Flying Leap Into Parenthood!

I have not posted for a very long time, and if anyone is still reading, I have a fabulous excuse.

Let me briefly give some background to our story...

My husband, Chris, and I have been on our adoption journey since April, 2008 after trying for 10 years to start a family on our own. We began our journey waiting to adopt from Ethiopia. Due to rule changes by the Ethiopian government, we were unable to continue on that path. We changed to domestic adoption with Catholic Charities this past April. We were told the wait was generally 2-4 years unless you were open to any race then it may be shorter. We loved our international social worker with C.C. and we met our domestic social worker and we love her also! We found out that we would need to take more classes, and we were on a waiting list for an opening.

In May, we got the good news that there was an opening which felt like a huge cause to celebrate since there probably wouldn't have beeen another class until the winter.

Our last class was on June 30, 2010. Our social worker was tired because she had a birthmom go into labor 3 weeks early and deliver that Tuesday a few counties away. (She had been spending time with the birthmom as her support person). After class, she nonchalantly asked what were doing that July4th weekend. We told her we were just relaxing onver the weekend and scheduled her visit to our home to update our homestudy for July 6.

( I realize this seems unimportant and tedious, but just bear with me...)

The next day, Chris and I were getting ready to leave our office. A little after 5pm one of the office lines rang. I answered and it was our social worker. She asked if I had a minute and said she had a situation arise. I figured there was something wrong with our paperwork. As it turns out, the birthmom she mentioned in our class the previous night asked her to chose the family for her newborn child, She told us it was a boy! He was 3 weeks early, but very healthy! And the best part..."He is being discharged at 11:30 am tomorrow, would you like to come get him???!!!" Now through all of this, SW was very calm and collected. I, on the other hand, was a basket case ;) She told me to talk to Chris, and gave me her cell # to call her back either later that evening or early in the morning. I said, "No, I'll call you back in 5 minutes!!!!!"

Chris said, "Well, we aren't ready yet." (meaning that we had an unassembled crib, baby gates, a bouncy seat, no car seat, no stroller, the room wasn't ready, no clothes, no diapers or other supplies)

My response: "I can guarantee you we will be ready by the time we leave to get him in the morning!" He started texting and calling everyone he knew. I called my mom and whisked her to Target. By the time I got home our friends, neighbors, and family had banded together and brought us a bassinet, clothes, volunteered to clean the house while we would be gone the next day,and I cound go on and on...We are so truly blessed.

After a sleepless night (I tried to, I really did) we were on the road to go get our son. It certainly was very surreal. On the way, we discussed names (yeah, we hadn't done that yet either). By the time we got there, we were decided on his first name, Brennan.

I know when we arrive to the hospital, I had the "doe in the headlights" look about me :) I was in complete shock, I couldn't belive we were picking up our son!!! We first filled out some paperwork with our social worker. Then she took us up to the maternity ward. The butterflies were doing overtime in my stomach by the time. Would his birthmom want to meet us? Would we know what we were doing in taking care of a newborn? Would he like us? So many questions. We were directed to the waiting room. A few minutes later a nurse with a bassinett with a baby in it stopped and asked if we would like to meet our son? What are you kidding? Of course we do!! But I was still in shock :) She took the 3 of us to a delivery room, which she thought was kind of cute. She showed us how to change his diaper, and gave us tips on feeding him, then she left us alone with him. What?! Wait a minute! I'm new at this! But you know what? We were all great! We spent our first minutes as a family fulfilling his immediate need for food...and we fell in love :)

About a half hour later she came back to check on us. Then she took us to the nursery to coach us on giving him a sponge bath. Needless to say, he's not too fond of the sponge bath. Then we dressed him to BRING HIM HOME. And he slept the whole way.

So there is our story. I would like to keep up with this to document our life together. We are so blessed by this wonderful gift that has been entrusted to us. Brennan has been home almost 2 months, and he turns 2 months old on Sunday. It feels like it just happened yesterday, and at the same time I can't remember life before he was a part of ours.

Introducing... Brennan Christopher

Leaving the hospital

I will post more picutes as soon as I get a chance, he changes everyday :)

Dear Birth Family,

We first of all want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for wanting to learn more about our family. We respect you and your courage as you seek to discover the right path for you and your child. We can't possibly understand the vast range of emotions you must be experiencing, but our prayer is that you find peace in whatever decision you make.



