Meet Elisabetta D'Angelo!

I started this blog to keep friends and family updated but I obviously didn't hold up my end of the bargain.  Our daughter Elisabetta Tenconi D'Angelo, we call her Elle, was born July 15th at 109am. She was a healthy 7lbs 2 ozs and 20 inches long.

Now I'll take a step back and fill in the blanks. Lou and I were matched with a birthmom on June 17th. She's from a small coastal town a few hours south of us. We were in touch via email and drove down and met her about a week later. Lou and I took her to lunch and felt a great connection with her. She is smart, funny and very sweet. We chatted easily for over 2 hours. After we dropped her off we felt great and very hopeful. I drove down to visit several more times and went to the rest of her doctor's appts. The due date was up in the air since there wasn't an early ultrasound. We finally got a date for the scheduled C-section 1st week in July, her date for July 15th, just a week away.

We tied up loose ends, bought the rest of the baby stuff we needed and drove down the night of July 14th. We were to be at the hospital at 530am but Elle had a different agenda. Birthmom went into labor night of the 14th. We rushed to the hospital and she was born at 109am. I could see the operation outside the OR door and I saw her being pulled out, we did not know the sex prior so it was exciting, emotional, amazing! I was the first to hold our little girl. Wow, it was sure a moment that Lou and I will never forget. We stayed the night two nights in the hospital and we were all released on the 16th.

We've been blessed with a healthy, beautiful, easy (!) daughter. We are just over the moon! We're still in touch with her birthmom who we care about very much.

About 30 minutes old. (Now I know what it's like to not care about what I look like in pics!)

Checking her vitals

Family photo, 1st night home

About 2 weeks old here

Sleeping buddies

Yesterday, August 29th, can't figure out how to rotate

Yesterday August 29th with her Llardo figurine her aunts sent. Also, she is wearing her youngest cousins dress and hair bow.

A few emails.........

We haven't heard much from the birthmother I spoke to a month ago, just a few quick email exchanges. I did get an email from another birthmom 2 weeks ago as well. We exchanged a few emails back and forth but haven't heard from her in awhile either. We can't imagine what they are going through and are just patient. We know that the right baby will come our way when the time is right.

Not much else going on but enjoying the summer and gardening.

A little excitement

We got a call from a birthmom last week! I won't go too much into detail out of respect for her (in case she somehow finds this blog) but it was very exciting and emotional. I definitely cried more than she did. We talked for an hour and I absolutely loved her. We have no idea if we'll ever hear from her again, it's now been a week. Lou wasn't home when she called but he got to hear every detail firsthand then 5 more times as I called my mom, dad, sister and best friends. It was pretty encourging after a month or so of nothing at all.

Huge thanks! (and a little update)

Thank you, thank you, thank you! For all those amazing Facebook comments, messages, emails, texts! All the encouragement means more than anything to us. Seriously, it's pretty incredible.

Papwork, done!
Homestudy, done!
Dear Birthmother letter, done!
Brochure, done!

We are officially in the system! This means that we're in the waiting portion of the process. Average time to be matched is 5 months to 2 years. We're prepared to wait but we have to be somewhat ready. Two couples from our workshops were matched in two weeks. One couple had less than a week to prepare before they brought their son home. This is super exciting and scary at the same time. We've been advised to have a car seat and be able to install it. SOOOO we bought one. Actually my sister bought one for us (THANK YOU CINDY! This means so much to me.) Now that we've been researching baby stuff, it's kind of hard to stop with the car seat. We'll probably get the car seat stroller frame and jogger since it's on sale for a great price. Lou is having fun researching, he will always get the best product for the best price. I think it's kind of a guy thing. Test driving strollers was pretty fun too.

We should be finished painting the nursery today (THANK YOU MOM!) and will just have to put the room back together. Then we'll be happy to wait and just chip away at getting ready. Yes, I know, we'll NEVER be ready for a baby, but one can try right??

That's it for now. Thanks again to everyone for all the support and positive feedback.

Still a work in progress

We haven't written anything down for a bit since we're kind of at a stand still. We do start our workshops on Monday, 4 consecutive Monday night classes in San Francisco. We're both excited to meet other couples in the same boat as us. Not to mention date night in the City is a bonus. I already have a list of restaurants that I want to try.

We were really hoping to have everything done by now. The dear birthmother brochure is a lot more challenging than we'd hoped so we're reaching out for some help.

In the meantime, I'm getting ready for when I could actually receive calls from birthmothers. They will have the option to contact the agency or us directly. Since I work from home and am much more available than Lou is at the winery, it'll be my mobile number that is called. Even though I really feel Lou would be better at this (I'll probably just start crying). So, I have the list the adoption agency gave us of dos and don'ts pinned above my desk. We're nervous and excited already. The future is just crazy to us right now.

Some super encouraging information

One thing we've found out is that adoptive parents are so amazing with sharing their stories and advise. I've been in touch with 3 families that were references for our agency. One adoptive mother emailed me the below last night.

