ALMOST THERE!!!

Today is D day. The final day of completing what we need to do in order for our application to be re licensed as foster parents to be approved again. Today Mr. JB has to complete his health physical, and then we have our sanitation inspection from the county this afternoon. I spent last night cleaning and organizing things, and of course locking up all meds, cleaners, etc. Sigh, this is a long process, and it always amazes me how much they make you do in order to become a foster parent...when the parents involved with the system had done nothing like this. Whatever. It is what we want to do, and we are excited to have another lil one in our home soon. Even Lil JB is excited!

I am hoping that maybe this adventure will help lil JB out a bit. He has been having a rough go since he turned 4 with his behavior. Maybe his world seems a little off kilter since he turned 4? Who knows. But, we are working with him on it, and hopefully soon he will be back to his old self. Still, he is adorable and I can't help smiling every time I look at him!

I will let you know as soon as I hear back and know that we are officially re licensed! It will be a very exciting day in June Bud Land!

Til then!

~June Bud

Ups and Downs and Decisions Oh My!

First off, let me apologize for not blogging recently. The last time I blogged, I had just rang in the New Year and had an awesome time visiting my family in the northeast for Christmas. I had also taken a little detour to NY to visit family, especially my granny who had just moved into an Assisted Living Facility and was having a very difficult time with this. I am sad to say that she passed away five days after I saw her, so I immediately took another trip back up north for her funeral. I had a very difficult time saying goodbye to her, and recently I have found myself being very emotional about it. I feel like on whole chapter of my life has closed, and it is hard for me to imagine that neither my granny nor my gramp are here anymore.

Now that I am back in town and getting back into the swing of things, I wanted to update all of you on our adoption journey. Mr JB and I are in the process of trying to get re licensed as foster parents again. We have decided to try this route before doing private domestic adoption. We were blessed with lil JB through the joys of fostering and adopting, so we would like to go this route again. It is a lengthy process to get licensed, so we are in the midst of tons of paperwork, and home visits galore! we hope to have all of it in soon so that our licensing packet can be sent off for approval and we can take in another lil JB!

The best part so far about this whole journey is that we got to put up a crib! We are interested in fostering children ages 0-5, so in order to qualify to take babies, we had to have a crib. So, we had fun getting that and putting it up! We lucked out and got a really pretty one for cheap. It was originally 279$ and we got it for 134$! We were excited. This is what it looks like...

I love it! It looks so nice in the room we have it in too, I will be sure to post pics of the room soon!

~ June Bud

Up and Down My Emotions Go!

I don't even know where to begin this post. It has been a very.rough.week in June Bud land. It all started when I finally got in touch with the agency that licensed us as foster parents back in 2007. Let me remind you...I had called and left messages, emailed, and called and left messages, and emailed the woman whom I needed to speak to in regards to reopening our home as an adoptive placement. Finally, on a whim, at about 12 pm one afternoon last week, I just picked up the phone again and dialed. She actually answered. She sounded chirpingly (is that a word??) happy until she heard who it was on the other end of the line. Yup, honey. It 'tis me. The woman you have been trying to ignore for over two weeks. Not fair. I had been very explicit with what we wanted when I left my initial message, "hi, this is so and so, and we were foster parents. We would like to look into how our home can be reopened as an adoptive placement. We are looking to adopt a baby or toddler." So, she basically just started spewing on and on about how they are no longer licensing homes that want to adopt, unless of course we want to adopt one of the children over 11 years old that they have an abundance of sitting in the foster care world looking to be adopted. She knew we were looking into a baby or toddler, and she said that the foster homes they were licensing were only going to be utilized as foster homes, so any child placed in our home that ended up staying for a year or more would be inevitably transitioned into an adoptive home, so adopting would not be an option. OK, whatever, who cares what is right for the child involved? So, then I asked her if we could just look to adopt, and she said nope. Only if we were looking to adopt an older child. Now, I am not against adopting an older child, but this is something Mr. JB and I have thought about doing when our kids are older and can really take part in helping out a child less fortunate than ours. We are barely even 30 years old, I could not even imagine parenting a near teenager at this point in our lives. The only GOOD thing that came of our conversation was that the agency can do an adoptive home study for us free of charge, that we can then take to other agencies. They apparently do that for people who have worked with them before, as a courtesy, when they can't help us get what we are looking for. Great, thanks. Let's see how many phone calls it takes before I can actually get through to her again to get THAT lined up.

