Back in Boston and no News to report

It was a long journey home from Trinidad yesterday but a really good flight. Check out these photos from the airplane crossing over the Bahamas! You can see the mountains under the water!! It was really amazing!

Waiting In Trinidad and Tobago

We are in lovely Trinidad! Liam is working with BP this week in Trinidad so I've come along with him to see the country. It is a beautiful small country. The people are so friendly and actually very beautiful too. The down side is everything is expensive and there is a lot of crime. I'm told over and over again not to walk alone.
While Liam's been working I've been checking everything out. I hired a driver for two days and met two other women (one from Atlanta and the other from Ireland) and we toured around together. We went to the Pitch Lake, a tour in the swamps to see wildlife, an amazing beach called Maracas, visited a beautiful Hindu temple, and had lovely picnics and amazing drives from coast to coast. When Liam gets off work he meets me for a sunset drink and then we just go to dinner. But we did stop and hear a steal drum band practicing for Carnaval! It was a huge band and sounded like and orchestra!


WE ARE WAITING??? OH REALLY??? THANKS FOR LETTING US KNOW!!!!
Waiting period begins in Colorado. Today I spoke to the Colorado adoption agency and they have everything they need from us and we have been told that we now just need to wait. I have to say this is pretty anticlimactic!! We submitted the huge application, our home study, our dear birth mom books, and the check over a week ago but I had not heard anything from them. It was making feel like what the heck!! nothing is happening!! I called them today from skype and asked "have you received everything from our home study? Is there anything missing?? What do we do next???" The adoption agency says, "yes we have everything and no, there is nothing for you to do. Now you wait for a match." I was like "so you don't call to tell me anything?? This is it?? We just wait in silence??" (I didn't say that to her but that is what I was feeling.) So after all the anticipation of what happens when you get to the 'waiting period' - all there is is silence - you wait. I feel like they should say "You are GREAT!, You are finished and we are excited to be working with you! Let's talk again! Here is what happens next!" But nothing at all not even a call to say "hi we've received everything and you are all set." Nope, nothing. It's worse than ordering something from online! At least when you order something you get an email confirmation, and an approximate delivery date!
We received silence....shhhh... now you just wait.

Laurence's baby is finally home with her

I have wonderful news! As you know Laurence was adopting a baby from Haiti and she went to see him the week before the earthquake. Well, because of the terrible situation, the Luxembourg government worked with Haiti to release the waiting children from the orphanage. ANNNNNDDDD he is home in Luxembourg with Laurence as of yesterday Jan. 21, 2010! They are doing well and fortunately they bonded just the week before so Laszlo is already comfortable in Laurence's arms. She is madly in love with him and ever since she met him in Haiti she felt instantly that this is her son and her new life.

This photo is of the two of them in Haiti. God bless them!

The Waiting Game

So what am I doing while I'm waiting..... Check this out. I'm tiling things in our house.

Everything is about waiting right now!!! Ugh.
- We are waiting to hear about the offer we put in for the house in Vermont (see photos below!)
- We are waiting to hear that everything is all set from Colorado and that they will start presenting us to mom's.
- I'm waiting to see if I get my speech & language state license to do some work in that field ONCE AGAIN! They said it would take 3 weeks and it's only been just about two weeks since they received everything. Doing speech seems to fit a little bit better in my life right now. As you know it's been the gorilla on my back for years! Anyway, while I'm in the middle of a career change I thought I'd do some speech.

The House we love so much below. It has such nice views too. smaller views from the house then bigger views from the top of the 5 acres (I don't have a photo of the big view). It's a small house but a really great place for us to spend our weekends.

Colorado is First!

So this week we finished the 40 page detailed application and sent it out to Adoption Choices of Colorado. It was a big step! When I went to the post office the little old man who works there said to me "So, you're adopting?" He's never even looked at me before. He smiled and said his niece and nephew were adopted. Funny. And there it went off to Colorado. We are on our way.
I just called today (Friday) though, and they have not received the huge application yet.....eeeekkkk. They better get it soon. It's making me crazy. I just want to get this going.

We decided to start with Colorado because they didn't have a problem with the fact that Liam and I have not been married for a year yet and Kansas did. So once Colorado has us just "waiting" we'll send Kansas their shorter application and books. Maybe by the first week of Feb. Not sure.

Liam will now send our birth mom book into production and send a few to Colorado. They told us they have a lot of "activity" right now..... let's go, let's go, let's go!!!!

Everything takes sooo long to do these days and I'm trying not to fight it.
Even putting in an offer to buy a house in Vermont! Heck, we decided back in the end of Nov that we would put in an offer and STILL we are in that process too. We actually put in the offer yesterday! We'll see how this works out. I want to put it all out there and not force anything during this very emotional time (maybe year) for us.

