DeSoren Family

The weekend started off Friday night. Earlier in the day our adoption clinician came over to meet with Sam. She had only heard good things about him from us and our old Clinician.  With the committee meeting a week away, she wanted to meet him and get a to know him better. She came over Friday afternoon while we were at work. Apparently the meeting was a good one. We came home to this note from her written on our dry erase board: Have a great weekend, it’s probably one of your last quiet ones!

We spent the weekend trying to keep busy and tried not think about her message.  We got up late Saturday morning and decided right way to leave the house. Neither of us wanted to stay indoors all day. With no real plan on what to do we stopped by Target and picked up some new razors and undershirts. Then had lunch at the Olive Garden, which was surprisingly not bad. But, we did only have soup and salad.

After lunch we walked over to the World Market. We loaded up on Jelly Babies & Soft black licorice. Joshua also found a poster. 24×36 on a shiny red metallic paper, BE CALM AND CARE ON.  Buying it was a huge no brainer for us. But what to do with it? And where to put it?

We remembered that Michaels was having a framing sale, so we headed over to see what they might have in ready made frames. After a long debate we picked up a nice brown frame that matches the rest of the house for $34.99.

Sunday the real problem began. Where do we hang it? The walls in our  house are mostly covered by bookcases. The one area that is open and free is the stairwell hallway. The only concern with hanging items in the stairwell was, what if it falls on some ones head. Both of us mentally pictured our kido running/crashing down the stairs (like kids do) and being bonked on the head.

So Anthony drove down to the Home Depot and found a french cleat hanging kit. It’s made up of two interlocking strips of metal. One goes on the wall the other on the frame. To take the frame down off the wall you need to lift it up and out. There is no way anyone walking, running, crashing or jumping down the stairs could do it on accident. The only way this thing will fall is if the wood stud gives out. And if that happens we have much bigger problems. 🙂

Now mounting the metal strip to the frame took 1 min. Mounting the strip to the wall took 30 mins of measuring and finding bits, tape, levels, power cords, ect. Not to mention trying to screw into the wall while leaning over a 30 foot drop. It was fun.

A few of you have asked us what’s up with the poster. Well it kinda means something different to each of us. It has started to mean more to us as we get closer and closer to our committee date. But the real history of the poster is this:

Wikipedia: Keep Calm and Carry On was a poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, intended to raise the morale of the British public under the threat of impending invasion…

Now we just need to find a MIND THE GAP poster and our little british themed wall will be perfect!

14 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds until we go to committee. Not that we are keeping track or anything…

So this past week we had an update meeting with our adoption clinician. It was a very positive meeting. We also were able to do a follow up conference call with the kido’s therapist at the same time, which was super helpful. We had a lot of post FAS workshop questions. It’s funny the more you know the more questions you can come up with.

We have another followup phone conference with the kido’s caseworker set for next week to do one last run of follow up questions. But other then that, and barring any new ideas we might come up with or be given to prep ourselves, we are feeling pretty ready.

The hello book is printed and done, we have both finished all of the suggested books & articles and the kido’s room is prepped and ready to go. We are feeling pretty prepared. That in itself is a bit unnerving. But, no matter what the committee decides we both feel we have done all we can and done our best.

So now, we just have to keep ourselves busy and try our best not to think about it. To that end we have picked up 2 new video games for the house. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood & You don’t know Jack. All three of us are big fans of the Assassin’s Creed games, so there has been much negotiating and bribing on who gets to play it and when. You don’t know Jack is a funny Quiz game that all three of us can play. It has very funny and obscure questions.

We also have a new upcoming project. Joshua’s eldest brother Shiloh is getting married in May. He has asked Joshua to be his best man. So you know what that means… Anthony gets to plan the Stag party!!!!

The party right now looks like it will be a night of bowling. The whole party will be very family friendly as we expect Shiloh will to want to bring his daughter to his bachelors party, and we hope our new son. Not to mention, that this will be in Salt Lake City.

This past weekend we had a conference call with Shiloh and his bride to be and talked wedding stuff. And YES, Anthony starting channeling David Tutera. It was a very amusing phone call as 4 people, 2 laptops and 1 iPad all searched the Men’s Warehouse tux rental website.

So the weekend of May 14th, we are heading to Salt Lake city. Still have not decided if we are driving or flying. We will have Sam with us and perhaps a new kido to introduce to the Familia. Price it going to be the biggest factor, because 2 weeks after the wedding we have Joshua’s Birthday trip. This seems to be our new unintentional thing, visit La Familia, then take a vacation. 🙂

So remember our post a week or so back “When it rains it pours”? Well welcome to the THUNDERSTORM 2011.

In fact this should be like one of those manic news broadcasts with zippy storm tracker sound effects and our own seasonal logo…. YOUR Watching Super Action News Five. The Northwest’s leading weather news team. Rainpocalypse 2011! Sponsored by Richman Umbrellas. Now here is news anchor of the year Tom Tucker…..

• First weather system

We now have a date for committee set for kido#1, March 7th 2011. By close of business on the 7th we will know if we are happy new parents or still hopefuls. For this last week we have been quite literally been bouncing off the walls in excitement. The stress level in our house is also on the rise.

We have also started to update our hello book for the kido. The Hello book is a little book we have put together that introduces us, our house, the cats and the kidos room to who we hope will be our son. It’s something he can look at before we meet and before he moves in. The goal and hope is this will make his transition smoother and help take some of the scary parts out for him.

