Frigg's Day, 03/30/2012

This was a momentous week in our family as our adoption of Destiny was finalized on Wednesday. We drove up to Delaware on Tuesday afternoon and met with her birthmother for a little while before heading on up to Wilmington to spend the night and be ready for the hearing at 10:30 a.m. the next day. The visit with Destiny's birthmother went well, and it was good to "break the ice" with her in such a setting. We agreed to meetings like that at least once a year with her as long as she wants them, so we will be doing it again sometime in 2013.

On Wednesday we got up and met up with our friends Bobby & Melissa Carter, who had also driven up from Mechanicsville on Tuesday so they could be with us during the hearing. I think it's fair to say that Melissa is Susan's best friend, and so it was a blessing to have her and her husband there at the hearing. We walked over to the courthouse together, which was only a couple of blocks from our hotel, and there we also met up with the lawyer we've been working with an Danielle, the representative of Adoptions from the Heart, the agency that matched us up with Destiny's birthmother. When the judge was ready for us, we went in to the courtroom. The judge, Judge Chapman, was friendly and tall. Very tall, but also very friendly. He greeted us informally at first, and after some discussion, he called the official business to order. The official business consisted of the lawyer asking Danielle about the adoption process and getting her testimony on the record that all the legal requirements were met and that Destiny was thriving and happy in our home. Once that was complete, the judge had an informal extension of the hearing and read passages of scripture to encourage Destiny and us in our journey forward from that point, and he asked for each party to share thoughts about the new family that was forming. Everyone was encouraging and supportive. Then we took a dozen photos or so, with each person getting a chance to hold Destiny.

We received the official order of the court that Destiny should be known henceforth as Destiny Michelle Johnson and that we should be recognized as her parents. It was a great day, truly a landmark day in our lives.

Baby steps with Destiny

Adoption is a process of steps, one small step at a time. This week we have made several steps, and we are in the middle of waiting for the next. I guess we have been in the middle of waiting for the next steps since we started the adoption journey about nine months ago (yes people have pointed out the similarity in timing between our adoption journey and a pregnancy).
Almost three weeks ago now we took the gigantic step of getting matched with a birthparent. I guess S (the birthmother) took that step for us, but we are all too happy to go with her. Then Monday we got word that the next step was happening: S was in labor and the baby was arriving. So we drove to Delaware, and we were at the hospital only a few hours after the baby was born. We got to see S and the baby in her room, and we stayed with her most of the day. S wanted us there Tuesday morning, so we went up and spent most of the morning with her and the baby.
Tuesday afternoon we took the next step, which was to finish our placement paperwork with the social worker her in Delaware. Wednesday afternoon was hard because S's emotions were more volitile, and as a result we started feeling like the certainty of the adoption was suddenly not so certain. We left the hospital after doing the paperwork with the goal of getting to the next step: discharge from the hospital for S and the baby. At that point we would have custody of Destiny and could really start being mommy and daddy to our little girl.

Wednesday we were at the hospital again early because S needed help managing the baby, especially because her six-year-old son had been brought to the hospital and was also in her room and had been there most of the previous night and morning. The experience probably solidified her decision to allow us to adopt Destiny, but it did cause some awkward moments while we were there on Wednesday. The nurses and hospital social worker came through to do the hospital paperwork for discharge, and we got some pointers on parenting a newborn. The discharge came, and it was as emotional as expected. But at the end of the day we had Destiny with us at the hotel, her sole guardians and -- for all practical purposes -- officially her parents.

So we have been here in the hotel since Monday and here with Destiny since Wednesday. We have at least two more days, and likely three or four, before the next step occurs. That step is getting permission from Delaware and Virginia to take Destiny across state lines and to our home. It cannot come soon enough. We miss our cats and the comforts of our home, but mostly we need the space to stretch out and we need the "village" of our friends and church.

Destiny is such a blessing to us! Step by baby step Destiny joins our family.

A New Chapter Is about to Begin

It has been a long time since I posted anything to my blog here. Life has continued pretty much the same from week to week, with occasional events of interest along the way. I should have been posting at least about those events, but just haven't.

But now there is a major event looming. Susan and I are about to adopt a baby girl! She will be born on or before the 21st of July in Delaware. We will be traveling up on the 20th to be in the hospital on the 21st when the baby is born. Since we know the baby will be a girl, we've even decided on her name: Destiny Michelle Johnson. We've been getting ready to adopt for about a year, and now it's about to happen. We are just so excited to be on the cusp of a great new adventure of parenting. I'm sure there will be much more activity on this blog in the weeks and months and years to come.

Here is a picture of Destiny, courtesy her birth-mother, who told us that when she saw the picture of Susan in our adoption profile and then the sonogram pic below, she realized the baby had Susan's nose. And so she chose us.

