2016

Ok.. so things did get busy, but not in the ways we expected.. lol.. so I haven't had much chance too keep things updated.
Firstly, my computer had some issues.. it was mostly ok, except every time I'd open my browser and go online, everything would freeze up and crash..  which eventually meant switching browsers and a bunch of other craziness.. but I finally more or less have it sorted and behaving again :)
This made things a bit hard at times. We did get our homestudy completed, submitted and approved!!! We are home study approved (up to 2 children, ages 4 and under) as of early January 2016!! We are so happy about that. And we are really hoping we can find a match soon. We are still working independently, though we might later switch to an agency assist.
We have our profile booklets completed and one has been sent off for review. Will see if our consultants think we need to make any changes to it, but we have it done :)
We also had a bunch of craziness happen with our foster situation.  We still have the toddler, now 3, E. She is doing great. She had some serious developmental delays, SPD and probable autism and she was pretty much non verbal. We got her into an early intervention program at the local school and she has made huge improvements. She's now talking! She's still below where she should be, but it's so wonderful! She's about a year behind now verbally, but she's learning and using new words every day. We're now in month 8 with her and still no indication of when she will be going back. We know she will be, just not when.. at this point we are hoping to keep her through the school year so she can maintain her progress. Still need to work on potty training :) But she's doing so much better. We haven't had the screaming tantrums in absolute ages.
One of the things that made a big difference for her was that in mid November we had MK and R (now 8 and 6) return to our care, so now she has a big brother and sister closer to her age to play with her and encourage her. We are not sure what is going to be going on with those two. They had spent 6 months back on trial placement with their bio mom. In September we were contacted about the possibility of having them come back to us, but then they were placed with their great grandparents instead. They stayed with them for about 2 months, but their great grandparents just couldn't keep up with the kids, so we were contacted in November about them again. Of course we said yes and took them back. Sadly, the kids have some behavioral issues that they didn't have a year ago, but we are working on them with them and progress is slowly being made.
So we currently have a full house with 3 youngsters. My step daughter M decided that she wanted to finish out her schooling by doing homeschooling, so she is now doing that. At 17 she's capable of deciding and being responsible enough to make that decision, and it frees her up to help her older sister, B2 with her new baby. That's right, we now have 3 granddaughters as well. G is now 8, I is about 19 months, and ID was born last October, so when we do adopt, there will be lots of niblings for them. B2 also has 2 older step daughters, ages 7 and 11, so we've a large groups of niblings. (Nibling is an older term that T discovered. It refers to cousins, friends, nieces/nephews and other related individuals of a similar age. We like the term and it serves us well.)
So that's where we are. We are hoping to find an adoptive match soon, but until then, we continue to foster. We would love to adopt our fosterlings, but it doesn't seem to be their plan, so we search elsewhere. If you know of anyone looking to place a child, newborn or toddler, please let them know about us :) We're not concerned about ethnicity or gender and are willing to discuss health issues, potential or otherwise. And we're willing to work on finding a level of openness that everyone is comfortable with.
Thanks so much! 

We have a contract..

Just wanted to post a quick update..
The facilitating agency we have been talking to sent us the contract this week. It arrived Friday for us to look over and think about. We have another phone conference on Thursday for questions and everything and then it will be time to decide if we're going to sign and send it in... I'm in a bit of a panic.. part of me wants to wait until we have the home study finished. That is getting close, we just need to finish up bios, get signed forms to OCS (which has just been waiting to have everyone actually home for as they have to have witnessed signatures..) and getting one or two more bits of info for the financial section (mostly all the investment stuff that is scattered between companies.. we really need to get that consolidated..), then waiting..  Have I mentioned I hate waiting? There shouldn't be any problems with that, but, I'm a worrier.. and I just, well, worry...
And I worry about the money as well. I know I just need to let go of all this worry. Place it all in the hands of Heavenly Father, but that is such a hard thing to do right now.. But I am trying..
Please pray for us. If you can, please donate, or spread the word for us. Once the home study is complete we will begin the search for our Birth Mother, and that is just going to really drive my nerves crazy :)

First meeting..

