Have we found our birthmother??

We may have. I got an email Wedneday night from a woman in Oklahoma City whose sister is due January 9th!!! Yes that soon! On Friday night I spoke to the birthmom and she is interested in us. I called our lawyer and spoke to her. The birthmom is native American Indian (Choctaw) and the tribe must approve the adoption. She said she will make a bunch of phone calls first thing Tuesday morning to find out if the tribe will approve the adoption. So we are in a holding pattern. I have been emailing the sister every day and she has sent me pictures and even a sonogram of the almost due baby-who is a boy! The seem like nice caring people and we will send them photos and updates of the baby if this adoption is a success.

We do want to obtain the medical records of the birthmom before we commit, but we are hopefully optimistic the tribe will agree to the adoption. Our lawyer has handled Native American Adoptions before is knows what to do.

In the meantime, the Christmas tree must come down ASAP, we are having two parties for our daughters birthday next weekend-Saturday for kids and Sunday for family. Who knows, we may be going to Oklahoma shortly after that!

I'll update as soon as I know more information!

Happy New Year!! 2007 is starting off promising!

What a great Christmas!

Just a quick post to say what a great Christmas we had. I think everyone liked the presents I bought! That made me happy. Good food (too much of it), good times with family and lots of nice gifts.

The best part was seeing our daughter's reaction to the gifts! She checked to see if Santa came and then went running into our room screaming 'He Came! Santa was here!" She was loving opening the gifts and playing with them. Lots of WOWs and excitment. It make everything worth it. This is what Christmas is all about! Kids loving presents! She is at such a great age! Although she is afraid of Santa, she was happy that he came and ate some cookies! She was excited that the reindeer ate their carrots too!

I hope she is this enthusiastic about Christmas for years to come. She even wore her Christmas dress all day long. She is my princess! Maybe next year there will be one more little person to spoil!

So I really have to go to work tomorrow???

A Difficult Christmas

This year will be a difficult Christmas. It was only a few days after Christmas 2005, that I discovered I was pregnant. Almost a Christmas miracle. In my mind, I had fast forwarded to Christmas 2006 and a photo my TWO children. I should have been holding a four month old baby right now. I keep thinkingI should have been buying little presents for our little one. Blocks, rattles, infant toys, maybe some clothes.

Just having one more healthy baby would have made me complete. I know the first Christmas after a loss is hard. At least I have on little sonogram picture I can look at from time to time. I look and stare and hold it under light and try to see anything distinguishable, but I can't. Just a little tiny bubble of a baby at 9 weeks with arm buds, tiny leg buds and round little head. She will forever be 9 weeks in my mind and in my heart. I will never get to know what she would have looked like or been like. That's the part of miscarriage that bothers mothers so much, it's the death of a person you never got to know and can only imagine. My gut feeling was right and we did find out the baby was a girl. That's all I will ever know. I will remember my two angels every always, but this year is the hardest by far. Only the mother of an angel will ever understand.

My husband I can't wait to say goodbye to 2006, the year we swore would be our best back in January 2006 when I was newly pregnant and everything looked fine. We are looking forward to 2007 and hopes that a 2nd child will join our family through the miracle of adoption. 2006 was a disaster on almost all accounts. I have even gained a noticable amount of weight from the infertility drugs and stress. Next year will be better-it has to be.

Our homestudy is complete!!

I feel so relieved. Our homestudy was completed Monday night and it went very well. We should get the report in a few weeks. I feel like celebrating. I was so scared and worried about how well I should clean my house and I worried myself far more than I needed to. It really was not hard at all. The paperwork we had to do in advance was trying at times, but it's so worth it!

If a situation were to arise where the birthmom chose us and is due tomorrow, we could take custody of the baby. How exciting to know that our lives can change on a moments notice! I am now working on our "Dear Birthmother Letter" and profile. Our website looks good although I may tweak that too..

http://ouradoptionplan.com

Our daughter doesn't really know what's going on. We wil tell her cautiously when it seems we are matched. I told her a lady was coming to our house to do a report on our family and she wanted to meet her.

I can't wait to start advertising in January (wait until the holidays are over) and put our profile on parentprofiles.com.

I really think we will be matched soon. Our social worker and laywer also feel we will be lucky in a short time!! I'm smiling from ear to ear.

Open Letter to a mother who abandoned her newborn

Dear Birthmom who abandoned her baby,

What were you thinking? You left a newborn girl with the umbilical cordstill attached in an unlocked carthis morning in a parking lot in Victory Gardens, NJ. It was litterallyfreezing outside and probably nearly as cold inside the car. A few blanketssurrounded the baby. Luckily someone found her after only half an hour andshe is doing great. Haven't you ever heard ofsafe haven laws? You could have left that baby safely at a fire department,police department or hospital with no questions askedand faced no criminal charges. You could have made an adoption plan weeksor months ago and blessed a luckycouple with this baby girl. There are dozens of sites likeparentprofiles.com where birthmother can locate adoptive parents.

I called St. Claire's hospital in Denville, NJ to inquire about your littlegirl and the possibility of adopting her. The womanI spoke to was touched at how concerned I was for your baby. Once I saw thepicture of this little girl with black hair,I had to try to do something. She almost looks like me when I was born.They took my name and number and said someonewould get back to me, but in all liklihood, she would be going through theNJ State adoptive services system. Since Ilive in NY, chances are slim that I have a real chance at adopting yourbaby. What a shame. If only you would have reachedout, you would be better off for it, your baby would be and a family wouldbe celebrating a little girls birth at a NJ hospital.

Please please please! Any woman thinking of abandoning a newborn orbaby-think safe haven or make an adoption plan.I know you are scared-but there is help out there. Make the right decision.Don't face criminal charges. You may havemade one mistake by getting pregnant-don't make a 2nd mistake and abandon apoor helpless baby possibly leaving it to die.

Here is the news story about this:
Baby found abandoned in a car in NJ

I want to make a difference

The other day I read a horrifying story on how a newborn was found dead in a shopping bag at a Long Island, NY train station. The baby was probably left sometime after midnight and not discovered until 9:30AM the next morning. Hundreds walked pasted the bag thinking it was garbage that did not fit in the trash can. That makes me sick that someone could kill a baby and leave it or leave it die. There are safe haven laws in NY. All the mother had to do was bring the baby to a police station, fire dept. or hospital and the baby could have lived and be adopted and she would not be facing criminal charges. There are thousands of couples that would have jumped at the opportunity to adopt this poor little normal sized newborn baby boy who never had a chance at life.

This happens all over the country a few times a week. Do these women not know about safe haven laws? They must be scared teens that hid their pregnancy and are afraid to even show their faces for a second at a local hospital. I heard some safe havens are getting a baby drop off.
There is a window that can be opened on the outside and a baby placed on a tray. The person making the dropoff can ring a bell which alerts staff to come to the window and that a baby has been dropped off. Would that help in reducing the instances of this happening?

My best friend said I could make a difference. I need to do something to spread the word about safe haven laws. I could contact local TV stations and see if they would air 15 or 30 second spots about the safe haven laws for free. I know some TV producers from my TV production days that would probably do some simple commercials for little to no money. I could contact project cuddle about advertising nationwide to try to help reduce the number or abandoned infants. I really feel I can and should make a difference!

As soon as my homestudy is complete, I will be sending in our application to be a rescue family for project cuddle. Visit their website and learn how you can help!