Well...its been a while!

But I told you guys I am awful at blogging! So you were forewarned! The raffle went great! I'll post a list of the winners later on today! We were able to raise enough to pay for our Home Study! We will start that process after the holidays. Things are just too crazy right now. We can't wait to get a move on! Nothing else is new here. I did reunite with an old friend the other day via e-mail. Its been really awesome and I'm glad she e-mailed me. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!!

Well hello there!

Not much new here...We are still in the ticket selling phase of our raffle and thats going really well. We've sold 147 so far. We've done far better than I thought we would! We are over halfway to paying for our home study which is amazing. I saw Robert yesterday and gave him a couple of the business cards printed up with our blog info, an e-mail address and phone number to contact us at on the college bulletin board. Never know...there might be a girl in a situation who doesn't want to abort but also doesn't want to parent her child...we could help each other. I want to get a few cards to the rest of the family as well. Never know when they might hear of someone who wants to look into adoption.

In other, non-baby/non-adoption news...my mouth really hurts today, lol. My orthodontist appointment yesterday has gone and left me grumpy today. Alright...off to do some work for me! Talk to you all later!

Our Adoption Profile

We submitted our adoption profile to the agency...we are waiting to hear back from them on if there are things we should change or not. Here are some screenshots of what it will look like (if we don't have to change it.)

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I think thats all of them...we are pretty happy with it. Once the agency approves, we have to have 5 copies printed up and then have them wirebound. Alright...thats all I've got for the moment.

OH! I still have tickets to sell! I've sold up to 113 so far. Get yours today!!!

Not much is new...

Not too much is going on here. We started selling our raffle tickets and have had a great response. We've sold 60 so far! We plan on selling a bunch more! While I was being talked into a flew shot today, I got to see the scarves Zephyr made for the raffle. They are so pretty and I don't want to give them away, lol. But of course they'll be given away to the winners. Zephyr WILL be making me my favorite one though, lol! Stephanie got us a facial to add to the list of prizes! Thats exciting. I can't wait til the drawing in November! Alright...thats all for now. Night!

Edited to add: 62 tickets! Thank you Katie!

Raffle!

Well, our raffle flyer is complete! Check it out!

We will start to offer tickets for donations on October 1st and I'll be able to mail them out to everyone starting on the 4th. They are on order and will be here on the 3rd. I can't wait to get started!!!

Monday's Adoption Seminar

Well, our seminar was really long but really good. There were 4 other couples there besides us and we were the only couple who had already been accepted to the agency. We found out that they have 50 couples in their waiting family pool and they do not like to accept more than that at any given time as they typically place around 50 babies a year...so as one couple leaves the pool, they'll introduce another, if that makes sense. I'm glad we are already in. So the meeting started with us meeting Patricia who is the lawyer and basically the head honcho of the agency. She's the head of the board that accepted our application so she recognized Matt and I and that was nice.

She started by going over all the initial paperwork...it was lots of legal talk that I didn't overly understand and she broke it down section by section explaining each piece. That was really helpful and she really took her time to make sure she answered all the questions everyone had. She went ahead and told us stories about adoptions that had taken place and the outcomes. She went into detail about birth father rights and made sure that we knew that if a birth father raised some sort of red flag after the baby had been placed (before she has no say) she will fight to the end to make sure we get the outcome we want. I can imagine that she would be scary in court, lol...I wouldn't want to go up against her. Definitely glad she's on our side!

So towards the end of our 5 hours, she started telling us about the different things that can hold up your adoption...or make it take longer. In terms of the stuff we choose on our application: If you choose a specific gender, it will increase your time. If you choose a boy, they won't show your profile to anyone who is carrying a girl or who do not know what they are having. That cuts you down...a lot. Age can affect your wait time but they seem to primarily deal with newborns. The race of the baby will most definitely increase your wait time for placement. Also, if you want a baby who was born to a mother with no medical issues and no drug use, that too will increase your time. After listening to all that, we decided to change a couple things on our application. We changed our choice on age...we told them that we prefer a newborn but wouldn't totally say no to a 1 - 3 month old baby. Matt said 6 months but I couldn't do that. Personal reasons on my part, so I compromised on the 1-3 months. We also changed our decision on mental health issues and drug use where the mother is concerned. We don't want a totally cracked out and severe mental issued mother but if at the beginning of the pregnancy, she wasn't aware and maybe smoked a little pot or something...those things happen. The baby's more often than not turn out fine. She gave us several instances where she dealt with baby's who had more severe drug use from the mother and they were healthier than a mother who had never used. We are comfortable with those changes so I guess we are ok with that.

Ummm...I think thats all I've got for now. Oh! We are almost done with our adoption profile. I just ordered a copy today to show to the adoption agency to approve so I can order final copies. I have to make 5 copies so I'll make 6 just in case. Oh! And while there we also spoke with our adoptive parent coordinator, Denise! She's great too. (We really liked everyone at the agency, lol) We told her we were having trouble coming up with the initial $5,000. So she told us to start with the $1200 portion of that $5000 for the home study. The home study takes 4 to 6 weeks to complete so we can at least get that started while we come up with the rest of the money. We think we'll be able to take out a loan by December. I have virtually all of our bills paid at that point (I think we are seriously going from around $6,000 in debt (not including the house) to around $300 in debt by December. Things are tight right now but oh so worth it.

Alright, I'm still feeling crappy so I'm gonna go to bed now. I had a rough day with not feeling well all while having to move my office. Good times. Night everyone! Thanks if you stayed with me this long!

Fundraiser

We are putting together a fundraiser!  A raffle.  We have some great prizes and we intend to start selling raffle tickets at the beginning of October and hold the drawing at the end of November.  Right before Christmas!  We'll be selling tickets all over and all prizes (except for 1) can be shipped!  I'm thinking we'll sell the raffle tickets for $5 a piece and you will have a chance to win a beautiful jewelry basket (donated by Katy), hotel gift certificates (donated by our wonderful employer), a couple of other baskets (I'll be sure to post what those are and who they are from as soon as I know!), a photoshoot with Reign Photography and an assortment of gift cards. Our friends keep offering prizes so I'm sure more will be added before we are done. We are very excited to get this raffle underway. Its a fun way for our friends and family to help us out and get a chance at some fun prizes. This is going to be great! I can just feel it!