Thanksgiving, 2010

For those following our adoption story, we are now officially in the waiting period between the paperwork and the match. It is nice to have all the technical details finished, but waiting will be difficult in its own way. It didn't help that our social worker contacted Susan about a possible match while I was in Seattle at a conference. It didn't pan out, and so all the pictures in our minds of having a baby for the holidays this year are a source of disappointment. We are hopeful to have a match in the not-to-distant future, but right now all we can do is prepare our nursery and pray.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the conference in Seattle, which was all about SQL Server, one of the main software tools I use in my work for Shelby Systems. I learned a lot and had some fun. I met some great folks, some of whom may be on-going contacts for me. I also had a lot of time to read on the plane and in the hotel room. I finished two books on this trip: Babywise (about the first few weeks of child development after birth and how to implement a "parent-directed feeding" system to facilitate a regular feeding scheudle and, ultimately, sleeping through the night as early as possible, and also Surprised by Hope, a book on the eternal Christian hope of new life through resurrection from the dead. N.T. Wright wrote the book; he's an Anglican priest and pastor. This is the second book by Wright that I've read completely, and I continue to work through his more thorough theological master work The New Testament and the People of God. I find his work refreshing and challenging. Despite his Anglican tradition, he sticks quite closely to the biblical text to make his points. Church traditions from post-New Testament writings figure only lightly in his exegesis and application. If I didn't know better, I would often mistake his writing for that of a strict Restorationist.

Susan has been working quite a lot; it seems she is training someone new for her team every month. She enjoyed meeting the parents of one of her direct reports this week. They're from India and a fun couple. Susan says it was "like father, like daughter." Both Rohini (Susan's employee) and her dad are happy, talkative, adventurous people who are fun to be around. Rohini's dad has even e-mailed Susan inviting her to be his "friend" on Facebook!

For Thanksgiving Day today, our plan is to go to Texas de Brazil for lunch and then spend the rest of the day watching movies, probably Megamind and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. I vote for Tangled also, but not sure we'll fit it all in. I've already gotten in an hour or so of The Lord of the Rings Online, and may resume that after the movies. Tomorrow will be our turkey and dressing day, skipping most if not all of the Black Friday madness. I'd like to see if we can get any super-great deals at Best Buy, but not sure I'd get up early enough for them.

Most thankful for this year: Susan.

Baby Steps

We took the second concrete step toward adoption today. We mailed off the application to Adoptions from the Heart this morning. They should have it by next Tuesday, and we hope to hear something from them about scheduling the home study by the end of next week, though that may be a little too eager a timeline. Still, we are committed to an agency and we are ready to get things rolling.

After lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings we went to Babies R Us to do some shopping and to start a baby registry (#45946804 if you want to know). We spent a good three hours plus looking around and adding items to the registry. We decided on a turtle theme for the nursery decorations and started comparing strollers and other items. Once we get matched with a birthmother and have a better idea of when the baby will be born, we'll get more specific about things.

For now, we're just excited about the baby. Currently we have a boy baby name of Gabriel and a girl name of Olivia. We'll keep talking about it and praying about it.

I almost forgot to mention that when we got home we found a bunch of baby items from Target on our front porch. There was no card or note of any kind. Apparently some of our friends (we suspect we know who) bought these for us and left them on our porch. Thanks to them! And thanks be to God, Who has blessed us with all good things.

On the Cusp of the Adoption Process

Susan recently read Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman. It is a bitter sweet autobiography. It got Susan thinking more openly about adoption, and shortly after finishing the book she broached the topic with me. We talked about our failure so far to conceive a child and our common desire to love and parent a child. So we started doing some research online and asking our close friends to pray for us. We got a book on adoptions from a Christian point of view (thanks, Betsy!) and read it together. We spent most of one Saturday afternoon just reading about the process.

We decided for sure that we want to adopt, and we started seriously looking at the agencies in the local area that we might use. We narrowed it down to threee: Bethany, Coordinators2, and Adoptions from the Heart. We also let our families know that we were moving toward adoption.

Last night Susan and I met with a social worker from Adoptions from the Heart. She was quite friendly, and was willing to listen to our questions and answer them fully and frankly.

One of our biggest concerns was the level of openness that is now apparently quite typical between adoptive parents and birthmothers. The social worker let us know that the minimum openness is simply information shared indirectly, though the medium of the adoption agency itself. We would send into to the agency, which would be forwarded to the birthmother, and vice versa. She said that more openness, including e-mail addresses and post-adoption visitation, are options that most adoptive parents are comfortable with after getting to know the birthmother a bit, but those are purely optional. We are comfortable with having the option.

We like the fact that Adoptions from the Heart provides long-term counseling for the birthmothers, both before and after the birth and adoption process. And they offer quite a few resources for adoptive parents as well, including lessons on handling the ramifications of cross-racial adoptions.

We were both favorably impressed with the answers to our questions about the agency and about open adoption in general. I think we are ready to take the next step and complete the application and turn it in to AftH. After that we will start scheduling our Home Study appointments and figuring out how to collect the $22,000+ that we'll need to pay at the time of the placement.

Parenthood is a new adventure we are both excited to see shape up in our future.

For now we are praying for the process and for the child God will add to our family. Please pray with us.