Feeling the crunch, advice needed

A couple of things. Our home visit with our caseworker has been rescheduled for next Wednesday. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's good because it gives us a little extra time to get ready. I know our caseworker doesn't expect us to have it white glove clean, but I can't help it. I'm still going to scrub around our toilet with a toothbrush. Oh well! I guess that's pretty par for the course. It's bad though because it's just another week of nervousness. But this is the LAST step before approval! Yay! It will be such a relief to be finally approved. I guess I'm just anxious to get to work spreading the word. I've already started, but I really want to create and publish our pass along cards so I can get them sent out! It's hard feeling powerless, but for the moment that's exactly what I'm feeling.

We're also feeling the monetary crunch right now trying to prepare for the adoption. We're saving my entire income aside from what we pay in tithing (a donation of ten percent of our income to our church). But it seems like everybody is wanting a piece of us lately. So... we are thinking of ways to raise additional money for adoption expenses. In my September 16th post I talked about the rocking chairs we make for children. They are completely handmade. Hubby cuts, stains, and varnishes all the pieces. I burn our logo into the bottom of the seat, and hand paint the picture and name. We really think this could be a good way for us to fundraise. So the question is... how much do you think we could sell those chairs for? Each chair costs about $20.00 in materials, and represents about 8 hours of time. I just need a realistic idea of how much those chairs could sell for. We're also thinking of doing a yard sale. We have a friend who did this and it was extremely successful. They basically asked everyone they know to donate their gently used items they didn't want anymore. Then they sold those items. The money they raised is going towards adopting their two boys from Ghana.

What do you guys think? Any other ideas?

Our adoption blog

The time has finally come for me to set up a blog that is completely dedicated to our adoption journey. The blog address is http://maloneandbrittanyadopt.blogspot.com. Obviously it isn't too far along yet, but I thought I would start circulating the word so that you can all help. How might you ask? For now, the answer to that is very simple. Just tell everybody you know about our adoption blog. Link to it and have all your friends and family link to it. As soon as we're approved, we'll be sending out pass along cards with our information on it, but until you receive those this is the best thing you can do. Pretty much all of my adoption associates tell me that networking is the key to finding the right birth mother. YOU can be my network. Please help us so that we can finally fulfill our dream of being parents. Thank you in advance! You guys are great!

Here... We... Go!!!

Things have been so crazy around here lately that I don't even have the faintest idea of where to start. But I'll give it a go anyway.

We celebrated our third anniversary about 3 weeks ago. It was the best! That day after work we drove to the hospital to visit my grandma. She was sick, but feisty as ever. When hubby walked into the room, she shot a "spit wad" (actually, it was just a Q-tip) at him. Just imagine my 77 year old grandmother lying in bed preparing for a quadruple bypass, and her main occupation is shooting spit wads at her visitors! Seriously, my grandma rocks! After the visit, we went to a really great restaraunt. While you're eating dinner, you get to watch an indoor cliff diving show. The hispanic food was pretty darn good too. After that, we went to the temple to see the gorgeous Christmas lights. That was the end of day one. Fast forward to Friday. We got the chance to rent a themed suite at a pretty amazing hotel. The room was themed after an old fashioned drive in movie theater. They had an "aaaahhhhhh that's comfortable" bed in the back of an antique pick up truck facing a huge movie screen. We watched a few movies that we've been meaning to catch up on, and it was so fun! Also included in the suite was movie candy, popcorn, a hot dog machine, an unlimited soda fountain, cheesecake, sparkling apple cider, and a full hot breakfast made to order. Of course, there was also a huge jacuzzi. We loved it so much that we want to go again next year!

Okay, after that we left to make the LONG drive to hubby's parents' house for Christmas. While there, we both caught the flu. That part of our vacation was MISERABLE, but other than that it was super fun! We stayed about a week, then made the LONG drive back home.

Of course, my husband is so dedicated that he showed up at work the very same day we got back in town. Plus, he's excited that he got into the lab that he wanted, and was eager to make a good impression on his new P.I. He's loving his work and often jokes that if I'm not careful, he'll drag our kids to the lab with him someday and turn them all into nerds. I laugh and then say NO WAY! I, on the other hand, was glad to still have a few days off before going back to work.

