Tonight's the Night!

That's right - no more waiting and no more putting it off. Tonight I get to clean in preparation for my actual home study visit! Ta da!

Okay, even I can't pretend to be excited about this. Overall my house is in good shape, but I really do need to tackle the linen closet, under the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and the massive laundry monster in my room. If I want to play this weekend (and not wake up at 6 AM on Sunday), I really do need to get this done tonight.

Maybe I'll make some home made bread and split pea soup so I have something to look forward to around 8 PM...that'll make a nice break while I watch The Office and Parks and Rec.

The case worker will come over Sunday at noon, and she expects it'll take an hour or two to cover all the topics of discussion and see the house. Then she promises to work fast to have the official home study complete by Friday the 12th. On Saturday the 13th, I hope to have two grant applications in the mail. Wish me luck!

Gearing Up

I emailed the online group I’m part of and asked what I should have on hand “just in case” I get that less-than-24-hour notice placement. What started out as a list of about 5 items has quickly grown to include no-brainers I had forgotten about, like a car seat and bottles. Ha, oops.

I really wasn’t going to start shopping yet, but this weekend I scored a like-new cosleeper on Craigslist for $30 – they go for almost $200 new. It attaches to the edge of the bed so the baby is close by without actually being in the bed. And the woman selling it was also happened to be selling the car seat with an owl pattern I absolutely love, which has been discontinued by Graco (the pattern, not the seat). So yeah, I have started my pile of basics. I might even go get a Snap N Go stroller frame for $8 ($80 new) if a different woman emails me back. There are such amazing deals to be had on gently used baby stuff, I can’t imagine why anyone buys brand new.

Next weekend is a large baby item consignment sale that only happens twice a year, so Yazmin and I are going to check it out. I really don’t need to buy anything else this early, but she might find some handy items before my nephew is born in December.

Birth Fathers, Red States and Blue States

On Tuesday I met with a second private adoption attorney, and she was amazing. She came highly recommended by an adoptive family I know here in Boise.

In addition to having reasonable fees (it’ll cost just $250 to get on their list of waiting parents, compared to the agency charging $2,000), I just like the way she thinks. She seems to have a strong intuition about situations and she’s not afraid to go with her gut. She also mentioned making sure no adoptive parent ends up outside his or her comfort zone financially. I’ll still put myself on the agency’s waiting list, but it’ll take time to save up the $2,000 they need.

Another interesting point she made had to do with birth fathers. Naturally, they need to be given notice that they’ve fathered a child who will be placed for adoption. At that point, they can decide to step up and parent or go along with the adoption plan. But in some states, the sex that conceived the child is considered “notice”! So while the law would be on my side with regard to terminating parental rights, that just doesn’t seem right to me. And eventually, the father would come looking for the child and then we’d have that mess to deal with. The attorney and I are on the same page there, agreeing we’d make every effort to find the birth father and make sure he’s on board.

Something else I’m picking up is that it’s much easier to adopt from red states than blue states, due to less regulation. I’m not sure which way I think is better…I think some counseling for the birth parents is good, and obviously some sort of a waiting period post-birth in case minds are changed. But some states (like Colorado) apparently have so many rules and restrictions, it’s difficult to decipher what’s required and even more difficult to meet deadlines. 

My home study visit is scheduled for Sunday, October 2^nd, and the case worker is going to do everything she can to meet the October 15^th deadline so I can apply for the Help Us Adopt grant. I had a feeling when I started in July that things would take a while, but I still can’t believe how close to the deadline we already are!

Thinking About Starting an eBay Store? Don’t Bother.

Last month I opened an eBay store to see if I could earn a little extra money. It’s easy and inexpensive to set one up, and there’s no long-term commitment.

Unfortunately, I realized eBay does a very poor job of driving traffic to its site. There are so many sellers and stores now, I had a bunch of items listed for 30 days and they only got 1 – 5 views in that whole time. A couple of things did sell, but not enough to make it worth my time. I had even done research and checked past auctions to figure out which types of items sell best, but no luck.

