One of our requirements with the Home Study is officially choosing the guardians of our child, in the event of our death. It was an easy pick for me (and I think for Steve too). I knew I wanted to choose someone that lives in our area, that will be around our child regularly. I wanted someone our age, and preferrable with children of their own.
Prior to this, my experience with guardians has been with my own Godparents and an episode of Mad About You. Since I grew up Catholic, my parents did the traditional christening and my Godparents were present for that. My Uncle Jimmy (who is no longer alive) was my Godfather and my Aunt Sherri (who lives in Seattle, and I’m pretty sure I’ve only met her once, when I was four) was my Godmother. Because of distance, I had very little relationship with my Godmother. Uncle Jimmy was around a lot in my childhood, but he was drunk for most of it. Had my parents died, I would have been screwed. I would have either been living with a young man that had no experience in parenting and barely had his own life together, or shipped off to Washington State to live on a farm (oh, you could only imagine). Thank God my parents made it.
Mad About You has a hilarious episode where Paul and Jamie are trying to pick guardians for their children but everyone they ask says no for one reason or another. I prayed hard that this would not be the case for us.
And so last night, we invited Curtis and Rachel over to dinner. As usual, for me, I worried far too much about what they would say. But once I mustered the courage to ask, Rachel went with her gut and said yes. Phew.
We’ve only known The Mulder’s for 2 years, but it feels like we’ve known each other forever. I have been lucky enough to watch them parent their own two children and consider them some of the finest parents I know. Its a relief to know that if something terrible were to happen, my child would be in the best of hands.

The phone call yesterday went well. First she asked how we planned to pay for this adoption. She was staring at our financial statements and, like anyone would, wondered how we’d be shelling out a few thousand dollars of money we clearly dont have. I didnt open with “God will provide” but I did close with it. I mentioned loans, grants, rolling some change, hoping on the kindness of strangers (or family and friends), robbing a bank, and TWC’s reimbursement plan. By the end she said “Oh, I knew you’d have a plan, that sounds great.” Yep. Then she gave me lovely news. The name of our social worker that will be writing up our Homestudy. Her name is Tenna. Prior to this, I had been secretly worried that we’d get assigned an overworked disgruntled random social worker with little experience in writing adoption homestudies. We were told at our initial information session that social workers are contracted out, so really, it was a luck of the draw. But instead, we got Tenna. She has worked with CAS for quite a few years and has recently relocated to Raleigh (from Greensboro). So, she’ll be handling the homestudy cases in the Triangle. She knows adoption backwards and forwards and will hopefully write us a smashing homestudy. Yay! So, I’m waiting for Tenna to call and schedule our first meeting. Very exciting!

UPDATE: Congrats to Nick & Kelli, they’ll be having a baby BOY! Thats now 3 boys (Evan, Corbin and Connor), 4 TBD in YotB.

I was never a fan of school or learning. But I got my Education Packet from CAS this week and its time to get back into it. As I was aware, the agency we picked requires 30 educational credits. This includes some adoption prep courses they offer, books read on adoption and parenting, cultural experiences, learning a new language, CPR and whatever else. We have to earn our 30 credits before we can accept a referral. So, I’m now giving us the deadline of September 1st. We must be entirely educated by then. I better get a certificate.
We’re certainly in a lucky spot for classes, though. With 4 fancy hospitals in our area, I’ve got my pick of Baby Care classes from every angle. A couple of hospitals even offer a Daddy specific “Bootcamp” for new dads. My Duke also offers some neat courses, like one on Choosing Quality Childcare, one on Food Allergies in Children and one on baby proofing your home. I will be prepared!
The only other thing going on is that my friends and family have received their reference letters and now they need to come up with glowing ways to tell CAS what good parents Steve and I will make. Hmmm…
I also got an email from the woman handling my homestudy history. She’s going to call me today. I’m a little nervous she’ll say something like “wow, now that I’ve read your autobiography… maybe we should rethink this…” but hopefully thats not the case.

When it comes to baby names, people seem to be full of opinions. My coworker recently had a baby girl and they named her Mary Todd, but they’ll be calling her Mattie. Go ahead. I know you have an opinion.
People expecting a baby usually fall into one of three catergories. Those who tell everyone the names they’ve picked for their child to be, those who keep their choices a deep dark secret, and those who probably wont decide till the hospital tells you the baby cant leave without a name.
I fall into the first category. So, before I share my names, let me establish something. Considering that half of the people that read this blog are participating in The Year of the Baby, I feel this is an important statement. DO NOT name your child MY names. You’ll probably welcome yours home before I do, and if I find out you’ve stolen my name, I will kill you. But dont worry, cause when you’re dead, I’ll take good care of your child, cause I will love its name. But you, you I will hate.
Heh. I kid. But seriously. Dont steal my names. Dont suggest them to friends. Dont name your dog my names. Dont name your car my names. Leave my names alone. Capiche?
With that out of the way….
I would really like to keep our child’s given Korean name as their middle name. As long as I can pronounce it. But I’ll be learning Korean this fall, so hopefully it’ll roll off the tongue.
I’ve had a girls name picked out for more than 20 years (boy that makes me sound old). This was my first best friend’s name and I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember. I even named my first cabbage patch kid this name (sent away for a birth certificate and everything). Steve agreed to this name years ago. And so we will name our first daughter Leah.
We only recently decided on a boys name. That one was trickier. But we’ve picked Andrew James. I like Andrew because it lends itself to many nicknames. And James is after my uncle that recently passed away.
Now, if you’re having trouble picking a baby name… I highly recommend Sabrina.
Btw, for those keeping track of YotB stats, we’re currently at 2 boys, 5 TBD. (that was a lot of abbreviations…)

This past weekend, I told my parents that we’re adopting a baby. I was waiting for my dad to come up from Florida, so that I could tell him in person. Though I made myself almost sick worrying about his reaction, it all went extremely well. It took all of a steak dinner for me to convince myself that I had to tell him then, and finally I spit it out. He sat, kind of stunned looking, but I think he was just processing the information. Rose, his wife, was immediately excited. She started asking a ton of questions and even had stories to tell of her own experiences with adoption. By the end of the night, my dad told me he was excited and proud of me. What a relief to hear.
And by the next morning, he really ‘got it’. He talked over breakfast about how great it was that I would be giving a home to a child that might not have one, a loving family, an education, health care, opportunity in general. And I’ll admit I underestimated my dad. I never thought he’d think that deeply about the concept of adoption. For the first time, I’m looking forward to introducing my baby to his grandpa.

The day before my dad arrived, I called my mom and told her. I think she was a little hurt that I took so long to tell her, especially when I mentioned that most of my friends knew. She was also worried that I was choosing not to be pregnant because I watched her go through such a terrible pregnancy and complicated labor with my brother. I wrote her a long email explaining all my reasons for adopting and in the end, she also seemed to understand it all. Then she offered to move here and help me take care of the baby. Yeah, not gonna happen.

I also called my brother and told him. In typical 14 year old fashion, he was nonresponsive. I said “Do you have any questions?” and he said “No, I know how it works.” Right. You’re 14, you know everything! Later after the conversation had changed many times, he said “What kind?” “Um, Korean.” “Oh.” And then we moved on. When I talked to my mom the next day, she said he was excited to be an Uncle. I’ll have to take her word for it.

And then there was Aunt Debbie. Who goes down, thus far, for having the greatest quote. After telling her all the news and a few details, she said “What, are you starting your own UN?” Exactly. Like Pinky and the Brain, this is just my plot to take over the world.