New Years Eve was pretty fun. I spent it with a few of my siblings playing games and eating too much junk. I, like most other people out there, thought "I may as well enjoy the good food tonight before I start my diet tomorrow!" Don't laugh, I know you thought the SAME thing! Admit it! And guess what? I DID start my diet! We've been working out every day, and making healthier food choices. My proud report? I lost five pounds over the holidays. Interesting tidbit: the average american gains about 7 pounds over the holidays. I am not the statistic! Wahoo!

Okay, a few days later the bad luck begins. I get food poisoning. From what? I have no idea. Nobody else got it. At least it only lasted a day. So I spent a lot of time over my vacation worshiping the porcelain god. Yuck! Then my niece was baptized. We're so proud of her! She asked hubby and I to speak at her baptism. Of course, we're headed on our way over there at ten minutes until the time it starts so I think, "Yes! We'll be a couple minutes early!" I should never have thought that.... we hear a popping noise and low and behold a flat tire! Of course, we're dressed up. Hubby in his suit, and me in a skirt and blouse without a coat because I had forgotten it. It was a balmy 18-ish degrees outside. So there we are in the I-hop parking lot trying to change a flat tire in our Sunday clothes. So we get it changed and hurry off to the baptism. We got there ten minutes late. Of course, the door we went to was locked. So we run around the building looking for an unlocked door. Of course, the sidewalk is covered in ice and I'm carrying everything because hubby's hands are covered in grease. I should have expected it to happen... I should never run in stilettos... on the ice... You guessed it! I pull a superman across the sidewalk. Everything in my arms goes flying and my whole front side is covered in ice. And I'm late. So we get to the baptism and everything goes well from there. I had to work that night and of course, there were huge nasty messes to clean up. What else should I have expected? After hubby picked me up, we run to the gas station. Hubby fills the tank up and we go to leave... the car won't start. We had a dead as a doornail battery! It will barely even take a jump, so we know we have to get a new one. By this time it was 8:30. Luckily, we make it to Wal-Mart (where else?) so hubby can get the old battery out, buy a new one, and install it. Guess what? The old battery is rusted into place... hubby can't get it out without certain tools... flush more money into the Wal-Mart drain. All this time, we have people waiting for us at our house to play games. They're all eating dinner and playing games and generally partying it up. I'm almost in tears at this point. Hubby finally gets the dumb battery out and manages to install the new one in about two seconds. I got home, and crashed. The following Monday, I had to go back to my "real" job.

That brings us to this week. There are a few other crazy things that have happened since my last detailed post. Here is the good news as of this week: My grandma's surgery went AWESOME and her recovery has been even BETTER! She's already out of the hospital and into a kind of intermediate care facility where they're helping her prepare to go back home. Hopefully she'll be doing that very soon. I told you she was feisty, didn't I? Our other piece of big news is that our caseworker contacted us to set up our final appointment before approval! Basically, she'll just look through our home to be sure it's a good, safe environment for a child. That will tentatively happen next Wednesday. Here's hoping we're approved before February! Wouldn't that be a great birthday present?!?

Long time, no post...

Sorry guys! I know it's been forever since my last post, but I have been crazy busy. I'll post more of an update later, but until then just know that I am here and more will be coming soon.

Our Dear Birthparent letter

We finished our birth parent letter! Actually, we finished it a while ago, but this is the first time I've had a chance to post about it. Anyhow, I'd love it if you would all read it and let me know what you think. Especially if you happen to find any little errors like typos or anything.

Dear Friends,

First we want to express the love and respect we have for you. We know that in considering adoption, you are exhibiting pure love for your baby. We pray daily that you will be happy and healthy, that you will have good things in your life, and most of all that you will be blessed with the wisdom and courage to make whichever decision is right for you and for your precious baby. We want you to know that we honestly care for you, for your well-being, and for your happiness. We feel honored that you might consider us as prospective parents to your child and we want you to know that any child placed in our home will be loved and cared for unconditionally. We would gladly welcome an open adoption. Having said that, we would like to introduce each other. We want to thank you in advance for getting to know us- the good, the quirky, and the imperfect. Our names are Malone and Brittany.

Brittany is a very outgoing and social person that is, in all ways, my better half. Brittany graduated from BYU-Idaho in December 2007. She has a green thumb and loves gardening. She loves to keep indoor plants and frequently shops at Wal-Mart to “save” their houseplants. Brittany has a passion for reading. She loves almost all genres of books from historical fiction such as Naya Nuki by Kenneth Thomasma to mystical fantasy like the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. One of her favorite things is to curl up with a book and eat cinnamon bears. When the weather is warm, Brittany loves to be outdoors and especially to go camping. She loves the feeling of sitting next to a warm fire under the stars and roasting, oddly enough, Starbursts. One of Brittany’s many strengths is her mothering nature. She loves serving in the nursery at church and spoiling her nieces and nephews. Brittany is the most wonderful woman I know and I’m sure that, given the chance, you will come to love her too.