Anthony has been working on the book for 2 years now. So we only need to adjust it to match the kidos personal quirks and likes. We have been told our book is amazing. We just hope we get a chance to use it.

• Second weather system

Got an email from our adoption clinician. The caseworker on kido #2 has set a date for committee and would like to take us as one of the families three families.  She was REALLY excited about us as a match.

Our first reaction was shock. We had asked for some better info on the kido and never really heard back. And kinda had become very fousced on kido #1

The punch to the gut detail was the date for kido #2’s committee meeting March 2nd 2011. For those of you keeping track that is 5 days earlier then the kido we have been targeting.*best Charlie Brown impression here* ARRRRGGGH

We have been VERY focused on kido #1 and have been doing a lot of prep work for that committee, to try and jump tracks now seemed unfair and really did not feel emotionally right. It also did not seem fair to other families or either of the kidos, perhaps we are just to sensitive and not cut throat enough. But after a long conversation with our adoption clinician we decided to see if we could get a later committee date on kido #2 after kido #1’s.  If not we would pass on going to the committee with kido #2. We felt we did not have enough good information on kido #2 to put a potential placement with kido #1 (who we do have good intel on) in jeopardy.

So our adoption clinician went back to the caseworker and it turned out the caseworker was NOT willing to move the date.  Seems the caseworker is going on a long vacation in a few weeks and she wants to finish up all her open cases before she leaves.  So we ended up passing.

But doing so turned out to be a big relief.  Even thinking about going to two committees at once created a huge stress jump in our lives. Sticking to one committee not only lowered the stress levels it will help us remain focused and give us more time to prepare for the best case scenario, a PLACEMENT with kido #1!

Pre-adoption support group So a few weeks ago we got an E-Mail from our adoption agency inviting us to a new waiting parents support group that they were starting up. So we signed up. We are BIG fans of our agency and were excited to see what the group would be like. Because this is a private group we will not mention here about anything said for confidentiality reasons. But we will blog about our experience, which was a pretty positive one. Out of the whole group, we have the oldest home study and it seems that we have also been actively processing this for a lot longer than some of the other members. Most of our fellow members are just starting their active adoption journey, which was a real shock to us. As the meeting started and we all started to talk and share, it seemed like we all were a bit tight lipped on details. There was also a weird vibe in the air. Everything was discussed with broad strokes. You have to understand that the group itself is made up of other families that could be competing for the same kido. We don’t feel anyone in the room feels hostility to anyone else, but there was a weird self protective vibe. But by the end of the meeting as everyone got more comfortable talking the vibe was a bit more normal, if there can even be such a thing. Since were were the old farts in the room we actually felt a ton better since we mentally got to say to ourselves, “Been there, done that.” FAS Workshop This past weekend we  completed a 3 day FAS / FAE  (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome / Fetal Alcohol Effect) workshop. The Workshop was hosted by FASCETS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Consultation, Education and Training Services). The funny thing was it was held at the Mark Spencer hotel. A hotel both of us know well from our work with the ISRC. It was a bit weird spending 3 days in the coronation hospitality room. It was also a bit weird to discuss alcohol and it’s effects then step outside and see Boxxes/Redcap & Scandals and the Roxy. The workshop was a very detailed course and we feel a must for anyone who will be working with children. The numbers of kids born with FASE is crazy and the training was invaluable. The course gave us a new understanding and way of looking at some of the kidos we have been submitting our home study on. We were the only pre-adoptive family in the workshop. About half of our classmates are parents of children with FAS or FASE. The remainder of our classmates where teachers and child care professionals. We also had one Lawyer and one legal advocate. Thanks to the class diversity, we had several interesting class conversations. It made for some very interesting discussions and we feel it gave us some better tools in our parenting box.

So Monday (January 24th 2010) we got an E-Mail from our adoption clinician. She had heard back from the caseworker for the kiddo who we did a conference call with 2 weeks ago. She told us that the kiddo s caseworker had decided to send us to committee. She also mentioned that at this point the caseworker had yetto identify any other families to send to committee Also; no date has been set for the committee meeting, so we don’t know if this will be weeks or months of waiting.

We have only gone to committee once before. Some families go multiple times before they are matched to a child. Just because you’re sent to committee doesn’t mean that you’re going to get a placement.

Because we don’t know how long we will have before the committee meeting, we have decided to spend this time prepping for a hopeful placement. So we have started to improve our knowledge base, this time learning more on how to directly meet the needs of this particular kiddo better. This is turning out to be a good thing and a bad thing.

On the good side we have time to go back through the house and re-kid proof it. We also are going to upgrade our child proofing of the house to have High Focus, something the kiddo’s therapist mentioned about be very helpful. We are still looking into this and will post as we learn more. We have also started reading a new book, Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s parents, which was also recommended by the kiddo’s therapist.  Also, based off another recommendation by the therapist, we have signed up for a 3 day workshop here in Portland to get a better understanding of this kiddo s needs.

On the “bad” side we have found ourselves becoming, perhaps, a bit too optimistic. In conversation the generic term “kiddo” has slowly and unconsciously been replaced with the kiddo’s real name (something we are fighting). When arranging for our two upcoming family trips in May, more and more of the planning seems to be centered around this child’s special needs, you know, just in case. We have even started to identify which children in the neighborhood OUR kiddo will not be playing with and which ones look safe.

All of this is great news if we are selected in committee, but probably not the best emotional thing for us if we are not. Right now, we are trying to find that proper balance of excitement, necessary planning and the elusive emotionally distant safe point.

We know that this kiddo might not be the one, but it is very hard not to hope and dream.