Yesterday was a very busy day!  We were fingerprinted, did tons of MAPP homework, finished our family profile, bought pretty stationary to write our letters to a prospective adoptive child and their birth parent, wrote those letters, bought a scrapbook, and gathered pictures for the book.  I'm waiting for Tim's mom to send me a few pics of his family to put in there.  We have to finish a bit of homework tonight as well.

I made copies of our profile and letters today.  I know things "get lost" sometimes, and I don't want to have to complete that mess again!  We attend our last MAPP class on Saturday.  This one should be good because they will have some children who have been through the system talk to us.

I'm waiting to hear who will be doing our homestudy, since Children's Home Society might not be able to.  I better know before I leave that MAPP class on Saturday!

The Hardest Thing So Far

I am currently trying to write letters to our prospective adoptive child and their birth parent.  This is one hard task!  I want to make the child feel like the home being offered to them is one filled with love.  It's hard to put this in words a young child can understand (without sounding like a crazy lady).  How do you explain that you already love this child who you've never met and know nothing about?

And writing to their birth parent....GEEZ!  That's a tough one assuming that our future child will be a child in foster care, which means they were removed from their biological family for good reason.  All I can do is let the parent know that we will love their child like they are our own.  I tried to explain that we will always allow their child to love them too.

Anyway, this has been a hard job, and I think I deserve a bowl of ice cream now as a reward!  :)

Progress Update

We are now 2/3 of the way done with MAPP!  This Saturday is our final class.  We are almost done with our family profile.  This weekend, I worked hard on the profile, drew a floor plan of our house, and created a photo collage of the house, myself and Tim, and Church (our kitty).  We still have to do our homework from last week.  It will be difficult finding the time this week since Tim has midnight openings and inventories....but we'll get it done!

After speaking with our MAPP teacher this past weekend, I learned that they may have to call someone in from Panama City to do our homestudy.  I work for the agency that would normally do the homestudy, so they may have to call on someone from another division to avaoid a conflict of interest.  It's also possible that our second MAPP teacher can contract out through her agency to do it though.  We will see!  As long as someone is able to do it, I don't care!

I'm feeling sort of guilty that we are just going to try to adopt a child or sibling group whose parental rights are already terminated.  Most of our classmates are willing to foster as well...but I really don't know if my heart is up for that!  I feel like Tim and I have to look out for ourselves during this process and do what is good for us.  Otherwise, we aren't going to be able to do any good for the kids placed in our home anyway.  I'm trying to stay hopeful that things will work out just how they are meant to and we will find the child or children that are meant to belong with us no matter which route we take!

Back to School

So we attended our first MAPP class last Saturday and have been working on our homework this week.  I feel like I have gone back to school with all the homework we have.  I'm such a dork that I actually kind of like it, though!  We are working on the homework and family profile.  It's a lot of thought and effort, but it will be worth it!

Our first day of class

Future Mama working for her baby!

Tim putting thought into our work

We are scheduled to be fingerprinted next week.  We are getting our cat's vaccinations updated as well.  We have started to research cribs and other needed items.  The process is rolling!

We are still up in the air as to whether we would like to foster or just pursue adoption of a child or sibling group whose parental rights are already terminated.  I'm sure our hearts will lead us to decide exactly what is meant to be.  We have decided that we are up for a single child or sibling group of two.  We are open to any race and gender.

We have two more MAPP classes left, then comes homestudy and licensing and the waiting game!

Our anniversary is next week as well.  We usually go to Tennessee, but due to MAPP we are staying home.  I will miss the fall leaves, but this is so worth it!  Maybe next time we go, we'll have a kiddo or two in tow!

Four More Days Til MAPP!

Just four more days until we start our MAPP classes!  It's the first official step to finding our little one!  I confirmed our attendance today, which settled my nerves because some acquantances had their info lost and might not be registered for the class afterall.  So this Saturday (ALL day), we will be in class!  I'm not sure exactly what we will be learning, but I'm excited none the less!

We also received something sepcial in the mail today!  I ordered a journal for us to use to document this process for our future baby.  There was a little hiccup with the delivery, so the author that I ordered it from threw in an extra copy for free!  So we are now the owners of two journals, both signed by the author.  I can't wait to start journaling!  I'm going to make sure Tim makes time to do it as well....though I'm sure mne will be much better!  :)

In other news, we attended my sister's wedding this weekend!  It was beautiful.  Mellissa was gorgeous and the cereomny was nice.  There was yummy food and we ate terribly all weekend! 

On a sad note, Tim's nana also passed away this weekend.  We were fortunate to get to see her last weekend, though.  I'm glad she's moved on to a better place, but it's so sad for everyone left behind.  I only met her a few times, but she was a very sweet lady.

I will update more once classes have started!