Please forgive me if I brag a bit about my amazing husband. After high school, Malone served a mission for our church in Sacramento, California. Then, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Kaskaskia College. Not long after that, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from BYU-Idaho in December 2007. He is now pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry. Knowing this, you might assume that Malone is a bit of a nerd. To be honest, you would be right. But that is one of the biggest reasons why I love him. He has such a love of learning. Although he has worked hard in his studies, he would be the last person to brag about it. He is determined to use his knowledge to help better the lives of others and hopes to assist in discovering a cure to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, or other debilitating diseases. My role in all of this is to stand by and support him and make sure that he doesn’t dress too much like a nerd.

Malone has many other interests. He loves to grill on his barbecue, and it might surprise you that he is an expert cinnamon roll baker. In his leisure time, Malone likes to play games on our Wii, especially Mario Kart. He also loves to have movie/game nights involving some “manly” kind of movie like the James Bond movies, Iron Man, or Reign of Fire. Penguins are his favorite animals and his favorite sport is baseball. When the weather is good Malone loves to be outside. It doesn’t matter whether we’re just outside for a long walk, riding our bikes, or taking a weekend camping vacation to the lake.

Brittany and I met when Brittany’s family moved to Illinois in 200l. I’m not going to lie, at first I thought she was a bit of a brat because she was so upset about having to move. But as time progressed, I started to develop a little crush on her. Of course, I was only 18 and she was 15, so it was nothing serious. Then I left for my mission, and Brittany and I wrote back and forth as good friends.

Although I had had a crush on Malone for several years, I was also looking forward to meeting all the “hot guys” at BYU-Idaho. So I was determined to forget about my “little crush” on him. But I couldn’t. I kept writing back and forth to him, and was ecstatic when he got home from his mission. At that point, it was obvious to everyone that we were falling in love. After a while, my best friend decided she had had enough of our silliness. So she emailed Malone and said, “I know that Brittany likes you, and I’m pretty sure that you like her, so why don’t you two just get together already?!” Thank goodness for my friend, because she brought us together.

From there, things moved quickly. I was madly in love, and I wanted to share the rest of my life and eternity with Brittany. I was so nervous when I proposed that I forgot to get down on one knee! But Brittany "reminded" me and then said yes! On December 17, 2005 we were married in the LDS temple in Nauvoo Illinois. We discussed our desire to have children right away, and we have tried nearly our entire marriage to expand our family. Our journey with infertility has been a bumpy one in which we have discovered that Brittany has a condition called PCOS and a condition during pregnancy called Incompetent Cervix. The latter condition was responsible for the premature birth of our son Gavin who passed away only a week later. Throughout this journey, we have always known that we wanted to adopt. So, after much discussion and prayer, we know that adoption is right for our family.

That brings us to now. Although we can never understand what you are going through, we share common ground. You see, last year our family watched as Brittany’s sister placed her son for adoption. So we know that by adopting a child, we are making sacred promises to his or her birth parent(s). We commit to never break those promises. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. But we promise to do everything within our power to parent perfectly because we know that any child placed in our home is a precious child of God who is loved and sacrificed for.

Take care and know that we will be praying for you. With love,
Malone and Brittany

Please pray for my Grandma

So in a previous post, I told you all that my Grandma had a heart attack the day after Thanksgiving. She received some treatment while in the hospital and was then sent home to build up her strength in preparation for surgery which they planned to do after the holidays. She was home for a short time, then at about 2:00 this morning, she started having severe chest pains. My Grandpa and my mom took her to the emergency room, and the doctors decided to send her to another hospital via ambulance. Her doctors there decided that she will have to have the surgery as soon as possible. They will not be able to do the surgery for at least 72 hours from the time she was taken off the blood thinners, otherwise the surgery could kill her. They would much rather wait at least 5 days but she must remain stable until then. So we are praying that she will be able to wait until at least Friday. I would ask you all to pray with my family. We understand that she will recover if it is the will of God. But we are hoping to have a while longer with her. I especially hope that at least one of my children will get the chance to know and love her. So I am praying that she will get better and that we will be chosen for adoption quickly. I will keep you all updated. Thank you in advance for your concern and for your prayers.

