Profile Books Completed and Shipped!!

I am so happy and relieved that we finally got our profile adoption books bound and sent off to the agency!!

Yesterday I was a total stress case because the printed pages were coming from the printer via UPS from Florida and were scheduled to arrive Monday April 20th. I had arranged for everyone to come over that evening so we could get to work right away. I had intended on having everything set up and ready to go but it didn't happen that way exactly. I anxiously waited all day for them to get to the house constantly looking out the window to see if that big brown truck was coming around the corner. 5pm hit, then 6pm hit. Still no package. I had Weston's mom, his aunt, and his cousin at the house waiting to help me get these books together and the truck still hadn't showed up with my package. I called UPS 3 times to make sure that the package was still set to arrive that day and they assured me that the driver should be there any minute. Weston's brother, his wife and their little 9 month old showed up to help as well around 7pm. There I was, with a house full of people to help me put these books together and no books! The UPS truck FINALLY got there at 7:20pm. Of course we were his last stop.

Pictured: Aunt Ro, Rhea, Courtney, and Me working on the books)
We diligently got to work and started doing the hole punches, threading the ribbons, adding the charms, tying the bows, taping the DVDs in, and the picture on front. I am so grateful for everyone that showed up as I could not have gotten these done with out them. After everyone left Weston and I went through them and had to sign each one.

My sister-in-law Courtney putting together a profile book

All boxed up, signed, and ready to go I finally dropped them off at UPS this morning. I can't explain to you the relief I felt walking out of that UPS store. The books are scheduled to get to the agency Thursday before noon and then they can start sending them out to birth moms to view us as a possible family for their child.

NOW THE REAL WAITING BEGINS!!

Adoption profile book is off to the printers FINALLY!!

We finally got the book re-done and off to the printer!! I'm excited but nervous. I just want them to turn out nice you know? We've worked so hard on them and I just want them to be perfect. Right now I am making the 50 copies of our DVD slide show that will go into the books. This is all a lot of work and money but I know it will all be worth it when we have our little one here. I can't wait for that day.

The printer said that I should get them by next Monday. I hope they show up sooner than that so I can start assembling them. I should probably consider having a book binding party to get them done faster :) This all reminds me of getting ready for my wedding. There was so much to do. I remember having friends over to help me tie those little bows on all of the bells that were our name place holders.

So once I get the DVDs done I will have to make the labels and get 50 copies of our picture to go on the cover, assemble the books, ship them off to the agency, and then really begin to wait. Wait for birth moms to view our books, wait for someone to choose us. Just wait. But like I said, I would much rather have everything done and know that I did everything I could to stand out too those birth moms, and just wait for the call.

Frustration!

So we are live now on the website which makes me so happy but I am also a little stressed out. We decided to change the profile picture since we both don't really like the one they used so that will be changed hopefully today.

Like I said, I worry A LOT! We finally got the changes that needed to be made to our profile book yesterday and last night we stayed up until 12am to get everything done. I sent it to the printer this morning and they told me that it was blurry and hard to read. After investigating things further we discovered that the book was saved in 72 dpi and not 300 dpi. (resolution quality) Although we upgraded it to 300 dpi when we made the changes we found out that Weston is going to have to do the whole thing over from scratch since it wasn't created in 300 dpi originally. It won't take as long since we know how everything is going to go but it is going to take at least a couple of hours since he built each page from scratch and there are 16 pages :( So now we are probably looking at a good 2 more weeks until the agency has any profile books of us.

This stresses me out because if they don't have any at the agency then we miss out on potential birth moms. I guess when you look at the big picture 3 weeks more is nothing but I'm Mrs. Impatient. I wish I knew how to do the Photoshop stuff myself so I could get it done ASAP and not burden Weston with it. I hate waiting.

Part of me wonders if this happened for a reason. Maybe the birth mom that chooses us isn't ready to view our profile yet? I would much rather have a nice quality book printed and have her be impressed than the "not too bad but not great" one we would be sending. I just need to be patient and that is the hardest thing to do. It's weird but we are working so hard to "hurry up and wait" but I want to be in the "waiting period" and not in the "still preparing everything period." We've been working on this for months and it's so exhausting!

We are Active and our Website is Live!!!

I am so excited to report that we are now active and searchable by birth moms on the Lifetime website!! Please feel free to send this link to anyone you may know!!

http://www.lifetimeadoption.com/for_birtmothers/families/weston_lisa/index.html

Now- let the real waiting begin!!

A Sign

Okay- so I mailed the final payment to the attorney today so we could go active with Lifetime. I was so nervous but now I feel relieved!! They should get it Friday and then we will be active and birth moms can start viewing our profile. They let me know our web page is finished and once they receive the payment it will go live. We need to record an audio message but I have no idea what we should say. Still waiting to hear about what changes need to be made to the profile book but I should hear soon. Then we can start producing the books and get that out to the agency as well.

I also called about getting an 800# set up and the guy I talked to was really nice. He said he was also an adoptive parent and gave me a one time fee and a great deal on calls per minute with no contract! I just want to run it by the hubby first but will probably call him and set it up tomorrow.

So- it is all coming together. I am so ready to be a mom. I was having major anxiety about paying all of this money last night and making that final payment. But the strangest thing happened. As I was watching TV, trying to control my anxiety, I turned the channel and the Flintstones movie came on. (the one with John Goodman for the 90's) Weird right? You might ask, what is the significance of that? Well right when I turned the channel to the movie Wilma was confronting Fred about spending money. Then he explained that the money was for Barney and Betty so they could adopt a baby. A sign? I think so! Isn't it weird how little things like that happen? I took it as a sign to not be so scared and to keep pushing forward and go for it. So I did!