Well, we had our first phone meeting with the folks at Lifetime Adoptions. It's all very exciting and nerve wracking.. They are mailing us the contract to look over and we will have another meeting next week. Right now we're kind of debating between them and the one Agency actually in Alaska... Pros and Cons for both, of course... Lifetime helps us get things rolling so we can find our birth mother on our own, from all over the country, help us get our profiles set up, etc.. the other Agency is more of the "full service" sort and finds the birth mother for us in state, but we wouldn't really be able to do much with them until we could take their class in January.. so it's all do something now, or wait until next year.. and well.. I really don't want to wait and put things off any more...  I just really want everything to go smoothly and quickly :)

2015 pt 1 (i hope...)

Ok, so it's been, like, forever, since I last posted anything... You know how it goes.. Lots of nothing, then things get all crazy busy, things don't work out, and things slow down again and you debate if you really want to bother rehashing it all or not, or if you even can because sometimes the wounds are just too raw..  There's been some of that.. there's also been a LOT of down, doing nothing time.. but I will cover what I can...

Late last winter, we made the decision to look into getting a private home study done. We didn't need one for foster care, and, in Alaska, if you wind up adopting from foster care, they do a child specific home study for you for free. But, we're 3 years in to our fostering, and time to get that license renewed, but we'd had no bites at all at adoption that way, so we decided we'd get this done, if nothing else, it would allow us to look at foster kids that might be up for adoption in other states. So we got started on that. We're still working on it as hubby's job has been extra crazy this spring/summer and he hasn't been home all that much to get all of his parts done.
Meanwhile, we continue to foster..  MK and R went back to their mother about the same time we decided to work on a home study. We'd had them for about 6 months. We are still in contact with them and are trying to be a support for them and their mom right now as they continue to work the program she is on. That has been hard on me in some ways, but good in others.
Then we got a little 16 month old boy for about a month. He was just adorable and a sweetie pie, but we only had him while family members were getting cleared to take him... then in May we got a call about 2 boys, a bit older then we usually take, one in first grade, the other in kindergarten. We were told that the boys had been in and out of care for 4 years now and they would soon be moving to terminate and that, if we took placement of them, odds were high we'd be able to adopt them. We were given a very brief overview of their background but were assured there were no major issues with either of them. I reminded them that they hadn't been wanting to place with us as we were getting ready to leave state in a few weeks (we had a family wedding to attend out of state) but they insisted that they would clear everything so the boys could go with us.  So we said yes. We were slightly nervous, but also hopeful. It wasn't quite the placement of our dreams, but, finally, here we had a chance. Things were hectic and crazy, and slowly began to fall apart. The boys had issues. More issues then we'd been told about.  More serious issues then we'd been told about. The trip was a disaster for us. They boys were very good at putting on a show for others, but when it was just us, it was just terrible.
It broke my heart, but we knew that, no matter what wonderful visions I'd had, no matter how much I was trying, this was just not going to work for us, and worse, was not going to work for them. We had the boys less then a month, and it had already started taking a toll on my health. So, we asked that the boys be moved. I have to hope that they found a place that was better suited for them. I never should have said yes to their placement with us, and if we'd been told the things we should have been about their issues, I never would have. But they had a brand new caseworker who didn't really know their file, and I allowed myself to be suckered in by the "if you don't take them, we might have to break up the siblings" plea... and they know we want to adopt.. *sigh*  It can be so hard to do this some times...
We took the whole month of June off from placements. We got several calls, but we turned them all down. I needed time. Emotional and physical. As  I mentioned, the whole thing took a toll on my health and I needed time to de-stress and recover..
We did accept another placement.. also one that was just supposed to be a few weeks while a family member got cleared.. though the family placement fell through, so who knows how long we will have her at the moment. A little girl, not quite 3. She is a little stinker, but cute as a button and, when she's not having massive screaming tantrums (*sigh*) she's just about the sweetest thing..
Meanwhile, we're hoping to get all of our initial home study paperwork done by the end of August, and, we've been in contact with an adoption facilitator/agency and they've agreed to work with us. They are based in California but work with families from all over. We have our first phone meeting next week. I'm very excited, and also very nervous and scared. It is starting to feel more real. Which is kind of scary. I still have all of those stupid fears and emotional baggage... What if we never find a birth mother, what if no one thinks I'm worthy to be a mom.. what if it just never happens...
But, I am trying to think positive, to be positive and to keep on swimming...
Meanwhile.. we're doing fund raising. Conventional adoption can, sadly, be very expensive, and, while we think we've figured out how to fund it, it would be very much easier if we had more money set aside for it. (We actually had a decent sized chunk set aside, and then, well, things happened.. some good - M got the chance to go to Japan with a school group for a few weeks, and we had the family wedding to go to, oh and we had some legal fees for finally getting M's custody changed so she is with us full time now - and some not so good - the water heater died on us this summer, as did a freezer and the washing machine is acting up- but, even so, we still have some set aside..) So if you can help at all, that would be great.. Passing word along is helpful too.. http://www.youcaring.com/tom-and-davina-stuart-399717#.VbaFuCn3hXs.facebook
Also, we will likely be  officially starting the birth mother hunt in the next few months, so passing word along about that would also be helpful. We should be getting a profile done in the next few months and I will post that when we do. We are open to all ethnic variations (we're all the same "race" after all - human) and genders and are willing to discuss levels of open-ness. And we are willing to travel, if need be, so we're not limited just to Alaska :)
That's our update.. Thanks all :) 