We are Chris and Kristin Courtney. We li ve in a small college town in rural Pennsylvania. We were high school sweethearts who continued dating during and beyond college. 12 years after we met, we got married and have been married for almost 13 years. Chris grew up with a younger sister. Kristin was raised with 2 sisters and a brother. Our families certainly weren't without difficult times, but we were both raised with unconditional love. For both of us, our families continue to be our source of unending love and support.

One year into our marriage, Chris, his mother, and his sister started a family business. Not long after, Kristin joined in. Chris is a licensed private investigator, and we perform criminal and civil background research for our clients. It has been a successful business that continues to provide well for our family. It will also give us the opportunity to parent our child full-time without the use of an outside caretaker. Our office is in Chris' family's home, and our child will be able to come to work with us. If needed, we can work from our home as well.

In our free time we enjoy the outdoors. We enjoy camping, going to the beach for a long weekend, or even just spending time in our own back yard. Although we live in a small town, we are less than 2 hours from larger cultural centers like Washington DC, Baltimore MD, Gettysburg PA, as well as many other wonderful places.

We have known from the beginning that we wanted to have a family of our own. We envision our future child knowing his or her birth family, and we are accepting to whatever level of openness you are comfortable with. Whether you wish for an open adoption, semi-open, or a closed adoption, we respect whatever you feel is the best decision for your family.

We have learned that sometimes the miracle that you pray for isn't necessarily the one that is waiting for you. We have been led to build our family through adoption, and we are humbled and honored to welcome this miracle into our life. Again, thank you for taking the time to learn a little about us. We always have you in our thoughts and prayers. We wish you peace and comfort as you find your way through this difficult decision. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via email:
kmcourtney@pa.net

With Much Love ,
Chris & Kristin

We Are Going Domestic!!

Well after lots of discussion, deep thought, and soul searching, Chris and I have made a decision. We are pulling out of the Ethiopia program. We have started the domestic infant process locally. We had another update from our agency on what the 2 trips to Ethiopia would probably look like, and they are telling everyone to expect that both parents will be required on the 1st trip, unless they petition the Ethiopian courts for an exception. We were told, that the reason would have to be quite compelling and exceptional to be approved. We simply can't wait until we get a referral to find out if we can continue or not. So, we have decided that this just isn't a good fit for our family any more. Quite honestly and sadly, if these rules would have been in place 12-18 months ago, we simply wouldn't have even been able to even consider adopting from Ethiopia.

Now for our prayer request from all of you.....we need to do another training before we can have our homestudy updated for domestic infant. It will be next month, but it is full already. Our social worker set an RSVP for this Monday, May 17. If for some reason, one of the couples can't make it, we are next on the list to be invited. Otherwise we have to wait until the next training in the fall or winter. We are asking for everyone to say a little prayer, or send positive thoughts our way that we can get invited to the training next month. Our social worker said she should know by Tuesday. So......Say a little prayer for us........

Thanks again everyone for your unending support in the journey to our child!

Re-Tooling the Blog

You will notice some changes to our blog. We have done this to reflect changes we are going through in our journey to our child.

Well, we have filled out and turned in our intake form for Domestic Infant Adoption. We are not pulling out of Ethiopia just yet. We are hoping to get into the training session for June. At this time there are a few families open to any race ahead of us, but the fact that we are open will be a big plus for us!

Believe me, Chris and I have spent the past few weeks discussing, thinking, losing sleep, praying, thinking some more, discussing some more, and did I mention praying and losing sleep?????? We still pray, lose sleep, discuss...we feel we need to open up our options.

We are also putting ourselves out there, to let others know we are hoping to adopt. It can't hurt. The first person we talked to over 2 years ago adopted domestically, through a private adoption. Simply, she went to a baby shower for a friend,where she met a woman who had a relative that was pregnant and unable to parent. The result...a newly formed family through adoption. Her story is what confirmed for us that we were starting down the right path.

Since then, the journey has been one twisty-turny, hilly, pot-holey road. I'm sure being parents will be similar to this, and with what we are going through to get there, we will cherish every sleepless night, every trial, every tribulation, and every joyous moment that parenting, loving, and nurturing our child will bring. We look forward to experiencing these moments no matter where our child is from. We trust that God already knows who and where our child is , and we trust that He will bring us together.