What are we doing???

Liam and I went through a really hard time last weekend about the adoption process. It's incredibly difficult to go through this process. We just laid in bed last weekend after finishing our birth mom book thinking - wow, this is big. How do we trust we will not be taken advantage of? How do we know we really shouldn't try egg donor for one last shot of our own?? The emotions are so complicated. Our fears do not come with having the baby (all parents fear this part) but we just fear the match. Will we make the right decision? Will the birth mom change her mind at delivery. Will it be a scam? It's all about the money (adoption), and it's all about the birth mom and not about the adoptive parents. It's difficult for us too. All of our hopes and dreams and fears...so much is out of our control. We have to trust a lot of people .
After deep discussions and for me, going to church, it came to me again so clear that we are doing the right thing. We could never go back and do the egg donor idea. This is right and I pray that we will not be taken advantage of financially and emotionally and that we will make the right choice in picking the birth mom.

We finished the birth mom book and it's ready to print and send out!

Finding the energy

Someone said to me recently that she went through infertility treatments and when that failed they decided to adopt. She said if she knew then what she knows now she would have never even tried infertility treatments because she couldn't even imagine loving another child more than she loves her adopted daughter. It's really inspiring. Nevertheless, yesterday I had a really strong blow to my motivation, mood, heart.... A good friend of mine who is about 1 year older than I am found out that she has perfect FSH levels and will be looking into sperm donor. I was incredibly happy for her and very excited that she has this chance. But then I suddenly began to cry for my loss (our loss). I hadn't cried that hard in a really long time about this. Though I would honestly never try infertility treatments again, and though I love the idea of adoption (minus the costs), and I know it feels so right for me, I was very surprised that I am still processing this loss. I'm so fearful of the unknown and that really it's totally out of my control.

So after a good night with my adaptive rowing crew (winter training) and a great conversation with Liam, today is a new day and I'm finding the energy and enthusiasm to get this done and find a job!

>Today Liam and I realized that in our early 40's who would have thought we'd be going to 4 weddings this year!! Jack and Nancy in June in MA, Anton and Mariana in August in Bulgaria, Rose and Steve in September in MA, and then Louise and Geoffrey in December in Cape Town SA.

This year is really going to be exciting and full of surprises!!!

Oh yes..... now on to finishing that pressing birth mom book!

Kansas said yes

After a day of being at the New England Rehab Hospital for speech observation hours, I receive the call from Kansas. They said they would in fact accept our application. They say that even if we get matched right away the placement wouldn't most likely take place until our 1 year marriage anyway. They say they will still present us to mom's. I'm going to have to trust that they will in fact start showing us even though it is technically against their policy to accept a marriage that is less than 1 year.

For those of you considering American private adoption you must know it's a "business" really a business.

On to calling Colorado, American Adoption, and the DSS.....
And still trying to finish the birth mom book.

Kansas or not

So frustrating. We received a list of agencies from Angel Adoptions and did our interviews and decided we would start with Kansas then add Colorado. Well after doing the application and just about everything else, we found out they have a one year minimum marriage requirement. This breaks my heart. And then we found out last week that Colorado has a two year minimum. The Kansas agency is going to check with their lawyer to see if they can work with us but who knows. Every time we hit a bump it just shakes me up. It really is a frustrating process - adoption. I go from infertility to bump, bump, bump in the adoption world. It makes me think it's not meant to be or maybe we are forcing something. Liam doesn't agree but then again he doesn't really believe in the "meant to be" idea.

So now I wait for the call back from Kansas.

Still working on our birth mom book

This is taking so much more time than I thought. Liam and I both thought "no problem, we can whip this thing together in no time!" Well.... ah.... no...I mean how do you really tell a birth mom the most important things about you in just a few words and pictures? Right now we have 21 pages and I think I'm only 3/4 of the way done. Then Liam needs to put his thoughts into it. This is a true test.
Oh we received our home study report over the weekend! Ha it made us laugh to see in my section that I was raised to be a "lady" - and she did put that in quotes. Hmm... And I noticed there was more said about Liam in general and a lot more beautiful descriptive word about him too. Really not a lot about me. Liam has to keep up the good work of making us look like we'll be good parents!
We find out today if the Kansas adoption agency will work with us since they say they require at least 1 year of marriage.

Then I begin to look for a new job!

Our Adoption

Finally this weekend we should finish our Birth Mom book and letter!

So I start my first blog. So much to say and so many places to start really.

The title of my blog "Everyday Surprises". Everyday there seems to be something or someone that surprises me. Right now there is so much happening and so many changes that I just needed to write it out and share this with our family and dear friends.