massive drop comes back to you. So much to do, so little time (although receiving a fact sheet does not necessarily mean that you’ll be matched with that child/family, but it does mean that it’s a possibility).

Schrodingers baby. My child both is and isn’t. Our home is full of baby ecoutraments, but it has the feel of a museum. A sacred collection built around hope.

Here’s a photo I took just now of our living room area.  A dresser waiting to go in our upstairs nursery room along with a rocking bassinet.

**UPDATE REGARDING GRANT FUND – So far we have raised $1,270 dollars towards our matching grant of $3,000! That’s 42% of our matching goal. Thank you so much!! If you’d like to contribute towards our adoption please click here.

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Grants are Coming in!

The responses to our grant applications started coming back.  You remember those, right? We filed them way back in March.  Wrote a blog about it.  Well, they were painful but we got through them.  A small mountain of paper and manila folders scattered over our kitchen table for the better part of a month.  Spreadsheets, phone calls and a printer running overtime.  I still wake up thinking about it.

Some have come back negative but we have one, so far, that came back with a resounding ‘yes!’ and we’re thrilled, thrilled and grateful.  Aside from saving all our spare cash and putting on fund raising events this was our last move.  Grants.  It’s good to feel that the labor was not wasted.

The organization that was kind enough to accept our request is called LifeSong for Orphans partnering with Gregory’s Gift.  They’re supplying us with a matching grant of $3,000!  This means that they will match any new donations we receive up to $3,000.  So if you give $50, the grant will give $50 and we’ll raise $100 towards our adoption!  Woo hoo!

If you have been waiting on the wings for a perfect opportunity to help us out, now is the time, because every dollar you donate counts as two toward our adoption.

Click here to make a donation.  We will be seeking all donations through MyStory with LifeSong and will no longer be using the AdoptTogether crowdfunding page.

Thank you so much for journeying with us!

Spring, Snow Days and Grant Applications

 

I got a call this morning saying I didn’t have to go to work on account of the snow.

Suzanne and I were hoping for this (she already had the day off).  We had already planned the night before to go for a walk in the snow along the Susquehanna if work was cancelled.  It’s truly beautiful.  It was nice to have the break because we knew this day was going to be anything but restful.  You see, Suzanne and I are writing grant applications today.

We’ve talked about the cost of adoption in prior blog posts and we’ve received a huge amount of love from our friends and family.  That got us a big portion of the way there but there’s still more funds to be raised.  Our plan for acquiring the money always was a three pronged approach, saving as much as we can in our budget, doing fundraisers, and writing grants.  Most grants require the homestudy to be complete so we only really started to work on this within the last month.

Our relationship with paperwork is extensive, we go way back, first my visa, then the adoption, now these grants.  We’re submitting six applications each requiring a breakdown of assets, liabilities, monthly budgets, many with statements of faith or personal testimonies.  I set to work organizing manila folders, creating check lists, figuring out submission dates and requirements for each form as well as any overlapping information (like tax returns) that I could print multiple copies for.  We requested the needed information from our agency, ordered prints of family photographs (required for some of the applications) and asked for references from friends and our pastor.  We are almost finished!  Join us in praying that these applications are successful.  We need this last push to get us to our financial goal.

Also, check out this cute baby outfit Nana Dawn knitted! So precious!

Officially Waiting

As an update to everyone regarding where we are in the adoption process…

We are officially waiting!!

We’ve completed the homestudy (the legal process that allows up to adopt). We’ve completed the profile book (the book about our lives that will be given to expectant mothers/fathers who are looking to make an adoption plan). We’ve completed the online profile (another way for people looking to make an adoption plan to find us). We’ve paid a large fee!

And now we wait. Waiting parents is a bit of an unofficial adoption term for those who have completed all the necessary requirements related to adoption and are waiting to be matched with a child.

