It's a Girl!

We've Been Matched!

We have moved forward with our adoption now that we are in our new home!  We have been selected by an amazing birth mother (and family).   We spent a wonderful weekend getting to know them and we are really happy with the way things worked out!  We will get to find out the sex soon!

Adoption Journey

We are finally moving forward with our adoption journey!  We bought a new home last year and we are excited to finally be in spot we are comfortable with this huge leap of faith.  Here is our bio book. 

Bio Book

Our New Home

It's been awhile since my last post.  We've been busy with school, work, chores, life and the exciting part of selling our house and buying a new one!  We moved into our new home August 1, 2011.

 

 

New Day. New Outlook.

Today I woke up feeling better about things. So what if our equity loan didn't get approved. It's probably for the better. I was rather hesitant about pulling money from the house right now anyhow. We really want to buy a bigger house soon, especially with expanding our family and having that extra obligation to the house could be a bad thing.

Now it's time to refocus. Where do we need to make cuts? If we prioritize and sacrifice now to budget for the adoption it will help in the long run. Sure we already have a savings, but we also like to spend money and have the nice things that we work hard for. So any big purchase means something has to give. Strange to think of a baby as a large purchase...

While I am thinking up areas to cut costs and ways to raise funds, the thing that I am constantly thinking about is the home study. Why in the world do they need letters of recommendation from 4 friends and a family member? Why do they need references from our employers? Doctors letters? Fertility statements? Etc. Could you imagine how peaceful and perfect this world would be if everyone that decided to procreate had to go through this process before their eggs or sperm were released to them? Since when did my decision to parent become the business of my company? I find that a little intrusive, but I'll deal with it I guess.

"A child is God's opinion that life should go on."

Author: Unknown

The Start of a New Journey

It's been decided... Joe and I will adopt our baby. After 20 long months of "trying". And each month having the disappointment of a failed attempt we realized that being parents to A child was more important to us than being parents to a biological child. So now we have entered new territory. New emotions. New excitement. New setbacks. New disappointments.

First we began our research online for agencies and started asking questions to everyone we could think of. We quickly found an agency online that had a wealth of information and countless stories from adoptive families and birth mothers. They were upfront with their costs and provided resources about funding. I felt comfortable with them. After a few weeks we decided to send them a our pre-application and payment to get started. Within a few days they shipped us a huge packet of information containing the more in depth application, information on creating our adoption profile, the home study requirements that would meet the 50 states requirements and a book that housed every answer to every question possible. Now we were excited!!!!

Besides the questions we keep asking ourselves of what, if any, limitations of race do we want to have... The major question is, How are we going to pay for this?

In all the excitement that has thus far happened with feeling like we were going to finally get OUR baby... Today we experienced our first of probably many setbacks. We found out that our equity loan was not approved. So, now we must find other methods of financing this adoption. Goal $35,000. Paid so far: $195.

www.americanadoptions.com

The Life of Maria Liva

My Great Grandma, Maria Liva, passed away yesterday at the age of 99. Every year on her birthday she would count out how many years til she was going to turn 100. She was so proud of her age! She laughed and joked about how she couldn't believe she was turning 9x years old each time. She loved birthday meals, getting her picture taken and having birthday cake. Even on her 99th birthday she managed to blow her candles out!

Just a few days before her passing, my son found a Monarch Butterfly. The butterfly looked as if it was dying. I explained to him how they live very short lives and he must be too cold to survive any longer. So he scooped him up into a box and brought him into the house to warm him in his room. He then said to me "it's not fair that people can live to 99 or 100, if they grow up all the way, and butterflies don't get to live more than a few weeks." I know that it was on his mind that people live that long because as a 5th generation to my great grandma, he knows first hand!

The next night I had a dream about my great grandma. It was so strange actually... she had somehow left the nursing home and went to the old farm house I lived in as a child. That farm house is no longer standing in West Chester, but the memory of it is in my dreams often. The EMT's brought her out of the house and she was smiling, she looked 10 years younger, her skin was smooth and radiant and every hair on her head was in perfect formation. She looked up at me and said hello Sarah, I told her how beautiful she was and then I woke up. I cried when I woke up, because for the last year or more, she hasn't remembered who I am. She had forgotten my name and that I was her first great grandchild and Isaac was her first and only Great Great Grandchild. I told my grandma (Nonna) the next day about the dream and we both almost cried. It was almost as if it was a sign that she was about to be with God and be back to her beauty.

My Great Grandma used to love to tell stories about her life in Europe. She lived there during the first world war. She used to tell me about how they lived on snails and dandelions for a time. Or how she had and her sister had a paper route, but they had to cross a field with land mines in it. She told me that twice bombs were dropped down their chimney! As a young teenager she worked in Venice, Italy as a maid. She remembers the city for much more than the romance we think of it... but she complains about how dirty it was!

One thing I loved most about her was her honesty. She was a strong and opinionated women. Even though I was raised Catholic and have since gone to a different denomination, she never had a problem speaking up about how my son needed to be baptised! I can still hear her watching over Isaac as a toddler saying "watch him" in her heavy Italian accent, she always worried he would fall and get hurt.

Another thing I loved was that she loved it when people ate! She loved watching people eat, she loved eating! Nothing made her more proud than to see a child eat a big meal. :-) She also loved her red wine! Must be key to living to the age of 99. Pasta and wine!

Grandma worked for many years for a priest in Cincinnati. She cooked for him. She never drove a car. She lived alone until just a few years ago when she fell and broke her hip. She had 2 daughters (Teresa and Mary), 5 grandchildren (Kathie, Rick, Terri, Jenny & Cynthia), 7 great grandchildren (Sarah, Zach, Chelsea, Tyler, Emily, Connor & Thomas), 5 step great grandchildren (Shane, Amanda, Brittney, Kelsey & Cameron), 1 great great grandchild (Isaac) and 3 step great great grandchildren (Chelsea, Brady and Savannah).

Our family suffered a great loss of an amazing lady... but through us, her memory will survive. We love you Grandma!

So MANGE! (eat)