Etsy shop

I just started up an etsy store to try and help fund our adoption home study fees and, well, everything else.. :)  I've got a few baby quilts up right now, and am busy working on a few more to try and get those posted here soon, along with some other projects.  so please take a look and pass the word along :)  Thanks

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AccidentalPerfection

I've got a few little baby blankets posted in there right now, and am working on getting a few more done, and have a couple of other projects I'm working on as well and hope to get them posted soon as well.

So far we are still without a placement, so getting an adoption home study done might help a bit as it will mean we can look and think about children available in other states as well.
I do have another foster/adopt training day coming up later this month and that might help with networking.
I just hate the waiting

April

Well, looks like things are a bust at LDSFS.. They have a policy about not working with families that have more then 2 children.. so, since Hubby has kids from his first marriage, even though we didn't raise any of them, etc, etc.. we're not eligible to work with them.
I'm a bit of a heart broken mess. Not sure why they didn't nix us for that the first time we spoke with them years ago, but here we are. They won't even provide us with a home study that we could maybe use elsewhere... Was hoping for at least that much since they charge much less then everyone else we've been told about in state (like 2-3 times less...) So now, I don't know where we're going on that front. I really thought that maybe this would be something.. 

And, of course, it's National Infertility Awareness week, which just makes things all the more painful.. but, what can I do?

We're still waiting for another foster placement. Who knows when that will happen or what that will bring. And I'm going to be going low-tech for the next month or so.. one of our neighbors is going out of state to deal with some family medical issues and couldn't take her kids, so I will be watching them during the day while her husband is at work. Was planning on using the little bit of money I'll be getting from this on our home study. Now, who knows.. from what we've been told it won't cover the cost from any other agency.. But I don't know..

I just want to be mommy so bad and it just hurts so very much that I can't be.

Changes... again..

