Adoption Tax Credit!

I hope everyone is staying cool today! Although I would have liked to have been by a lake, with an ice cold drink in my hand the A/C suited me well today instead.  Thankfully Dave and Jeanie's pool is calling my name tomorrow! After running several errands and doing some things around the house I finally put my feet up and began surfing the internet about various topics. Something that I have been wanting to learn more about in depth lately was the adoption tax credit. Let me explain:

"The adoption tax credit provides financial benefits to families that open their homes to children through adoption from foster care, intercountry adoption, or private domestic adoption.
The adoption tax credit, with a maximum of $12,650 in 2012, has helped to offset the high cost of adoption for hundreds of thousands of families since it was established in 1997. The IRS estimates that the credit benefited 96,949 children and their families in 2010. With more than 100,000 children in U.S. foster care available for adoption and countless millions of orphans and abandoned children around the world, the continuation of the adoption tax credit is vital to providing love, safety, and permanency through adoption to as many children as possible. Congress must act now to pass legislation that will protect and extend the adoption tax credit (expires at end of 2012) and encourage the right of every child to grow up safe and loved in a family of their own." (taken from adoptiontaxcredit.org).

Good information here: 
http://adoptiontaxcredit.org/advocate/

How to find your Senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

How to find your state representative:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Here is a sample email to send to both your Senator and State Representative - please note there is a space in the second paragraph to add your personal story/note.

I am writing to ask you to support the adoption tax credit, which is set to expire on December 31, 2012. Since 1997, the adoption tax credit has helped tens of thousands of parents offset the high cost of adoption, making it possible for them to provide children with loving, permanent families.

The adoption tax credit is especially important to me and my family because…(Tell Congress why you care. Your Members of Congress value your voice!)

If Congress does not take action, the current adoption tax credit will expire at the end of 2012. The credit will be reduced to $6,000, and will only benefit the few families that adopt children with special needs and have qualified adoption expenses. Most families adopting children from foster care, intercountry adoption, and domestic infant adoption will not receive any benefit. Without the adoption tax credit, many parents hoping to adopt will be unable to do so, and others will face great financial hardship. The adoption tax credit is essential to ensuring that as many children as possible find the forever families they deserve and ensuring that those families are in a more stable financial position to provide an environment where children can thrive.

The adoption tax credit must be extended to help as many children as possible find the permanent, loving family they need and deserve. And for 2012 it should be made refundable again so that most adoptive families will benefit from it. The best adoption tax credit would be permanent, refundable, inclusive of all types of adoption, and remain a “flat” tax for children with special needs.

On behalf of the countless children waiting to be adopted, and the many thousands of families that stand to benefit from the adoption tax credit, thank you for your attention to this important issue.

Sincerely,

NAME
CITY, STATE

EMAIL ADDRESS / PHONE NUMBER

Unless the tax credit is extended this is going to end for all of the future adoptive families. Infertility is expensive. Adoption is expensive. Adoptive families deserve some help! I actually emailed Ohio's Senator and State Representative about this matter today! Please consider doing the same. It only took me 10 minutes! 

Stay Cool!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

I have had several people ask me if I had any recommendations for children's books about adoption recently. While I haven't had to think a whole lot about this personally yet I have searched some off and on when thinking of my nieces and nephews and to start making a list for our future child's library. Here is a short list of some children's books that come recommended from other adoptive families. Some are more specific to domestic adoption while others international adoption. We are pursuing domestic adoption but either way they are nice stories to open up the lines of communication about adoption in general and how families can be built in different ways. I will put this list under the "information for friends and families" page for future reference.

Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born-Jamie Lee Curtis

God Found Us You-Lisa Tawn Bergren

Over the Moon-Karen Katz

A Blessing from Above-Patti Henderson

A Mother For Choco-Keiko Kasza

Horace-Holly Keller

I Wished For You-Marianne Richmond

On another note I am not sure if any of you are Modern Family regulars (tv show on ABC on Wednesday nights) but this week they highlighted adoption again. While Aaron and I typically like this show we did not particularly enjoy the overdramatization of the whole process. Although we haven't made it to the point where a family has chosen us and a baby has been born the whole scene seemed pretty outrageous. Yes, yes I know it is TV and they do it for the show but we found it pretty disappointing that they couldn't portray it in a more positive light. It is true that adoptions fall though like in Wednesday's epidsode and I am sure some adoptions are full of drama but the vast majority of them are nothing close to what was seen on TV. Unfortunately, this is the way adoption has been and continues to be portrayed in the media. Lifetime is another channel that likes to overdramatize the adoption process and often make it seem scary. They recently had a movie on called "Adopting Terror" and was about a birth father trying to obtain custody of the child, kidnapping her, killing people and many other crazy scenarios. While this may have taken place somewhere at sometime in the real world it was probably only one case that the media got ahold of and blew out of proportion. TLC aired a show a few weeks ago called "Birth Moms" which has caused quite a uproar in the adoptive family community. Many of the birth mothers were shown drinking, smoking, etc. throughout their pregnancy, making fun of the adoptive parents and making very poor decisions overall. Most people who have no education about adoption would see this and automatically think these women are horrible human beings and have no love for their child whatsoever. In actuality these women love their children very much. To make an adoption plan is "the greatest gift of love". Not all birth mother's go to the extreme that several of these women did. In fact, I know several adoptive parents whose children's birthmother did everything in her power to keep her child safe. The point of my rambling I guess is to please make a mental note of this when watching these types of shows. It is so easy to let the media think for you!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Moses was adopted!

Hi all!
Well we are back to work after traveling 16 hours in a car, dancing the night away and watching one of God's greatest miracles take place this weekend! Phew...it makes me tired just thinking of the weekend we had. Thankfully all went off without a hitch! Everyone safely made it to and from PA (even Paige and Dylan...Dana you are to be commended for traveling with two little ones), the weather was beautiful, and we got to see lots of friends and family who we probably won't see until the holidays now! Here are some pictures from the special weekend:

Congrats Justin & Aly!!

Prior to leaving for PA this past weekend I recieved an email from the company we made our lifebooks through letting me know that they would be shipping earlier than we expected (we weren't supposed to get them until May 30th). On Monday they were already on our doorstep. Wow!! They are everything I had hoped for. The pictures look good and only one spelling mistake was found which I easily fixed with a pen. Tonight we got them ready to be mailed to the adoption agency and respective social workers throughout the state of Ohio.



During the car ride to PA I was able to do quite a bit of adoption reading.  I read bits and pieces to Aaron and we were able to discuss different topics which was nice. Sometimes after work we are so tired and already put in a few hours of adoption related work that we don't get to talk in depth about more personal issues. I've been loaning out all of my books from the library since buying them can get expensive but I have decided that there is one I will for sure be purchasing for our bookshelves: 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed. First of all, there is definately more than 20 things noted in the book.  Secondly, the author was adopted herself which makes the book even better. She uses her own experience to share proven strategies and weaves moving narratives from other adoptive families into the pages. There is a fabulous appendix that provides helpful websites and other recommended books too! Check out the "light" reading taking place in the our household:

One of the topics she discusses is how to talk candidly with your child about her adoption, birth family, and adoption in general. Granted we will have awhile until we will need to really get into this but I found it to be reassuring that there are so many ways to go about doing so. This is an area that already causes some anxiety as it is such a personal part of their life and as parents you want to make sure to "get it right". However, she goes into detail about adding a spiritual perspective to the process by discussing the story of Moses. Many adopted people like to hear life experiences about other adopted people. As an adopted person, Moses had common adoption-related struggles (i.e. low self-regard, preference for isolation, poor choices in relationships, rage, and runing from his real purpose in life) and when adopted people hear these stories their reactions are amazing! I also thought this might be a nice teaching story for some of the young ones in our lives. I know many of our nieces and nephews are familiar with stories from the Bible and made a mental note that exposing them to the story of Moses might be a nice way of helping them to prepare for a cousin who was adopted.

In other news, we continue to complete our "trainings" and have been trying to complete at least 3 or 4 hours every other night. We plan to safe-guard our home this week and next for the homestudy coming up. Things are moving fast! I know we still have a long wait ahead of us but am looking forward to many of the projects around the house we will be doing to prepare for our baby!

Homestudy Update!

Happy Wednesday everyone! The week is half over! I am even more excited about this work week ending since I have a 3 day weekend ahead. My cousin Alysn is getting married so we will be traveling to the great state of PA for the festivities. I expect absolute crazy dancing at this particular reception, good food, and lots of great company! I know Alysn is going to be a beautiful bride (Justin you will look nice too!) and thankfully it looks like the weather is going to be fabulous. I will make sure to post pictures when we get back!