So, I was feeling pretty down. I cried a lot and really just felt like every door I tried to open kept getting slammed in my face. God forbid we want to HELP a child in need?? I just felt like their was no light at the end of the tunnel, and I really felt that things were finally taking their toll on me. Mr. JB and I had some rough patches last week, but in the end we just cried together. He is much more optimistic than me at this point, and sometimes that is helpful for me, and sometimes it frustrates me. I know he is just trying to be their for me, and to be strong. But, I want to be strong too dammit! I also got my period this weekend. Of course, I knew it was coming, but of course their is always a shimmer of hope out their in my soul that thinks just MAYBE I am pregnant. It was not even the normal, "oh here comes my period..." I had IMMENSELY painful cramps from Thursday-Sunday, and actually they were so bad Monday and today that I have been out of work. I honestly felt like my insides were being twisted and pulled. This has never happened to me before...I usually get a bit of cramping and some lower back pain, and then WHAM! She arrives. But, this time it was on and off for days, and then when she finally arrived Sunday, I thought things would look up. NOPE, I had extremely heavy bleeding, large clots, headaches, and very painful cramps. Just now today I am still cramping, but they are subsiding, the bleeding is slowing down and I just have a bad headache. So, with that and many new face book, I AM PREGNANT posts, I was beyond upset and frustrated. I am also over telling me how it will get better and things will fix itself. Really? Don't try to tell me that somewhere over the rainbow I am going to get magically pregnant and that the last 16 months my body just did not cooperate for the sake of not cooperating. Even my mother in law has chimed in, and THAT really made me lose my gourd. She is an RN, so every time something medical comes up she consults her com padres. So, I get to listen to how Mr. Urologist Man, who has never met my husband thinks this over the counter miracle drug is going to help his sperm. Really? He has a morphology and motility problem, not a sperm count problem. Oh, and Mrs. Doctor of all Doctor's told her that he can have surgery to correct the problem. Well, duh...if there IS a problem, we will look into getting it fixed...but, it all comes down to price. We don't have eons of money sitting around to just fork over. But, in mother in law land, just the fact that she can give her two cents is worth oodles of money to her. I told Mr. JB that when she has an infertility problem then she can give me advice. Last I checked...she had three kids. Sorry, I know that is vicious and mean, but I am over hearing people who have no idea what we are going through give me their piece. Just yesterday my dear friend told me that if I adopt again I will never get to look MY baby in the face when he or she is born, and just have that motherly feeling. Really? Cause, I looked in the face of 9 month old lil JB when he came to us, and I am SURE I felt the same thing. But, because he didn't come from meeeeeee, everyone feels the need to chime in. OK, vent over. On to more positive things.

We did go to dinner with some of Mr. JB's coworkers on Thursday night. It was nice to catch up with them, and they all know what we are struggling with. He works in social services, so we have some of his coworkers looking out for a baby in the system that will need a forever home. If one were to come available, we would try to take custody of the child as a non-relative placement, since the foster care avenue has not been working in our favor. I did also have a friend tell me that I should call Florida Baptist Children's Homes, which does foster care, adoption, domestic infant adoption, as well as has several shelters for children. I figured what the heck? Some people had told me that there domestic infant adoption program is not as pricey as others. We had immediately ruled out Catholic Charities and Bethany Adoptions because of the price tag. We just don't have $15,000 lying around...tax credit or not. So, I left the social worker at FBCH a message on Friday. She called me back today.