It’s also tricky to navigate eBay’s fee schedule. Everything I read said sellers get 5-cent listings, but I couldn’t ever post anything for less than 20 cents. And of course they take a cut when something sells, and Paypal takes a cut when the buyer pays. So unless you’re going to get a wholesale permit and start a massive operation reselling crap from China, it’s probably not worth your time to open a store.

Home Study Paperwork Done!

This morning I stopped by CASI to turn in my home study paperwork. Woo hoo, done! No one was there to take my picture, so I just took one of the building on this lovely September morning. In the next few days I expect to hear from a case worker who’ll make an appointment to come meet me and check out my house, and possibly talk to some family and friends as well. 

This afternoon I have an appointment with a second private adoption attorney who comes highly recommended by another adoptive family in Boise. So far I’m impressed – they were very friendly on the phone yesterday and made room for me to have a free consultation right away today. It’ll be interesting to hear how they differ from the first private attorney I met with and any advantages they might be able to offer over an agency. There’s still a chance I could double up, paying to get on lists with both the agency and an attorney, but financially that’s not too likely at this point. 

The timing of all this is lining up pretty well with work. We were supposed to roll our new website (18 months in the making) this morning, but it got bumped to next week. I just want it to be live and working when my home study is approved, at which point I’ll go to my boss and HR and let them know what I’m up to. We’ll need a plan in place of a very short notice adoption (24 hours isn’t unheard of) as well as a less-urgent plan in the case that I’m matched with a birth parent before the baby is born.

It’s exciting stuff for sure…I just have to remember that the average placement time for a single parent through the agency is 2 – 3 years. I insist I’m special and better and different though, so my wait won’t be as long. :)

Wine Tasting For the Win

Last night I was blown away by the generosity of family, friends and people I'd never even met! Heidi at Bueno Cheapo Vino hosted a private fundraiser wine tasting and about 20 of us gathered to sample a white, rose, red and some bubbly before heading out on other Saturday night adventures.

Thank you, thank you! to everyone who came, for the generous donations, and to BCV for being such an awesome host. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Natalya entertained herself in the kids' area and helped Heidi rinse and bus wine glasses. (Singing in this shot.)

Fur Baby Checkups

This morning I took Jayda and Luisa to the vet for some routine stuff – Jayda needs a dental and I wanted to get some standard blood work done on Luisa to check for early signs of kidney issues, diabetes, etc. now that she's 9 years old. I have no reason to believe she has health issues, but I know how much cheaper it’ll be to treat something if it’s caught early. (I don’t have pet insurance on the cats.)

Our morning routine was pretty different, so the animals all knew something was up. I couldn’t feed Jayda breakfast so I left her in her kennel till it was time to go. Of course it was very exciting for her to have Luisa in the car with us, but about half a mile down the road she forgot she knew her. Commence naughty OMG-A-CAT!! behavior. And Luisa was doing her car meow, so you can imagine the chorus of rawrrr YIP rawrrr YIP all the way there.   

The plan was to pick up Luisa at lunch, go over the blood work results and take her back home to Monica (who is surely having her own little meltdown being the only one at home right now.) Unfortunately, the vet called to inform me that “Luisa has decided we won’t be examining her today…” because she is claws-out lunging at anyone who tries to go near her. They’d need to sedate her just to check her teeth or draw blood, and because I fed her breakfast, sedation isn’t an option. So we’ll have to try again another day, minus a noisy car ride with Jayda to start. Thankfully they’re not charging me for today’s visit.

Side note: I don’t usually use the term “fur babies”, but I hear it a lot from our customers and I think it’s sort of funny.

Like a Giant Game of Memory

I plan on turning in my home study paperwork Monday, so this week I'm gathering the last little bits of info I need. Stuff like proof of employment, proof I can add an adopted child to my health insurance plan, etc. I also need to make copies of my personal documents, and that's where Memory comes in.

Social security card? In the metal Double Bubble box in my top drawer. Birth certificate? Tri-folded on top of a Bratz notebook in a 13x9 pan in the garage on a piece of scrap carpet under the stair railing I took out last year. Found it in less than 5 seconds. See, that game is good practice for later in life!