Thank you everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, and for continuing to hold us in your hearts.

Don't Know What to Think or Do

Over the past 2 weeks or so, we have been coming to terms with the loss of our Ethiopian adoption journey. With the 2 trip rule now in effect, we cannot continue. On Tuesday, I contacted our local social worker letting her know we need to explore other options, and to see if she had any suggestions on handling our agency. I was waiting for her response, and I got an email from our agency saying that ONE PARENT MAY NOW TRAVEL ON THE FIRST TRIP WITH THE OTHER PARENT'S POWER OF ATTORNEY. We should be thrilled, right? Why aren't we ecstatic??

I just don't know. We should be thrilled, but we are not. Now we are faced with sticking this out and risking other rule changes along the way that may eliminate us anyway further down the road. Or do we just move on to other options like domestic or private adoption? Our biggest fear is getting a refferal or being very close to getting a referral and then have the ET government decide to require BOTH parents again. We hate to pull out because of the time we have put in already and the money.

We had made peace with changing course, now everything is all jumbled up again. I feel a little crazy, "Yes we are", "No we aren't", "Oh, yes we are again!" Enough already. We have been hearing so many wonderful domestic adoption stories lately, and I still think we are going to explore that a little more. We also have feelers out there for private situations as well.

I just don't know.... we are feeling lost again.

Sigh of Relief?...Nevermind

Almost 1 year to the day that our dossier was approved and we offically began our wait for our child, we have received the news that the 2-trip rule goes into effect May 9 2010. Anyone who does not have a court date prior to that can expect to travel twice to Ethiopia. We have tossed around many scenerios and just don't see how we can make it work. Again, the expense of the 2 trips is not the issue. Well, it is an issue, but we could have somehow made that part work if only 1 parent was required. We have heard that in extraordinary cases, the Ethiopian courts may make a rare exception. We certainly can't wait for that, if they would turn us down there we would be with a referral, and not be able to complete our adoption. We have also heard that for the first trip you may be able to go over only for the court date. For example you would fly in the night before, meet your child the next morning, go to court later that day, and fly out the following day. Problem is, most flights with layovers and all take 2 days to get there. So we 'd still be looking at 5-6 days of travel. Not to mention, leaving our child there. Not sure I could handle that, and I don't think that it is good for the child either.

We are having a hard time making our country specialist and social worker understand just how vital Chris is to our business. We are a very small family owned business. What Chris does is very detailed and specialized. We have likened it to my grandparents. They had a "mom & pop" grocery store attached to their house for over 60 yrs. They ran it together all that time, just them. Never took a week-long vacation, couldn't close the store that long or you would lose customers. Sometimes my grandmother went on vacation with my parents, but my grandfather would stay behind to keep the store open. They would take long weekends (3 days) but had to make extreme arrangements for deliveries, etc. And my grandfather would be concerned with it all weekend. As you can see, Chris and I are following in their footsteps. Yes, there are incoveniences to owning your own business. But, I love working with my husband, I love the fact that this business will allow us to have our child with us all day.

This truly is heartbreaking for us. In the past year, we've had so much hope. We had spoke in terms of "when our child comes home...", now it feels like "IF we ever have a child...". We have fallen in love with a country, a people, a culture.

So Monday will be a tough day for us. I need to call our country specialist and ask the procedure for removing ourselves from the program. I need to call our social worker, and get connected with the domestic infant social worker there, and I suppose set an appointment to speak with her and get switched over. Then, we get to take more classes in June.

I want to thank EVERYONE for your unending support. Please believe me when I say we can feel your prayers and thoughts, and please continue to pray for us, that we are lead to our child soon.

Breathing a Tentative Sigh of Relief

Here is the news we got from our agency Friday evening:

"We have been informed that there currently are no plans in place for implementation of the two-trip requirement for Ethiopian adoptions. Although the change was originally slated to begin for April court dates, it no longer looks like this is a possibility. According to our in-country representative, scheduled implementation meetings have not taken place and key members of the group are currently out of the country."

Word is that they don't know if, or when it may go into effect, could be weeks, months, or years. We'll hope for the latter :)

Whew! But, we are still keeping our options open.