As we wait here are some of the things that we’ll be doing:
* Applying for grants (to help cover the next big fee that’ll occur at time of placement)
* Preparing the nursery room
* Reading books, journaling, praying

We also started buying/collecting baby items. I bought a baby carrier that I found for a good deal secondhand.  Since I was so excited to try it out right away I tested it with Mambo…

She was not thrilled about the experience… also how do you like my concentrating smiling face 😀 ?!

Profile Book

Imagine condensing the whole of your life into 20 pages of mostly pictures.  Now imagine doing this on the worst software possible with a perfectionist for a partner.  That’s been the last few months in this household.

We’ve talked about the profile book before.  It’s basically a way for an expectant mother and her family to see the kind of people you are.  It should be an snapshot of your daily life, values, and traditions.

I took the opportunity to film my wife in the middle of producing this book, I think it pretty well sums up what it was like to complete this project.

Warning: this video displays hanger in full swing.

Homestudy Officially Completed!!

Homestudy Completed!

Deja vu right?

The number one question that we’ve been asked is ‘how’re things going with the adoption?’ so we thought we’d give you a quick update. Sorry it’s been a while!

We completed all the necessary steps for our homestudy as of November 6th culminating in a meeting with our case worker at our house where we talked through remaining questions she had and also gave a tour of our home. After this we had to wait for our adoption case worker to write up the homestudy. The homestudy itself is around 12,000 words and talks about every conceivable aspect of Suzanne and I. What lead us to adoption, our thoughts on discipline, what our neighborhood is like, the strength of our marriage, everything. It took about a month to get a draft back to us which we then edited. A week later we got our final letter to sign and confirm that we’re ready to move onto the next phase. We also recently paid our first large program fee! Woo hoo!! I’m thrilled to say that we had all the money together for it! Thanks in large part to the generosity of so many of our friends and family who’ve been walking alongside us during this process. I’ll never tire of saying ‘thank you’ to all who helped.

Currently Suzanne and I are working on a portfolio book (a 20 page book about our family to give to expectant mothers looking to make an adoption plan).

We’ve been working on this a little while now (about a month). It’s a difficult process to try and summarize your life and values in 20 pages. We want to give an expectant mother and her family a good idea of what her child’s life would be like in our home and let her know the kind of people that we are.

So that’s where we are now in the process.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

As our gift to you – check out these beautiful pictures from our adoption photo shoot! 🙂 These were taken by the lovely and famous Christy Renee (check out more of her work here).

Adventures In Not Spending Any Money Vol. 3

This post is way over due!

I have a friend of a friend (you know how it goes) who, knowing that James and I have been trying to save money, offered to have us over and “shop” her basement.  Initially I was just as confused as you are now.  However, she explained further that her daughter is an extreme couponer and as such has a stockpile of household items / food in her basement.  I wasn’t sure that I fully understood what was going on, but I kindly accepted the offer.

So I head over to this lady’s house, whom I have never met, and she warmly invites me inside.  I follow her downstairs to the stock pile area.  There is so much stuff!  She has toiletries of every kind, dry food items, canned goods, first aid supplies, laundry soap, shampoo, etc.  Initially I just stared at everything not sure what would be appropriate to take.  She had really nice stuff!  Venus razors, dove dry shampoo, clorox cleaning wipes, brownie brittle, cherrios cereal, nivea body wash, tide laundry soap, the list goes on.  All name brand items, most of which I haven’t bought in years!  As I look around she tells me that she expects I fill up at least 3 bags.  With that encouragement, I dove in!  Three bags filled and then she asked me if I’d like frozen food!  In the end she sent me off with 3 over flowing bags/boxes (and she helped me carry everything to the car because I ended up with way too much!).

This was over two months ago and I’m still using the laundry soap and toilet paper she gave us!  Thank you so much Melody de Silva!  🙂  You certainly helped us with our budget over the last few months.  Not only did you help us save money, but also made us feel quite spoiled by providing us with name brand products (like tide laundry soap and venus razors!) that we normally would not purchase.

If you’re now interested in extreme couponing (like I am) check our her Facebook page called semi-extreme coupon group.