Mural photos

To the left is a before photo. The walls are mustard yellow, which we decided to keep. The ceiling slants down and we're going to paint that part like the sky with the sun, then I ordered a glow in the dark stencil kit of the actual winter night sky for the ceiling. The curtain in the room is a dark blue which I thought would work, but it's darker than all the blue in my bedding so I'll have to get something else.



To the right is an after picture. The shots are kind of dark because our camera died and I had to use the camcorder. All the fish were from a stencil set, but I had to do the seaweed myself. I printed out some photos of seaweed stencils and just kind of winged it. I think it came out pretty good.

Below are some closer shots of the details.

Waiting to schedule our home study

We are now completely finished with everything except for our home study. Our social worker, Lindsey, told me to call her after Thanksgiving and get it scheduled. I asked her if I needed to talk to her, or her boss Cindy, and she told me to call her. I called on Monday and left her a message, and she called me back yesterday afternoon. She said she can't do our home study because she has too many others going on, and I have to call Cindy to schedule it. I wish she had just told me to call Cindy from the beginning. Cindy is a great person but she is really slow to return phone calls, so I feel like I lost two days waiting. I just want to get that date set so I will have something to look forward to. We will have an individual interview with the social worker, then a couple interview, then they will come to the house for a home visit and to meet the beasties. I am still optimistic that we can get on the waiting list by the beginning of February.

We are also going to sign up with an adoption facilitator who has helped several of my friends. She only charges a nominal fee, and seems to have a high placement rate. It can't hurt to have all our bases covered, right?

In the meantime, to keep busy, I have been working on the nursery. I even have a registry set up! The mural is almost done. I'll start a new post for the mural pictures, it seems like that will work better since I'm not so great at this Blogger stuff yet.

And I still haven't gotten a period. I start prometrium tomorrow for ten days, and if no period afterwards I have an appointment with the doctor.

We have the GREEN light!

We went to our final PRIDE class last night! The social worker told us our file is now green which means that all our paper work has been turned in. What a relief! I can't believe we're almost finished. We have our infant CPR and First Aid tomorrow and then all our requirements are finished except for the home study. The home study will likely begin after Thanksgiving and be wrapped up after Christmas. We each have to have a private interview at Homes of St. Mark, then a couple interview. After that is all done then the social worker will come to our house for the home visit. So we should be on target to go on the waiting list some time in January.

The system works like this: the child is removed from the home, for whatever reason. CPS must go to court within 24 hours and notify the court they have removed the child. Then in ten days they schedule a show cause hearing and present evidence as to why the child should remain outside the home. I learned that there are certain judges who will fast track the TPR by ordering that it should be pursued at the show cause hearing. My friend Beth keeps referring to a specific judge and how great he is, so I am assuming that he is one of these judges. This is apparently the best way to get infants, by accepting this small amount of legal risk. It is rare that the order for TPR gets overturned once it has happened, even though it is always a possibility.

We met another couple at PRIDE who adopting from Homes of St. Mark and they have heard nothing but good things.

Familial reactions, part 3

I went to DC this weekend to visit my Dork sisters IRL. While I was there, I spent the day with my cousin. I was discussing my mom's lack of enthusiasm and support with her, and how much it was upsetting me, and asked if she knew what was going on since she just visited my mom recently. The reason that my mom is so worried about the adoption is ...

she is afraid I'll get a baby that has to be returned to its parents and I won't be able to deal with the heartache.

Wow, I feel on one hand like a major heel for believing the worst about her automatically, and also greatly relieved that this is the issue. This is my biggest fear as well, and is also the reason I will wait for a child that already has TPR. Phew, we can put those fears to rest. I am still going to talk to her about needing her to be more excited for me and to act as if I were pregnant, because I am paper pregnant.

My cousin also brought up the shower issue, and wants to do whatever I want to do about it. I am leaning right now towards not having a shower, but just registering for some things that I know I need, then having a meet the baby party after the adoption and conversion are done. She said she wants to be involved no matter what I decide.

I spoke with the social worker this morning, and we are all set to finish PRIDE this week. She will bring her calendar tomorrow night and we're going to schedule the first home study visit. She thinks we can start between Thanksgiving and Christmas, then finish up after the first of the year. That timing works out well for us since I have to wait until the end of February for my FMLA eligibility. I told her how we were going to do our questionnaires separately and then compare notes, and she thought that was a great idea and she was very pleased we were approaching it that way. The paper chase is almost done!

The case of the missing period

I called the doctor on Monday to inform them that AF was still missing. They had me come in for another pregnancy test (after my HCG on 10/18 was 1.4, and we haven't DTD in a long time due to David's surgery). Shockingly that test was negative (I thought I was just fat, not six months pregnant). They think my lining may not be building up enough, so I am on estrace for a few weeks and will start Prometrium on 12/1. After 12 days of that I should get a period, and if not I have a consult scheduled with the doctor.

I'm definitely not in a real hurry to get another period or anything, but I am still counting weeks since the miscarriage and that date is now cemented in my head. Once I have a cycle again then I can finish putting it behind me. And of course, there is always the small hope that we could get pregnant on our own.

On the adoption front, we just turned in a huge pile of papers to the social worker. David has written his personal statement (made me bawl my eyes out, maybe some day I'll post his and mine here), and we finished the financial statement. I have the photo album all completed. Next week we will have our final two PRIDE classes on Tuesday and Thursday, plus CPR and First Aid on Saturday. Then we are done! We can schedule our home study! We have to fill out the form on what kind of child we want, and we agreed that we would fill it out independently and then compare answers. This way we can both be completely honest without influencing each other, and we can discuss our differences. I have a feeling we'll be pretty similar, we do tend to think alike.

I am hopeful that we can schedule the home study before Christmas, then we will be ready for our license. I think we should be able to go on the waiting list in January!

Familial reactions, part 2

Another gem from my mother - I'm going to DC next week to visit some friends, and I will also visit my cousin. Mom (as usual) starts going on and on about how wonderful and adorable my cousin's kids are. I said "well, my baby will be cute and wonderful too" and she said "well, I don't know, you're not getting to pick what they look like or anything". WTF? That was really insensitive and hurtful. A baby that comes out of my body might not be "cute" either, which is what I told her. She really made me feel inferior because I can't give birth. I wish moms could just be supportive. And I feel like she is always comparing me to my uber-fertile cousin and I'm coming up short.

And still no AF for me, going on 13+ weeks now.