In the adoption world we continue to move right along with all of our paperwork. I am so proud of how much Aaron puts up with me. I can be rather, ummm, bossy (wait, did I just say that about myself?) when it comes to checking things off of lists and he has done a nice job putting up with me so far. He has even been checking things off the list himself without me having to ask. He is so excited about all of this and I know he is going to make a great father someday! We finished the assessment narrative this week which was "interesting" to say the least. To be honest, I was about ready to pull my hair out after answering only 10 questions and we had at least 20 more to go. Our one-page profile (which will be sent to birthparents who inquire about the agency we chose) was printed and delivered to our doorstep today. It looks awesome. I am so pleased with the quality. We went through Office Max and I would highly recommend it to anyone needing to create jobs in mass quantities. Like I said, the print job was great and the price wasn't bad either. We won't recieve our profile/life books until the end of the month but now I am getting anxious to see how they turned out. All other busy-work has been completed and our training courses are underway. We plan to complete several trainings each week so that we can be done for our.... (insert suspenseful music here)...HOMESTUDY, which has been scheduled for the evening of June 8th!!! We have some safety things we need to complete on our home to get ready for the inspection (i.e. outlet covers, lock lower cabinets, put up all cleaning supplies, etc.) but I am really excited for the next several weeks to go by quickly. Once our homestudy is done and we send our completed profile books to the agency we will be officially "waiting".

With our homestudy list getting shorter I have been bitten by the buying bug. I am starting to get antsy about wanting to buy baby products. For the first time in nearly two years I don't fear the baby aisle at Wal-Mart! This may seem strange to some of you but as someone who has dealt with infertility the baby aisle and baby products in general used to cause an overwhelming sense of anxiety and sadness for me. However, I will have to contain myself for a little while longer. Aaron and I agreed we wouldn't purchase anything until we were actually "waiting" for a child, and even then it will be minimal as we have no idea when we would even be matched with birthparents (it could be 1 week or it could be 1 year). Even so, I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On top of all of the paperwork that I have been completing I have also been reading a lot of books on adoption. I like to read so all of this reading and learning isn't too overwhelming (not gonna lie though, after seeing 10 patients on Tuesday and having to come home to work on paperwork I had a mini meltdown-nothing a small glass of wine couldn't take care of). Aaron on the other hand thinks I am crazy. I subscribed to an adoption magazine called Adoptive Families as he enjoys reading magazines rather than sitting through an entire book. The magazine also came recommended by our agency so I hope he can find something he is interested in and learn from it the way he enjoys.

One thing that has surprised me recently is the ever-growing desire to want to pray for our child's birthparents. This topic was actually brought up on another adoptive parent's blog that I read every so often and confirmed the fact that I am indeed not crazy for thinking this way. I feel this need to pray for these unknown individuals; to pray for their health, for wise decision-making, for their happiness, for comfort on difficult days, for their faith, courage, confidence and love. I pray for the road that will lead us together someday!

Until next time...

Long Way Home

Today's post is going to be lacking in updates about our adoption journey and fertility. Rather it is a prayer request for a friend of mine. A few weeks ago a friend and colleague, Laura Schindler, was diagnosed with a very rare condition called post partum cardiomyopathy. In essence, the heart muscle cannot contract forcefully enough to pump adequate amounts of blood for the needs of the body's vital organs. This can occur in the last few months of pregnancy and up to five months after giving birth. Laura had just given birth a few months prior, to her youngest child, Eli. She also has a 2 year old daughter, Olivia. Her first symptoms mimicked the flu but when she started having trouble breathing, knew it was something more serious. Laura ended up having to be life flighted to the Cleveland Clinic, has had open heart surgery, a stroke that affected the left side of her body and several other set-backs. However, in the last few days God has been working a miracle and Laura is slowly starting to heal. She has a long road in front of her but I know she can get through this and get back to her babies and all of the kids who miss her at school. Please keep Laura and her family in your prayers. Her full story and updates can be read here: 

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lauraschindler

When I first heard about what Laura was going through my heart broke. I questioned God again like I have so many times in the past year. Why would you do this to someone so young? Why would you do this to such a great person? She has two young children and a husband who loves her, you can't do this Lord! My whole body just ached at the thought of the absoloute worst happening. As I was asking these questions and struggling with how much I don't understand in this world it struck me that I just need to PRAY. Although Laura and I are going through two totally different trials in our life they are both trials that are unexpected, upsetting, and scary. I feel confident that although God has given this set-back to Laura that he knows what he is doing. He has not left her side the entire time and is working to heal her right now. Though we may never completely understand why we go through these ups and downs in life, God does. He has given her a family and friends who care so much about her and we have all come together in PRAYER to ask for his healing. God needs us like we need him. He wants us to ask for his help and guess what? IT'S WORKING!


