Chuckle

That moment when you are no longer really angry about infertility and instead are excited about the "wait" ahead.

It's nice.

That's not to say that I won't ever be angry about the infertility or the miscarriage. Or feel bad feelings about it. Or be confused by it. All of those feelings are valid and allowed. But I am happy that I don't have those feelings at this moment. Or in recent memory.

It's nice to let those go.

The Waiting Game

A lot of our paperwork is done! There's still stuff to do, a few blanks spaces to fill in, but it's all sorted and filled out mostly. 

Which is HUGE. 

We still have clearances and classes to do. We start our classes NEXT MONTH, July!! We have 2 Saturdays scheduled as of right now in July and 3 evenings in September. 

All of which I am very excited for. 

In September we'll submit our clearance paper work, FBI: Act 33&34,  State Criminal History check, finger printing. Because these only last a year we are waiting a little while to start on these so that they work for us longer, because we'll have to renew next year and why "waste" a few months of them if we don't need to. 

That's it for now, just an update of where we are in the process! 

We're in Paperwork Country

After doing some research Paul and I chose The Children's Home of Pittsburgh for our adoption agency.
I wanted something local, and non-religious, and from my first email inquiry our caseworker has been open, understanding and wonderful. I immediately had a good feeling about them.
It took a few weeks between our initial contact with the agency and our scheduled meeting. Weeks filled with excitement, anticipation and research.

Our first meeting with our caseworkers (we have our main, plus a trainee - hooray!) went well.  Of course, getting to Lawrenceville, across town, was full to twists and turns - it's construction season. But once we were there it was lovely.

We sat down for about an hour and talked about why we were choosing adoption, what - generally - was ahead (paperwork, classes, home study, then matching) and what we could expect out of the processes.

The more we talked the happier and more excited I became. I tend to get chatty and full of smiles when I am really happy about something and I certainly was that evening.

We came home with our packets: a binder full of our "classwork" that we'll take to our pre-adoption classes and a folder full of things to fill out, clearances to obtain, things to sign off on. Lots and lots of paperwork.

Right now, I'm working on my "autobiography," it's basically just a big list of things to answer about: Me/Us. Paul will have to write one up too.

Paperwork, going to classes, our 5 "home study" meetings, these are concrete things. In a system where every case is unique it's nice to start out with some constants.

This is the Beginning

When Paul and I got married we had talked about having kids. We avoiding talking about kids, we used protection. Neither of us were ready to start a family.
Then we were. I got off the pill, we started trying.
And trying.
And trying.
After a few visits with the reproductive endocrinologist, some invasive looking around, and only a slight boost needed to my thyroid levels we were back on the road to trying.
And we conceived!
We were so excited, and anxious, and nervous, and hopeful.

And then devastated when an ER visit with sonogram revealed the fetus has died.  I was actively miscarrying.

I was numb.

There's a whole miscarriage story, but it's not terribly important right now.

And I went to school for Massage Therapy. I loved it.
We talked about adoption, but at the time, my heart wasn't in it, I had just started school, I still ached for my stomach to be round and with child.
But time passed.
We dusted ourselves off, the dust settled.

We tried again.

Then one day, in May, Paul looked at me and said, what do you think about adopting?
And my heart leapt with Joy, and I said Yes, let's do it.

This is how our story begins.