Testing

Hello:

Thought I would let you all know that Justin and I do not have HIV, hepatitis or syphilis. It appears the stint Justin spent in that Mexican prison had no ill affects on either of us.

All joking aside, I am still awaiting the crib set and accessories, they have not arrived as of yet. Home Study will hopefully begin in one week. We have gathered the majority of our paperwork, not much more to put together.

Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon of the decorated nursery.

Nursery Accessories

Hello All:

I am very excited because I ordered the crib bedding for Chloe's room. We now have a color and theme for the room. The bedding is purple and pale yellow with dragonflies embroidered on it. It seems kind of silly, but for some reason I can't wait to get it all set up in there.

I also wanted to add a special note to Aunt Julee and Uncle Dave. Thank you so much for the Christmas money, you didn't have to do that, but, we did buy a dragonfly lamp and mobile with the money for the nursery. We'll have a picture posted when we get it set up so you can see it.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Love,
Us

Still Plugging Away

We are still gathering paperwork. By the end of the week, we should have all of our reference letters. We had a little scare in that we thought the reference letters that were already completed and turned in had to be on special paper. Different paper than what they were typed on. Turned out this special paper, termed "bond" paper on the reference letter instructions, is actually just regular printer paper. We looked all over thinking it was resume paper and felt bad that our friends and family might have to buy this special paper. Oh well, all is well that ends well.

Not much else going on but thought I would send out an update.

Snow Day

Well, I cleaned relentlessly last night only to have the home study person cancel on us, although, I do understand why. It is snowing like crazy today and its projected to keep it up for the next three days.

You will all be happy to hear that we are both tuberculosis free! The results of HIV, hepatitis and syphilis are still pending.

Justin got his passport completed today. Luckily it wasn't snowing too bad at the point that we left for that appointment.

One last thing, and this is specifically for Gina, the other night I was looking at crib sets on the internet and they actually have an Our Lady of Guadalupe crib set. Let me know when you have kids because that sunbitch could be all yours.

Dreaming

Today, Justin told me that he had a dream that we had Chloe. She was one year old and had beautiful hair. He said in his dream, she had bonded to me and became completely attached. This made me smile all day long.

Tomorrow, we get our blood drawn to make sure we are disease free and this Saturday at 2 pm, we will have our first home study visit. Needless to say, I am very nervous and will be cleaning relentlessly Friday night. Luckily this didn't happen last Saturday as I was getting over food poisoning from an Iceberg hotdog which rendered me completely useless.

I want to let all of those know who have left comments on the blog or have even commented to me or Justin about it, that we really appreciate your support and for taking the time to share in this process with us. We love you all.

Home Study

Well, it looks like home study will begin next Saturday. I'm a little nervous but who wouldn't love the Barretts. Who wouldn't want us to be their parents.

Also next week, we get to undergo testing for T.B., Syphilis, HIV and Hepatitis. All in all it will be a big week. In the midst of it all, we are also refinancing our house in order to put extra money aside for later.

Lots to do, including Christmas cards. We will update you on how our first home study visit went and what will be to come.

Preparation

Hello Everyone:

We are in the midst of preparing every document known to man, in duplicate and notarized, for the country of Ethiopia. Its coming along, slowly but surely.

A couple of nights ago, the t.v. show, 20/20, aired a terrifying piece on foreign adoption that scared me senseless. It showed the dark side of adoption when the kids lash back in such a way that parents end up terminating the adoption for being at their wit's end. Apparently this process is very similar to a divorce. It did seem that these adopted children were older when adopted and most seemed to be from Russia. Justin has researched and purchased several books, not only on adoption, but trans-racial adoption as well. We are going to do the best we can to equip ourselves with the necessary tools to not only be good parents, but good adoption parents. It definitely will not be easy.

We are going to be honest from the very beginning and do our best to create a loving bond as well as a relationship with openness and clear boundries. We also want to help her become successful in life through support and self esteem. We will constantly tell her how smart she is, how beautiful she is and how much we love her. This will not be very hard because it will all be true.

decorating the room

Justin and I are still arguing on how to decorate the room. I still really want something aquatic and he wants anything but that. We haven't heard yet from the adoption agency what our next step is but it probably takes a little while to process our contracts and make sure our checks clear. Over the weekend we bought Chloe's first doll which also rattles. We also got a contoured changing mat to place on top of the used dresser we plan to buy second hand. I brought all of my childhood books up from the basement as well as some Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs figurines that my mom got from a McDonald's Happy Meal back in the 1980's.

Below are some pictures of Chloe's room before and after. We will continue to update the pictures of her room as we continue to decorate it.

Hello:

Today we mailed in our contracts and home study agreement. Things are moving right along. We're thinking about painting Chloe's room purple. It seems to be the only color we can agree on. Pretty soon we'll be starting our parenting classes and interviews. This weekend we are going to start looking into accessorizing Chloe's room. Hopefully we'll be able to agree on something.

Will talk soon.

Nervous

Hey Everyone:

We've started to rearrange Chloe's room, which used to be the guest room, as well as start to get rid of things around the house that we don't use anymore and can give those things to charity. To those of you who know Justin pretty well, it should come as no surprise that he has been reluctant to get rid of any clothes, even t-shirts that haven't been worn in years.

We are both beginning to get nervous, not about the process, but about how our lives will change once Chloe arrives. Even more so, we are nervous about how Chloe's life will change when she comes to live with us. Adopting an Ethiopian child, bringing her to Utah and then having her raised by white parents will not be easy. We just need to make sure that we keep her in contact with support groups and ties to her African culture.

That's all for now.

Welcome

Hello Everyone and welcome to our journey as we wait for Chloe. Both Justin and I have come to a point in our life together where we want to start a family and we have decided to move forward with adoption.

Our application has already been approved by the adoption agency, Wasatch International, and we have secured a loan for the process. We decided to adopt from Ethiopia for a couple of reasons. Its a faster process than most of the other countries, including the United States. In addition, Ethiopia is one of the only countries which allows infant adoptions.

In the coming week we will be getting our contracts notarized and sent off, as well as setting up a home study. For those of you who do not know what a home study is, this is a series of interviews and classes that help prepare adopting parents for the journey ahead of them.

If all goes smoothly, we should have our baby by the end of summer 2009.

Please continue to visit our blog as we progress through the process.