Ok.. so it's been a while.. a lot of nothing has happened on the adoption or fostering front.. It's been a quiet winter since our "almost" Thanksgiving..
Hubby and I just finished a few adopting through foster care type classes. We've learned a lot and have started making some connections that might help us down the line. I will be attending another class in June, and we might be doing some other stuff in July.. we will see how all of that goes. I have a LOT of phone calls and emails to make this week.
It was also a bit depressing as we learned that part of why we haven't been getting calls for placement is because our name is at the bottom of the list, due to alphabetical placement. *sigh* That is always annoying to hear, as there really isn't much we can do about it but wait and hope.
Some of this has led to some possible changes we might be making, or adding to our quest to be parents. Years ago we had started talking with LDS Family Services about their adoption program. We had just gotten started with it when we moved and had some other things come up and it got halted, and then other things happened and we just never got back to them. Then Hubby deployed, and then, well, we decided to try adopting through foster care. But after some discussion today, Hubby said that maybe it was time to call them again. So that's another call I will be making this week. I've no idea how we will pay for an adoption from them after the set backs we've had this year (more on that in a bit..) but I am sure that, if it happens, we will find a way!
Now, as for those set backs.. About a week after my last post (so early December) I came down with a really, really bad case of whatever stomach bug was going around. It was nasty. I became severely dehydrated and my blood pressure dropped by at _least_ 40 points.. So early December was not a fun time for me as it was all wait and see if I'm going to wind up hospitalized.. Thankfully, I did manage to recover and all is once again well with the world of my health. No idea why it hit me so much harder then it hit everyone else, but so hope it doesn't ever come back..  Other things..  you may recall Hubby had gotten laid off late last summer. He'd found a job fairly quickly, only about a month of unemployment, but it was at a much lower pay rate then he'd been at previously. We managed, but things were tight. And then we had some trouble with our septic line, which ate up a chunk of our savings.. Anyway, 6 months later, just before Valentine's day.. Hubby got laid off, again. Very unexpectedly, very suddenly and at the very worst time possible. Just days before his company laid him off, another company laid off about 70 electricians, so the market was flooded. It has taken 2 months for him to find a job, but we are so happy that he is working again. It has been very hard the last 2 months. We've eaten through most of what was left of our savings and had to dip into some credit in order to keep everyone paid. Thankfully, we have a very well stocked and large pantry and food storage, so we've been able to not worry about where the next meal would come, and even have been able to eat "normally" with only a few items needed from the store here and there. Of course, now I need to restock! :)
He still won't be making his "big" wages from before his first lay off, but it is a good job, should be stable, and it is something he really thinks he is going to enjoy doing (because he will be able to pretend he's part of the Thunderbird team.. lol). He will be working mostly doing maintenance of equipment for an oil spill response team, though at the moment, most of his work will be in town, so he is looking forward to an improvement in the weather so he can ride his motorcycle to work.
Anyway, so that is where we are right now. We're still waiting, but doing what we can to move forward and try to make ourselves a better potential home.

Holding patterns...

First, an update. Turns out Gaia often breaks into random tears over potty training (I chatted with her mom about it.) So it wasn't just me, yay! And she's always a picky eater. Hubby and her mom said that if she wouldn't eat anything, then I should just let her go until the next meal.. I have such a hard time with that, though, but she was pretty good about eating the rest of her time with us.
Now on to the new stuff. We're in a holding pattern again.. Just when we were posed to finish up or first round of paperwork and application, we are waiting. Hopefully we can still get the things done soon, but for now, we wait. Tom has heard rumors of possible lay offs coming at work, so we are waiting to see where that is going. He's already actually been offered another job, though it would be a cut in pay and is temporary (though we don't yet know how long that would last..) but it would be something to get us through if we needed it. We just don't know if he needs it yet. They are hoping to know one way or the other sometime next month, and either way should have work through til the end of the year. We just would hate to jump ship if lay offs aren't coming for him and they are going to extend their contract or something. For now though, at least until next month, we wait and see and save our pennies, just in case. We've been very lucky in this economy to not have been hit too badly. Really hoping our luck holds. :)
Emotionally, it's been rather draining on me.. Just had my birthday earlier this month. Is it really sad that the only thing I wanted this year was to have our fingerprints taken? I've been keeping myself busy though. We're moving the older girls downstairs for the next year or so while we do some renovations upstairs. We've got to move out of the master bed and bath while we do some work in there. (After the mold in the hall bathroom this past February, we suspect the little old man who built this house maybe didn't use the right stuff in any of the other bathrooms, either, so we are going to be taking them apart one at a time and fixing that, hopefully before there's anywhere near the problem there was in the hall bath.) And we'll be moving into their room while we do the work, because, well, there's no way I could live/sleep in a construction zone :) and we need to replace flooring in our room anyway. Once we ever get done there (which will be a while due to costs and the fact that we're doing it ourselves on the weeks hubby's home, so it will be an on again/off again project.. I'm figuring 1.5-2 years before everything is done upstairs..) we'll replace the flooring in the girls' room before moving them back up.
So I've been moving their stuff down and getting that all set up. Am actually mostly done with that, just a few more bits and pieces and one dresser to move this week. Then just have the finishing of set up downstairs. Then cleaning up and seriously cleaning the carpet before starting the moving of our stuff into their room.
The nursery is also more or less set up at the moment. Mostly it's set up as toddler zone for the grand baby, but would be easy to convert back to infant mode when needed.
And just got buzzed. B1 is coming over to pick up some things, so I'd better sign off for now and get a few things ready to go.

