How can you help?

Day 63 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Okay people! I cannot even count how many of you have asked us how you can help with our adoption "finding" efforts. Well, I have a GREAT way that you can help us!

First of all, let me just address the financial facts of adoption bluntly. You all know we aren't wealthy. Far from it, actually. And adoption is extraordinarily expensive. Maybe you're wondering how expensive exactly. Let's just say that I have received at least 20 birth mother referrals in the past two months that we have had to pass up because they exceeded our financial ability by AT LEAST eight or nine THOUSAND dollars. That means they all cost over $18,000.00. (If you're one of those wealthy adoptive couples who can afford that much, send me a comment with you're email and I'll pass along the contact information!)

So, let me give you a breakdown of our expected expenses.
-LDSFS fee: $4,000.00
-Matching agency fee: $4,500.00
-Attorney's/legal fees: $250-$1,000.00
-Possible cost of travel: $1,000.00
-Miscellaneous expenses: $250.00
GRAND TOTAL: $10,750.00

We have already been able to save up $6,000.00 on our own. We will continue working and saving to contribute as much as possible. But we are obviously far short of our target. So, the second Saturday in May we are going to be holding an adoption fundraiser yard sale.

We know that not all of you can donate cold hard cash to us. (Although, if you can we would really appreciate ANY amount you could spare.) We read the news, we know the economy is bad right now and everybody is tightening their belts. But, we know that most if not all of you can donate items to our yard sale. Look around your house, is there anything you aren't using anymore that you're just going to donate to D.I. or Goodwill anyway? Instead, let us take those items off your hands and try to sell them! Any items that we can't sell will be donated to D.I. or Goodwill.

So I know some of you are thinking, "Well, I would love to help you out, but I live very far away." My thinking is that you could hold an adoption fundraiser yard sale of your own. Get your Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, Young Women, Primary, your family, your friends, your neighbors involved! If you decide to do this, let me know in an email with your home address at maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com and we will send you a bunch of our pass-along cards to give out at your yard sale. I know this is asking for some real effort from all of you. But we really do need the help.

You may be wondering what we will do with any extra money that we may raise. Here's the really beautiful part. We will "pay it forward." We know of a bunch of adoptive couples who are in the same boat as us: they would give anything to have a baby, but they just don't have enough money yet. We will GIVE that money away to an adoptive couple or two who really need it. We may or may not actually end up using the matching agency. That really just depends on whether or not we can match with a birth mother on our own using referrals or LDSFS. (Yep, your spreading the word is REALLY that important! It could save us $4,500.00!) So, that would mean we would be able to give away $4,500.00. We would ask them to do the same as us, try to raise as much money on their own as possible, and then if they had extra money, give it away to another adoptive couple.

Some of you out there have already helped us a TON. We thank you for that. We will be posting a list of all the people and items/money that have been donated. So, if you wish to remain anonymous, send me an email.

We know that with your help, this fundraising effort can be a HUGE success. We have seen it happen for some adoption friends of ours who adopted two adorable boys from Ghana. Last fall they held two yard sales that raised $2,957.56! How amazing is that!?!

So go ahead, talk about this yard sale on your own blogs. And if you have questions or comments, send me that email! We're excited to see how this works out!

Letting the cat out of the bag

Day 59 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Well, I guess I can let the cat out of the bag now. We got a call from our caseworker Tuesday about a birth mom who was considering matching with us. As I answered the phone and heard that it was Charity, my stomach about dropped through my feet. This particular case is for a little boy who was born in Texas about two and a half weeks ago. He has Downs Syndrome. Because this little boy is being placed through another agency, Charity had to get permission to release our information to them. Of course, we said YES!

However, it is now almost three days later and we haven't been contacted by the birth mom's caseworker or Charity, so we are assuming she must have chosen another family. We're trying so hard not to be disappointed, but we really had our hopes up. Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged. It's hard not to feel rejected. We know that this little boy is headed for the right family for him, but we were sure hoping that WE would be the right ones. I was already envisioning what it would be like to FINALLY fill the ache in my arms and what it would be like to see Malone cuddle a precious little one of our own. I was already dreaming about the new baby smell and the 2 a.m. feedings. I know a lot of you out there probably think that's weird, but when you're infertile, you would give anything for getting woken up in the middle of the night to take care of your baby.

Anyhow, all we can do is continue to pray that our baby will come soon. Please pray with us.

Exploding Easter Eggs

Day 56 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Hey, I don't care that we aren't 5 years old. We still had fun dying eggs for Easter this year. In fact, we did it twice! Here we are in our kitchen with our lovely eggs.

And here is the lovely mess we made in our microwave. You see, one of the eggs Malone boiled didn't get cooked all the way in the middle. So Malone had this genius idea to just shell it and put it in the microwave for a minute. Guess what? The egg exploded, and the middle wasn't even cooked through all the way! It was so much better than trying to get it cooked enough to make egg salad sandwiches. It was an "eggsplosion!" (I know, I'm so clever!)

Sorry for the absence!

Day 51 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Sorry for my absence in blogging world lately, I have been SO busy. I have been working 12 and 13 hour days for the past couple of weeks. It has been EXHAUSTING! (For those of you who don't know, I work with adults who have developmental and sometimes physical disabilities.) But seriously, I maintain that my job is pretty much the best and craziest job ever invented. In the course of the past two weeks at my job I have:

-eaten free breakfast and lunch
-gotten sprayed in the face with a pressure washer
-been told I was beautiful and loved about three trillion times
-been splattered with food
-gone out to see a movie at the theater
-been yelled at by a client
-received the CUTEST drawings and letters for my work space
-gotten soaking wet
-eaten cookie dough
-been pricked by a cactus
-read books
-etc... etc... etc...