Brand Damage

I was bummed to find out today that I won’t be giving out samples of 44 North at home games after all. And annoyed to be reminded that employers often feel like they can treat applicants like garbage.

The promo is a joint effort between 44 North and Boise Weekly, and I heard about it through an ad agency on Facebook. I emailed L. at Boise Weekly and she wrote back a couple of times, then we spoke on the phone.

We scheduled a brief meeting for last Friday at 8:30 AM. The plan was to give me a t-shirt and have me sign up for shifts since she’d already seen my picture and resume and interviewed me over the phone.

L. showed up 20 minutes late (her coworker had to call and tell her I was there waiting) and was totally unprepared, so all we did was chat for a moment and she handed me a football schedule, saying I’d be part of the team. She was friendly and seemed excited about how qualified I was. Next up was going to be a “pizza party” meeting with 44 North to assign shifts and learn about the brand.

Considering this was the third gig I had lined up, I stopped looking for others. And I was actually looking forward to promoting two local products at local games. At $50 bucks a gig, it would have been a decent chunk of money to put toward my adoption expenses.

By this morning I hadn’t heard back from L., so I emailed her and she replied “We filled the 44 North Boise Weekly Street team-Sorry I did not get back to you sooner.” Uh, yeah. You filled it by hiring me. Remember?

I think what she meant was, “I’m sorry I’m so disorganized that I forgot our meeting last week. I’m also sorry that I forgot to bring you a shirt, that I forgot to tell you about the info session with 44 North, and that I actually completely forgot I had hired you.”

Boise Weekly and 44 North should probably rethink who they have recruiting for them.

Not the Only One

Lately it seems like everywhere I go, I meet more and more women my age who want to be moms but haven’t figured out the right situation. In the past week alone I’ve spoken with quote a few women who are considering adoption or other ways of becoming single moms on their own, by choice.

It’s tough in a place like Idaho because so many people get married and have kids in their early twenties. Of course, this means many young men and women are divorced before age 30. And it also means that many of the now-single guys skipped college and never traveled because they went from being a high school student to being a dad. And they have the baggage of exes, child support, visitation schedules and the occasional custody battle. Some of them have even had vasectomies because they thought they were done building their families. And some of them resent their children because they came too early in life, stifling what could have been promising careers and social lives. From my point of view, there’s nothing less attractive than a guy who complains about child support and only has his kids every other weekend.

So for all the young women like myself, I’ll refer you to an online forum that I love: discussion.choicemoms.org. It’s a moderated group you’ll have to ask to join (this keeps out spammers and haters), and you’ll be able to talk to women who are already mothers and/or considering IVF, sperm donation, adoption, surrogates, etc. to become parents. 

And I’ll let singles and gay couples know about the adoption grant I’ll be applying for: www.helpusadopt.org. It’s the only organization in the country that grants adoption funds to singles and gay couples exclusively.

Just an Ordinary Update

Things are moving right along with the home study and fundraising. I’ve completed 9.5 of the 10 education hours and have most of the paperwork filled out. The reference letter forms are going out this week and my background checks are back from Idaho and California. Don’t feel bad if I didn’t ask for your reference – I only need 3 and only one can be a family member.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to land two additional part time gigs. One will be hosting open houses on occasional weekends, and the other will be promoting 44 North vodka and Boise Weekly at BSU football games and local bars. I’ve also been working at the door-to-door job the past couple of weeks. It all sounds like a lot, but the shifts are short and flexible. If I can’t work a specific day, I just don’t sign up for a shift. 

And finally, the private wine tasting event date has been set! It’ll be Saturday, September 17^th from 7 – 9 PM at Bueno Cheapo Vino on Vista. I think I sent an Evite invitation to everyone interested in attending, but if you were left out, please let me know.

My immediate goal with the jobs and wine tasting is to earn/raise the $400 I still need for my home study. Then I’ll start working toward the $2,000 I’ll need to be put on a list of waiting parents. The sooner I can raise that, the sooner I will be officially “waiting”.

After that, I’ll await the results of my grant application in December and take out an adoption loan sometime around the first of the year. Lots to do!