Grandbaby gone...

Well, they got back from their road trip to retrieve car and belongings on Saturday afternoon. So grand baby is back in the care of mommy and I am left without a little one to take care of.. It was only a week, but, darn it, I miss having her around. We just got her on a great schedule (her mom hadn't been able to manage that yet, but then, things have been hectic and crazy...) so mom is going to try to keep her on it, she was surprised I managed it so quickly and with so little fussing..
We seriously need a little one around here on a permanent basis. The tax information I had sent off for 3 weeks ago finally showed up, so we should be able to finish up the paperwork for the adoption here soon, though not sure how much time I will have for that this week. Hubby's sisters and niece and nephew will be arriving Tuesday night and be here for a week, so we might be busy, but I'm going to do my best.
I've already been busy this weekend. Made cheese Thursday, blueberry jam yesterday, blueberry syrup today. Thinking of doing another batch of jam tomorrow (have more then enough berries..) and also thinking of doing a batch of watermelon jelly. Plus I need to make more butter, and probably another batch or two of cheese for everyone while they're here. Oh yeah, and it would be nice if I could get the house cleaned up a bit, do some laundry, etc...
busy, busy, busy...

Toddler invasion week!

This week we have the grand daughter here all week. Her dad is up at work on the slope (so is my hubby...) and her mom has gone back down to Washington to get some more of their stuff and their car. So G has been left with us (myself and the 2 younger steps daughters, B2 and M) for about a week. Mommy left yesterday, but so far, things are going pretty well. This is the longest she's been away from mommy ever so far, and we're only just past 24 hours.
She went to Church with us this morning and surprised us all by behaving even better then her older aunts did. :) She had lots of fun in Nursery Class, singing songs and playing with other kids her age. She really liked the sit and spin, too, so we might have to see about getting her one :)
We are looking forward to this, though a bit anxious as well. We're hoping there won't be too many melt downs this week, but so far things seem to be going well. We should have lots of fun and I see it as practice. With any luck we will have a little one in the next year or two and will get to go through all of this with him or her, so this is good practice for me as the steps were all older when I came into the picture (M was already 4), and lived too far away to be involved with my nieces at this stage.
Shall see how well we all survive the week! :)
(Just have to keep the "aunties" from cross parenting... heh... they kept trying to get her riled up at Church, the stinkers...)
Now if only the rain would let up so we could do some outdoor play.

Loss and hope

A week ago my brother announced that they were expecting their 4th child, and about 3 months along, but Sunday they found out that she'd miscarried. We're all trying to help them deal with that. It's hard though. I know enough from my battles with infertility how easy it is for well meaning people to say something that is completely the wrong thing to say because while it may seem "helpful," to the person hearing it it's like twisting the dagger. I've been sending them some links to some miscarriage support pages and articles about how it's ok for them to have all the emotions and pain they are going to have. While most of us in the family have only known about this baby for a week, for them it was years of waiting and hoping and expectation and 3 months of "hey, we're having a baby.." There has been a death in the family even if most of the family doesn't realize it.