Can you believe I actually get PAID to do this?

There are many moments when I just get so frustrated that I wish I could throw in the towel. But fortunately those moments don't come nearly as often as the moments when I want to shout or cry because I'm so proud of my clients' accomplishments. It's funny, when I first started this job, I really thought it would be a good way for me to help them. I never expected that I would be the one doing all the learning and growing.

However, right now I am SO grateful that today is my last work day until Tuesday! I'm totally going to stay up until obscene hours of the morning finishing my book! What can I say, I'm a party animal!

As promised, the Fablehaven and hair pictures

Day 41 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption.

The launch party for the new Fablehaven book was SO fun! It was mostly geared towards young teenagers but they also had some entertainment for us "older kids." (Also known as adults) They had a comedy group come in, and of course it was really exciting to hear Brandon Mull talk about his future projects. I'm already excited for the fifth, and final, book in the Fablehaven series and am intrigued about the new series he's planning. Anyhow, I got to meet him and he signed my books. Malone and I also went out to dinner. It was a pretty fun date, but we're hoping that next year we'll have a child to take with us! These kinds of things are what make really fun family outings.

I took a few photos, and as I promised in the previous post, here they are!

The new haircut. It's SO SHORT! I'm having a bit of a hard time getting used to it, but I like how easy it is to take care of!

Bet you didn't know I was a centaur!

Me and Brandon Mull. Seriously he looks like he's in pain, but I guess that's probably par for the course for someone who's been signing his name for HOURS.

Malone and I enjoying the show.

An adventure on a Tuesday

Day 35 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

How many of you out there have read Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series? Seriously, if you haven't read them you need to repent and then immediately check them out from your local library or buy them. The investment is totally worth it! Just to pique your interest, I'll give you a little info. on the books. The series is marketed primarily toward young adults and older children, but that doesn't mean adults won't love it as well! The story features siblings Kendra and Seth who visit their grandparents' estate one summer only to discover that it is a sanctuary for magical creatures. These books have something for everyone: adventure, suspense, mystery, and even (dare I say it?) romance.

Anyhow, tomorrow the fourth book in the series is coming out! I'm actually debating staying up and dragging hubs to Wal-Mart at midnight to buy it. I know, I'm totally lame. But what can I say? I'm a real book nerd. But if that made you think I was lame, just wait until you hear about our adventure we have planned for tomorrow. Tomorrow the Fablehaven people are throwing a big launch party where the author will do a book signing. Now, you might be asking yourselves, is she REALLY going to do that? Heck yes I am! And Malone is just as excited to accompany me! Be jealous! I'll be sure to take pictures for all of you out there who couldn't go and I'll try to get a decent shot of my new haircut for you guys. (Yep, that's right! I whacked off all my hair, weird right?)

Somebody Stop Me!

Day 31 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Today I have been CRAVING a plain double cheeseburger from McDonald's. Why? I have absolutely NO idea. Seriously, they're always practically dripping in grease, every time you take a bite more grease magically appears, and the buns are always soggy with... you guessed it... grease. Logically, I know that's super disgusting. So why does my mouth water just thinking about it? I'm so American! However, as I'm working on trimming down my figure, that cheeseburger is definitely not an option. Dang it! Instead, I will try to satisfy my craving with a salad or something.

Oh, and since I know you're all wondering, NO I AM NOT PREGNANT! Seriously, just knowing that some of you wondered that makes me giggle a little. HELLLLOOOO!! I'm infertile, people! :)

I know I know

Day 29 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

So I've been really quiet for the past week. To tell you the truth, we just haven't had much going on. Hopefully things will pick back up here soon.

I have a thought for my friends and family though. I feel it's quite wise, so hopefully you will too. :) As Malone and I have been going through this adoption process, the most frequent question we get is, "are you going to have an open or closed adoption?" Our reply has always been the same, "We want to be as open as the birth family feels comfortable with." Of course, if our birth family wants a CLOSED adoption, we would respect that decision. But if it were our choice, we would want it to be open. I know some of you out there find that surprising, and perhaps you might even have some wary feelings when it comes to open adoption. I think that's probably because of the common misconceptions when it comes to open adoption, but that's another discussion. So, in order to prepare you all for the time when we intend to welcome the entire birth family into our family (hopefully that's not too far away!), I want to share our feelings with you about open adoption.

A few weeks ago I had somewhat of a breakdown. It was just one of those days when I felt so resentful of my infertility. A common element of my prayers for the past 3+ years has been, "WHY? Why do I have to have infertility? Why do I have to go through this trial when it seems like EVERYBODY around me is as fertile as can be? Is this a punishment?" Lately as I've been thinking about it, I've realized that infertility has not been a punishment to me, but rather a blessing. Without infertility, we would not be on this road to adoption. Without infertility, we would not be able to be a part of a birth mother's life and she would not have the opportunity to be a part of ours. I guess I've just recently been impressed at how RIGHT our choice to adopt is. Adoption is meant to be a part of who our children are. And through us, adoption is meant to be a part of all of your lives as well.

Ok, one last thought. The agency we are choosing to go through is LDS Family Services. Their "slogan" (or logo or whatever you want to call it...) is "Adoption... It's About Love." The other day I was thinking about the different sources of love that slogan is referring to. It's talking about the love of the birth family for the baby, the love of the adoptive family for the baby, and the love of God for the baby. That really impressed me. Adoption REALLY is all about love.