In a nutshell, her and her husband have adopted two children. Both were matched in about 4 months!
Lou and I have just been prepared to wait, so to hear that she was matched with both her kids so quickly is so encouraging and scary at the same time.

Up next, a series of workshops in the city, 4 Monday evenings starting Feb 25th. We're looking forward to it.

Thanks again, for everyone's positive comments and soooo much support!

Love,
Sue and Lou

almost there!

Final draft of DBL is done and sent to the director at the adoption agency for her feedback. We now need to make a 'brochure' with our letter and about 25 photos to show birthmothers a little about us. We're still aiming to be in the system by the end of February or sooner. A few questions that we've been getting a lot lately.

Q:How old will the baby be?
A:Newborn

Q:How long will it take to be matched?
A:5 months to 2 years is average

Q:What race?
A:Most likely Caucasian

Q:Will we meet the birthmother?
A:Yes, this is open adoption which means the relationship with us and the birthmother is open. We decide how much contact we have with her both before and after the baby is born.

Q:Is the adoption domestic or international?
A:Domestic, 60% of adoptions with this agency are in northern CA, 40% out of state

Q:Can birthmother take back baby?
A:No, not once she signs the papers

Q:How long does she have to sign the papers?
A:Varies by state, in CA there is no time limit

Q:When do we get to take home baby?
A:The day she/he is born, even if papers are not signed yet. Which means that yes, there could be a chance that we take home the baby and the birthmother changes her mind. The agency does a ton of pre-birth counseling to ensure this does not happen however, it does in 6% of the cases. Please pray for us that this does not happen

Also, a lot of the matches between birthmothers and adoptive parents are through word of mouth. So, even though it sounds odd (or desperate??) if you happen to know anyone going through the difficult decision of giving a baby up for adoption, keep us in mind. Apparently this is actually pretty common.

My OB-GYN has me on her mental list, in case someone gives birth and decides to give away her baby. This has actually happened, and the birthmother gave her baby to the delivery nurse! The nurse had been struggling with infertility and apparently the birthmother somehow knew her. THEN (!) a few years later the same lady came in pregnant, delivered her baby and gave that baby to the same nurse. I swear this is a true story. When I mentioned this to our caseworker she knew about it, she was actually the one to handle the case. Crazy but true.

Hopefully our next post will be to let you all know that we're 'pregnant on paper'.

Thank you to everyone for all your support, encourging words and prayers! They mean so much to us. We feel like we have a huge family of support as we go through this journey.

Love Sue and Lou

This is what's going on....

When Michelle suggested that I start blogging about the adoption I dismissed the idea immediately, I'm definitely not blog-worthy. Then I realized that I was answering all the same questions. I guess you guys actually want to know what's going on. So, I'll write it down and then you can read it if/when you want. I'm hoping that this process goes smooth and I won't have any drama blogs...

This is what we've done so far.

• Fingerprinted by FBI and dept of justice (we passed!!)
• Completed gruelling HomeStudy application. 35+ questions we each had to answer separately about how we were raised, relationships with our family, relationship with each other, why we want to adopt, childhood....
• Passed HomeStudy application and met with our case worker Heidi, who is amazing and an adoptive mom too. Just a meet and greet at our home. Gave us paperwork and let us know what home study consists of
• Completed 90% of a approximate 1 foot stack of paperwork. This includes financial info, HIPPA statement, statements from our doctors, 3 personal references (thanks guys!), and the worst document ever, what we will consider and what we will not consider for adoption. This includes age of the baby, race, issues with families medical history, and mother's possible drug use.
• Had 3 final meetings with Heidi, she was nice enough to combine all three meetings into one. She had to meet with Lou and I separately to discuss our Home Study application questions. She made it very easy and the 3 hours flew by. She also had to check out our house and make sure everything was okay, no un-fenced pools, etc. I'll just say that Heidi's awesome, that's about it, went very well.
• Completed rough draft of our Dear Birthmother letter and choose potential photos to use. This is basically our promo pack. Since this is open adoption, the bithmother chooses us, so this is the info she has on us to select who she wants to raise her baby. Crazy when you think about it
• Met with director of communication to discuss Dear Birthmother letter and photos we choose
• Have to tweak Dear Birthmother letter (I'm going to abv in future to DBL). Bascially just move some stuff around. Also add a ton more photos. Once this is good, we need to make a little booklet-type thing on specific paper and colorful and perfect. This is for the birthmother's to view if they are in office. Lou will be good at this. We'll also upload the DBL and photos online

So, a little more work but by the end of February we'll be pregnant on paper. Then we wait.

It's honestly not as bad as it seems. Lou and I are a good tag-team. A little nagging on my end, but what's new. At this point, we're super excited. Lou tells everyone in town that we're adopting and it's a small town so news travels fast. This actually makes it easier on me.

Other than all the paperwork and meetings, I'm re-doing the front bedroom to make it a office/guest room. I'll paint the potential nursery but we're not going to buy too much baby stuff yet. We just need to make sure we have a car seat in case we become parents overnight, which could happen but is not likely.

So, that's been our life for the last few months. It's all good, really really good!

Love Sue and Lou