Craziness

Sorry for the lack of posts lately everybody! Life has just been so crazy around here. I feel like I can't catch my breath! Hopefully it will be better after the holidays are over. Anyhow, here's a little taste of what's been going on.

Remember how I got in a small car accident a few weeks ago? Well, I finally managed to get a hold of the right person at the guy's insurance agency 2 weeks later, and come to find out, he had admitted liability. The company hadn't bothered letting me know about it. I think they were hoping I would just let it go. Needless to say, I will never be doing business with Farm Bureau. So the lady sent me to a place to get an estimate. The estimate came out to be about $770.00. Even I think that's pretty ridiculous because it wasn't that much damage, but whatever. The car guy sent pictures and a copy of the estimate to the insurance lady that's working on this claim. Now I guess I just wait and see if they'll ever get a hold of me, or if I'll have to track them down again.

Also, there's been drama at work. Enough said.

The holidays. Enough said.

Working on the adoption stuff has been consuming a LOT of my precious few hours of free time. We're so close to finishing. Basically, all that's left to do is to upload 24 photos. That 24 photos thing is seeming insurmountable at this moment. Seriously, they don't want anything too pose-ey, they want it to show our personalities/hobbies, they want to see our smiling faces in about every picture without too many other people in the picture, and of course we have to accomplish all this without looking like hags. Did they ever realize that most of our activities involve just the two of us so it's hard to get pictures of both of us together, and that we don't usually lug our camera along to everything we do? Okay, that's enough venting. We had a day recently when my darling sister took a bunch of pictures of us. But that still doesn't amount to 24 pictures. I'll have to have you all vote on which ones are the best or something. When I get time. (HA!)

Okay, so here's the big whammy. My next piece of news makes all that previous stuff pale in comparison. My grandmother had a heart attack about a week and a half ago. She had to be life flighted to a nearby hospital. The doctors think she may have to have a quadrupal bypass surgery. There's a bunch of other medical mumbo-jumbo that complicates all of that previous stuff, but I don't really know how to explain it. Basically, they've done what they can for now, but they will not be able to perform the surgery for at least a month because of some medications she is taking. So she is at home, and my mom and grandpa are doing everything they can to help her gather her strength to prepare for surgery. I have been so worried about my grandma. Please, will you all pray for her? I don't care whether you're LDS (aka Mormon) like me, or some other religion. She needs all of your prayers.

So that's pretty much my life in a nutshell right now. I feel like my life is run run run run run, sleep, repeat, etc... So I have to apologize to all of you who haven't heard from me in a while. No I haven't disappeared, my life is just craziness.

Adoption Process Update

So we had our individual and joint interviews with our caseworker today. Everything went really well. Basically, we discussed what we've accomplished so far and talked about what the next steps are that we need to take. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that three out of four of our references have already returned their forms to LDSFS. Thank you three SO MUCH!!! Our caseworker was very impressed with the quick turnabout. Now all we have to do is wait for that fourth reference letter. (Wink wink, nudge nudge Dad!)

While we're waiting on that reference letter and our background check to come back, our caseworker and one of her interns are going to speed the paperwork portion of our home study along, and she'll be coming to do our home inspection soon. That way she can get everything to her director as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we'll be working on getting everything ready for the new website, so that as soon as we get that approval letter, our profile will be posted online. Long story short, we hope to be approved by mid-January at the latest. That means that in about 6 weeks we could start being considered by birth parents! And our caseworker reassured us that she thinks we won't have any problem getting chosen. But remember, we need all of you out there to help us! Don't worry, I'll be getting to you about that very soon. :)

It's amazing to me that this is all coming along so smoothly. But our miracle worker said that we're kind of like her little guinea pigs. You see, LDSFS is launching a new website and a revised program for adoption. We are one of the first couples in our area that are coming in entirely under the new program without having done the old program first. All I can say is, I've never been more grateful to be a test subject in my life.

So that's pretty much the sum of it. I can't describe my feelings adequately right now. I'm ecstatic that we're actually making progression towards receiving a child. I'm sick to my stomach nervous about whether or not we'll get chosen. I'm overwhelmed with the whirlwind process. I'm eagerly anticipating meeting the woman whom we hope will choose us. All of that and more seems to be jumbled up and swelling out inside of me. I hope I don't explode!