Personally, today I decided to stay indoors and finally go through my pots and pans. I got a new set about a month or two ago but have never had the time to sit and weed out the ones that need to go. Finally got that done today and now there is room, the door actually closes all the way and everything... Even got one of the other cupboards sorted a little and made room on one of the book cases in the living room for a bunch of parenting books I had ordered that came in the mail today. (And I got them for FREE!! Being in the military reserve does have some benefits!)

Speaking of parenting, today, in the mail, we got the paperwork from the agency we're going to try adopting through, so now we've got to sit and go though all of that, dig out all the info they want, do the background checks, etc... and figure out where we'll come up with all the money :) I was starting to print out the requests for copies of our tax records from the IRS, but my printer is out of ink, so will have to wait and do that later. I was just so anxious to get started!

Waiting...

Well, it has been an exciting week. My oldest step daughter and her family might have found a house, they are doing all the paper work and the waiting involved with that... My brother announced that he and his wife are expecting their fourth child. They don't know yet if it will be a boy or a girl. They have 3 girls so are hoping for a boy this time.
Tomorrow, my two younger step daughters arrive for the summer and we have a friend's wedding that evening as well. And we've been running around to appointments all week. Hubby is having a crown put on after a root canal. The temporary crown was put in Monday and the final one will be put on in 2 weeks, but the temp one came off this morning so we've got to go in this afternoon and get it reattached. And he had a bit of a minor motorcycle accident over the weekend as well so we've had to tow the bike around to get it looked at to find out how much it was going to cost to fix it. Fortunately he is safe and sound, hardly even any bruising. Nothing broken, just a few scraped knees. Thankfully he was wearing all his gear and wasn't hurt more. And turns out the bike isn't too badly damaged, either..
And.. this afternoon I called the case worker with Catholic Social Services here in Alaska and am waiting for her to call me back so we can set up an appointment to start all the paperwork and everything to get things moving on our adoption. So now I am waiting.. Hoping she calls back soon, before we have to run off to the dentist office today.. But if not, I will be calling her back tomorrow, sometime in between all our running around.. and/or Monday.

thoughts...

Today has been a sad day. I was reading some other blogs this morning and it got me to thinking about how much I'm missing because I don't have children. It has gotten me very sad today and really I just want to sit down and have a good cry. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those women who can have a good cry.. instead, I blubber and get all snotty and congested and can't breath, and often as not, wind up throwing up. Sorry for telling you that, but, well, there it is. So it's hard to even have a good cry and "get over it," as they say...
My husband gets back from work today and will be home for the next 3 weeks. Am happy for him to be coming home. Next week my step daughters will be arriving for the summer as well. They will keep us busy for the summer and we're planning and hoping on having lots of fun with them this summer. My oldest step daughter is off today meeting with mortgage lenders. They think they've found a house they like and are hoping to get the ball rolling on purchasing as soon as possible. While we will miss having them in the house, if they get the one they are looking at, they will only be about 9 miles away, so we can live with that. :)
I long to be able to have a child or two running around this home on a daily basis. I find all sorts of educational things that I want to get for my kids, so they can learn about this great big wonderful universe and all the tiny little things in it, all the while knowing that who knows if I will ever have those children. It makes me sad and I want to cry.
But hubby will be home, and hopefully while he is home this time we can meet with the adoption agency and get all that paperwork started, and maybe, one day, hopefully soon, I will be able to bring home one of my missing children...

Beginnings

We are about to embark on the official beginning of our adoption journey and I decided that it would be a good idea to keep a record of this process for myself and others who are out there on the same journey.
I will soon be chronicling our family story and how we have come to this point, who we are, what we believe, how we live, etc. But for today I just wanted to sit down and say hello. We, like most families, are a complex mix of things. For the sake of their privacy, I will likely be using initials instead of names for some members of the family unless or until I get their permission to do otherwise. Same may apply to other friends who might get brought up from time to time.
More later....