She was very sweet on the phone. I explained our situation to her, and expressed an interest in finding out more about their domestic infant adoption program. She went through a list of preliminary questions with me, and then did disclose that they currently have a waiting list. She anticipates being able to take on more couples a few months into 2011. She discussed fees and services with me (and it WAS cheaper), and I left our name on the list. She will be calling back early next year to let us know where we stand. So, that sounded promising. Of course, I HATE WAITING...but, at least this is a step in the right direction. Mr. JB was also excited. So, now we have two plans in place...1. if a child comes available from foster care that is adoptable, and 2. domestic infant adoption through FBCH. *sigh* I hope things look up soon.

~June Bud

Adoption Series

I was made aware of an awesome blog recently named Flower Patch Farmgirl. She recounts her adoption experience every week...she started at the very beginning of their journey, and each week she posts another tale. With everything that has been going on lately, the other night I was sitting with Mr. JB on the couch and we were watching lil JB play. We reflected on how far we had come, and how mesmerized we were that he was going to be 4 years old in just a few short months. On Halloween of 2007, lil JB was placed with us, and with Halloween coming up it made me very sentimental. Flower Patch Farm Girl has inspired me to do my own adoption series, and to blog about the process starting from the very beginning. It will take awhile, but I hope to show people what our adventure was like, and shed some light on the foster to adoption process. It can be heartwarming, grueling, heart breaking, and completely awesome all at the same time. I think it is important for people to know that. So, here it goes...

On October 31, 2007 my life changed forever. A little 12 pound bundle of 9 month joy was brought into my life. It is important to know that up until this time, Mr. JB and I had fostered four children. The first one entered our lives on March 31, 2007, and the last one had left our home on October 25, 2007. With each child's arrival I felt overwhelming joy, and with each child's departure I felt broken. It is also important to note that the child who left on October 25, 2007, had left me with a huge empty heart, and feeling a lot of despair. He came to our home in May, and from the get go we wanted to adopt him. We were under the impression that we probably would be able to, but by October 23, 2007 I was informed that he was going to be reunited with his father. Great news that his father was on the right track, but devastating for me, because I really felt that he would be our forever child.

As soon as the case manager pulled into the driveway at about 5:00 PM on October 31, 2007, I ran out the door to meet our new little guy. I was faced with an ADORABLE tiny child, with a big heaping hair of curls. I could not get over how cute he was, and in such a short life, this child had been through so much. Lil JB was born at the end of January and spent less than 4 months at home with his mother. The bulk of his time with his mother was spent in his crib, crying for her, and getting no response. She would leave him laying in his crib while she did drugs, and he developed an innate habit to scratch himself til he bled to get her attention. Yep, at exactly 1-3 months old, my child had been forced to do this to himself in order for her to even acknowledge him. He was removed from the home in May 2007, and spent the next 5 months bouncing from home to home. He had a severe case of Eczema, and continued to scratch himself to death, and no one wanted him. They labeled him a "behavior issue," and basically had to beg people to care for him. He also was so underweight that they had labeled him Failure to Thrive. My question is...How is a five month old a behavior problem?! I just wish we had found him sooner.

From the moment I took him out of his car seat, he never once cried, or acted like he didn't want to be around me because I was a stranger. The case manager even commented on how we quickly bonded, and stated that he had never been so calm and serene before around anyone. She told me that she felt like he just knew that this was his home. I giggled in delight and told her that, "of course it was, because he is my Pumpkin Baby." To this day I still call him my Pumpkin Baby, and if you ask lil JB why mommy's favorite holiday is Halloween, he will tell you that it is because he was my pumpkin baby. I also tell him that he was born in our hearts on Halloween. So, Halloween will always be a special holiday for our family.