This song is one of my favorites lately and I feel like it is very fitting for so many people right now! Enjoy!

Quick adoption update:
We continue to check off multiple things on our homestudy checklist. We have our fire inspection completed and several other simple documents signed and ready to be sent off. The biggest thing we completed this week was our Profile Book. I have spent every night this week after work perfecting it and it is done. We weren't going to do this so soon but on Thursday the website I am using to create this book had a Mother's Day deal (buy 1 book get 1 free)! This is awesome as we needed to order 24 books at $20 each. Anyways, we felt that this was God's way of giving us a break in a round about way and ended up saving over $300. Crazy I know!! I can't wait until they come in. I think they look awesome, although I may be a little biased. This weekend we hope to complete our "assessment narrartive" this is essentially 50 questions that we must answer about our life, relationship, feelings on adoption, etc. Next week we are planning to start our 36 hours of training online and then besides meeting with our social worker will hopefully be on our way to officially "waiting".

The Show Will Go On!

Aaron and I had a very busy week last week and are so glad to have no where to go this week. On Monday, April 30th we met with our RE in Indy regarding our failed IVF cycle. As we suspected he still considers us "unexplained". We had a fairly typical IVF cycle, with a normal fertilzation rate and 2 awesome embryos to transfer. He stated that if we were to try another IVF cycle in the future he would switch up my meds a little bit. I don't need much drug as I respond very well and he believes this may have been what contributed to the failed cycle. Early on in the cycle my estrogen levels skyrocketed and although they were able to control them somewhat by backing off on the meds they still remained high and I had to go through egg retrieval before the RE really wanted me too. So, he somewhat suspects that although the eggs were mature they may not have been mature enough to create a viable pregnancy. This is also supported by the fact that our embryos had some moderate fragmentation. Some fragmentation is normal but the embryologist and the RE discussed the fact that this is often seen with undermature eggs. We talked with the RE about the fact that we are starting the process of adoption and would like to hold off on doing another IVF cycle right now. He was very happy for us and we talked some about the process. He also said that if we are interested we can try less invasive strategies such as Clomid again. He explained that although the IVF cycle failed we did learn a few things, one of which is that we have a normal fertilization rate. We also know that sperm and egg can meet as I have been pregnant before and my tubes are open so he would feel comfortable if we feel comfortable trying a few more Clomid cycles to see what happens. This is definately something we are considering but the month of May is super busy so it will be put on the back-burner for awhile. So all in all not a bad visit. Our RE is such a positive and uplifting man. He even hugged me before leaving the office!

Not only did we travel to Indy last week but we also made a trip to the Dayton area to meet with the director of the adoption agency we chose (we spent roughly 12 hours in the car last week and that doesn't include our traveling to and from work). She was great and very informative. We were given lots of homework and a great checklist to follow (you all know how much I like checklists). Anyways we have mounds of paperwork to complete and copies to make. We also have to complete 36 hours of training, ick! The  nice thing about this agency, however, is that they give us the option to complete it online which is so nice considering all of the traveling we have been doing. We hope to start this next week! On top of all of that we have to create a profile or life book that basically chronicles our life/family so the birthparents can get an idea of what we are like. We can use websites such as snapfish.com or mixbook.com to create these books. If you are interested in finding out more about what a profile book or life book is just Google search it, there a tons of examples! We have already started working on some of the paperwork, check out all this mess:

As you can probably expect, recieving all of this information was very overwhelming this week. Last night I was really struggling with my emotions. I was feeling frustrated about our failed IVF cycle and "unexplained" diagnosis and irritated that we have to complete all of this paperwork and training in order to have a baby when most people just have to show up at a hoptial in labor, give birth and go home with their baby without the blink of an eye. Yes, I was feeling jealous. I was upset that we have to jump through all of these hoops to have a child when there are people out there who get pregnant, choose to parent their child and then abuse them. Reality sucks sometimes! But just as I was thinking all of these thoughts I remembered a scripture passage from the Bible. Somehow God always knows when I need him the most.

Psalm 139: 16 "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."

When I fail, don't feel like I measure up to society, feel abondoned by God and pray and pray and pray but my prayers remain unanswered I feel unloved. But I know this is not God making me feel this way. Failures, feelings of inadequacy and unanswered prayers are all a part of his plan for me. Sometimes I don't think our "unexplained" diagnosis is unexplained at all. God knows what he is doing. He knew what twists and turns my life would be taking before I was even here on Earth. There is a bigger picure. This is just my intermission!!!