The case manager informed us that lil JB's mother was still in the picture, and that she was supposed to visit him on a regular basis. This usually turned into maybe a visit once a month, and he also saw his 1/2 sister who was just a year older than him at the visits too. His mother was working on a case plan to get him back, but was very unstable and did not have a stable home or job. They also did not know who his biological father was. This was a relief to us, because it just meant that if they could not identify the father, that in the event the mother failed her case plan and her rights were terminated, that we could probably easily adopt lil JB. Little did we know what kind of bumpy road was heading our way! This pic is the first pic we took of him, the day after he came to our home! Sorry it is so grainy...I have carried it around so many place to show him off to so many people that it is rather worn now!

Til next time!

June Bud~

Adoption or Bust???

It has been one crazy week around June Bud land. We decided to go ahead and lay laminate wood floors in our house (well, in the living room, family room, dining room, and our two hallways). It was my last week of summer, so we figured why not? I would be home and that would make it easier because Mr. June Bud nor I would have to take time out of our busy schedules to ensure it got done. WRONG! First off, the minute we signed the contract with the contractor to do it, my BIL decided to come into town. So, we warned him that he would have to deal with a torn apart house. Then, they were supposed to start laying the floors on Tuesday. They called Tuesday to say they were coming Wed. instead. OK----Wed rolls along, and it turns out the warehouse sent the wrong floors. So, now they were not going to start til Thursday. THURSDAY rolls around, and they come up with some god awful excuse I cannot even recall at this present moment. So, they worked Friday and all day today. Now, at 3:36 pm, they are STILL not done, but are probably a couple of hours way from being done. THANK YOU!!!!! Trying to have this done with a 3 year old running around was a BAD BAD idea...I should have waited til I was back at work next week, Lil June Bud was at the babysitter, and let Mr. June Bud deal with it :-) :-) :-) Lesson learned! Here are some pics of the process so far!!!


Okay, I am done with my tyrant, and can now focus back on my life of TTC. Hehe. Well, I remember in my first post that I mentioned about fostering and adopting our son. Adopting is something Mr. June Bud and I have decided to look into again, so that we have explored all of our options in the event that we cannot have children naturally. So, I reached out to a friend of mine who actually works with a local adoption agency here. We met with her a few weeks ago, and got all of the information and timelines and such. Something else we also got was the price. WOW! I never would have thought it would be so expensive! It is a total of $15,000. Phew! Mr. June Bud and I do not make a lot of money, so this is a long shot for us. But, there are some pros to the private adoption option.

First off, the agency only works with about 5 couples at a time. They have two other locations that work with this office, so in total their are 15 couples, and birth moms can pick from any of us. But, our specific counselor would only work with us and four other couples. Nice. Then, they also don't put our names on a list. As soon as we do our life book, and have done our homestudy, our book is available for any of the moms to look at. We are at an advantage here, because we already had a homestudy done a year ago when we were still fostering, so the agency would just update that one. Also, the counselor informed us that we are on the young end of her couples, so that may be helpful with some moms. Also, our son is biracial, and some birth moms prefer that. So, things could work well for us with this particular agency.

Cons? The price for one. We would have to pull together every last penny and probably ask for loans from our family, which we are not totally keen on doing. The Adoption Tax Credit does help, but that is after the fact, so initially we would have to come up with a big chunk of change. Cons is also the waiting to be chosen, and the heartache that goes along with that, as well as not knowing if birth mom will decide at the last moment to parent her child. It could just be a lot of heartache for us. But, when you think about it, this whole TTC process is heartache no matter which way you do it. Which brings us to another option...fostering again.

Let me just tell you that Mr. JB and I had four foster children before lil JB came to join our family. Each one of those darling children came into our hearts and never left. They still hold a place in our hearts, and it was TORTURE saying goodbye to each and every one of them, because if given the chance, we would have adopted them! Even lil JB caused a ton of heartache for both of us, as well as our extended family because it took over 2 years to finally adopt him, and there was a lot of doubt along the way...we would think things were going along fine, and then WHAM! Someone or something would come up where we thought we would have to kiss him good bye. I am not sure if I am ready for that again...but, it is an option, and one that we really need to think through, because it does have a lot of positives that can out weigh the negatives...BIG TIME.

All in all, Mr. JB and I have decided to give TTC the old fashion way another shot this month and see what happens. Today is CD 10, so I am gearing up to ovulate in the next few days. This our 14th cycle. My HCG Ultrasound is scheduled for Sept 2. So, we are also moving along in that arena, and if need be we will add IUI or IVF to the exploration process. I am just glad that I have all of you to lean on, and that I am not going through all of this alone! Thanks again!

June Bud

Introducing June Bud!

Here it goes!

Hi there! I am June Bud, and I am the newest member of the Bloomin Babies Blog! I have followed the gals on their journeys thus far, and it really inspired me to become one of the Buds. Their stories of TTC, and the journeys they have embarked on, have really helped me to deal with the emotional ups and downs that my own TTC journey has caused me. There are not many people in my life who know the ins and ours of our trouble with TTC, and sometimes it is really hard to talk to people about it because they don't always truly understand the highs and lows that you are experiencing. This was very difficult for me, and I found that reading about other peoples journeys, and following them through similar situations that I myself have experienced, has really helped me tremendously through this time in my life. I hope that my journey can help you too, and that together we can get through all of the highs and lows that we will face in this world known as TTC.

I am 29 years old, and I live in Florida with my wonderful hubby who is also 29. We met in college in NH, and had lived in the northeast our entire lives until about 6 years ago when we decided the cold and snow weren't for us and picked up and moved 1300 miles away to Florida. Mr. June Bud and I love children, and he is currently a Social Services Supervisor for a program that represents children in the child welfare system. I am a Guidance Counselor, and our hearts could not be more in love with children. Long before we even decided to get married, we felt that children in the foster care system needed our help, and we opened our home to foster children for 2.5 years. We never had the intention of adopting...heck, we were only about 25 years old at the time, but we wanted to give these abandoned little kids a place to call home while they were looking for their forever home. This only lasted about two minutes, because as soon as the first child came to our home, we were in love and were determined to adopt them. We had A LOT of heartbreak along the way, but made wonderful memories that will last a lifetime. We fostered four children before our son, and on October 31, 2007 our baby came home. He was a curly haired adorable 9 month old who had been severely neglected by his birth mom. We fostered him and fought to adopt him for over two years before we were finally given the opportunity to officially make him our son on November 30, 2009. He is my "pumpkin baby," and he was born in our hearts on that beautiful Halloween day in 2007.

Mr. June Bud and I were married in October 2008, and our little guy was by our side on that wonderful day. Once we knew last summer that we could officially adopt our son, we started TTC. We felt it was important to make sure that he could be our forever son before we brought another baby into the picture. Dealing with the loss of a foster child is tremendous, and for me, it was not an option to have our own kids if we did not know if our foster son could be with us forever. We needed to grieve and deal with his loss first, if it were to come to that. Once we had the official word that his adoption was in the works, we jumped on the TTC bandwagon. What a year it has been...when I started down the adoption and TTC path, I had no idea what a BBT was, what taking my temps meant, what OPK's were, how to time intercourse, or what in the world CERVICAL MUCUS WAS!!!!!!! I felt like I entered a whole new universe, and that my sanity had gone with it. I never in a MILLION years would have though that it would take so much out of me just to start a little June Bud family. But now, 13 months later it has been a very interesting ride, with a long road still in front of us. Although I have learned a lot over the past year, it was not done without feeling uncertainty, rejection, humility, and of course many shared tears and laughs. Sigh, I know I still have a long way to go, but I can't wait to share this experience with you!

Thanks for listening! There's a lot more where that came from! :-)

June Bud