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Whoa...It’s Been A Minute

It’s been nearly two years since I updated this blog. I’m sorry I haven’t kept up to date - but I do want to update all of you on our life! 

Casa de Stouder is a crazy one, indeed. Since my last update, we have moved to a small town outside of Ames, Iowa and are really enjoying it. My husband loves his company that he works for and is happy to go to work everyday. I’m working on campus and I really enjoy working with college students and helping students prepare for college. 

Most importantly, since our blog started as an adoption blog - I should probably update all of you that we have adopted a beautiful little girl named Annabelle. She came into our life quickly and without much notice last July. She is 10 months old and is so loved an just a wonderful baby. 

I plan to backtrack to update you all on the rest of our journey to bringing Annabelle home - but that will have to wait for another day! 

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Our adoption profile! Marla Claussen helped us lay everything out as well as took the new photos! Now that our homestudy is approved, our profile is being shown to birth parents in hopes that they like us and choose us. The nice thing is that our homestudy "travels" well - so if we find ourselves with an opportunity to adopt through private means, we would be most likely able to do so.

Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers - it means the world to us! 

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Just a sneak peek of some of the photos we had done to include in our adoption profile! We could not be happier with how these turned out. Our good friend, Marla Claussen Brown of Claussen Photography, took these shots AND helped us layout our book! She is excellent and has great design ideas. I feel great that our book reflects who we are and makes us look good, all at the same time! If you are looking for an update of family photos, adoption profile help, babies, seniors, and more - CALL HER.

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Approved!!

Just got the best mail ever - our home study came back and Nate and I are officially approved!!!! Now, we wait. Some more. We are thrilled and glad that giant piece is done. The nice thing is that our home study travels well - meaning that if we found our way into a private adoption or an adoption outside of our agency, our home study would still apply, so we are ready no matter what. It needs to be updated yearly, though!

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we wait to see what is planned for us. We are working on our patience and waiting to be selected.

[triciastouder]

Adoption Profile

Part of our process is putting together a profile for parents to look at as they make an adoption plan. We did not realize it at the time, but this is QUITE the daunting process. During our home study, we talked about getting out "book" together quite a bit. Amy stressed making sure that we remained true to ourselves - you never know what someone is going to connect with as they look through our book. 

There is really no set of rules to follow as we put the book together - we were advised to keep it about 20 pages and to talk about us. 20 pages seemed like a lot to fill up, but we found as we started describing our lives, that we could have filled much much more. We talked about what we like, our home and neighborhood, our hobbies, traditions - our families, our faith, and our pets. Marley made several appearances. 

We were very blessed to have a friend of mine offer to take new photos for us to put into out book. As it turns out, Nate and I don't have a lot of good photos together - I'm making faces, or he looks half asleep. Who knew?! But anyway - Marla is a very talented photographer, and she helped us take some photos and set up some shots that helped us tell our story. They turned out GREAT. She even helped us with the layout and design of the book - which took SO much time. 10 total drafts - yikes!! We had many friends and family proof it and help us fill in the blanks we were missing, and tell us where we were being too long winded. We are so very blessed to have so many people looking out for us. Truly - thank each of you! 

I cannot thank Marla of Claussen Photography enough for helping us. The book looks amazing. If you are looking for family photos, seniors, infant, wedding, newborn, or need help designing a photobook or adoption profile - call her. Truly. Awesome work!

In reality, each mom gets about 8-10 books at a time to look at, which I'm sure is an overwhelming task for her. She can decide to meet potential adoptive parents from that group, or she can pick a couple without meeting, or she can decide that none seem to be a good fit. We just don't know how or what someone will like (or not like) about us at this point. We just wait. 

So - please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we wait to hear if our home study has been approved. 

[triciastouder]

Update - Home study!

Shortly before our first class, we started the home study process, which I wrote about. It took us until May 1st to really finish the home study interviews. There were four in total - one in her office and three in our home. She toured our home, met with us one on one, and gave us some questionnaires. Amy, our social worker, is awesome - she made this big scary process seem like getting to know a new friend. There were a lot of questions about our families and our marriage, about our parenting style, etc. She answered a lot of our questions, as well. She took notes on all of our visits, and compiles them into a giant report that she will submit for approval. All in all, it is about twelve hours of meetings! We are super glad to have that step completed. It was pretty nerve wracking, but really, it was not anything to be nervous about.

We are done with that step and just waiting to hear if our home study has been approved. Once it is, it is our last step that we can do, so it is just a waiting game! 

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Long Overdue Update!

Hello, everyone! 

Sorry it has been do very long since we posted an update, but there has been a lot of action!! 

I'll start where I left off - Last time I posted, we were getting ready for our first required class about Transracial Adoption, or adopting a child of  a different race. It was in Cedar Rapids in April. At this training, there were about 10 other adopting couples, some working through the Des Moines office. It was so nice to meet other couples going through the same long process as us! In this training, we watched a video about an adoptee that was adopted from an orphanage and was born in Korea. Her parents were Caucasian, and she talked about her personal challenges growing up as the only Korean in her family and community. We also had a social worker that has an adopted child that is a different race - she shared stories about times that their family has come under scrutiny. It was very enlightening and helpful - both Nate and I were glad to be able to address concerns and thoughts about being open to adopting a child of a different race. 

Our second training was about whole family adoption. This was held in May. For this training, we had to drive to Des Moines and there were only about six other adopting couples. We met with many social workers that talked through the adoption process from the birth parent side and how the process and support works, even after placement. For me, it was really comforting to know that our social workers work very hard to support and care for mothers and fathers - even after the point that the child is placed with adoptive parents. They are advocates for the father as well as the mother and have a male social worker on staff that works with them. Again, we feel so secure in knowing that Bethany has done the counseling, coaching, and support before an adoption plan is even formed that it is a great load off of our shoulders. They had a father who has adopted three different times talk with us about involving the birth parents and birth family and what that looks like. With each of the six birth parents, his family has a different relationship. He encouraged us to be open and aware as we move forward with a family. He said it is important for his children to understand that there is a bigger family that loves them - in different ways. 

These trainings are part of a catalog of offerings through our agency. There are a variety of topics - special needs, trauma, breastfeeding, newborn care and more. Nate and I have not taken advantage of any other classes besides our two required ones, but look forward to having the opportunity to do so in the future. 

There is plenty more that is happening and has happened - but I'll save some of that for another post coming soon. 

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Next Fundraisers!

Because we are moving right along in the process, we are going to hold our next fundraisers. Because of all your amazing support, these will likely be our last fundraisers. We cannot thank you enough! 

First: My friend Elley is a Thirty One consultant. She is SO sweet, and offered to donate some of the profits from a Thirty One party. You can place your order through me through Facebook, email, text - whatever works. They have some adorable, adorable new patterns and wonderful new products. Check out Thirtyonegifts.com to get an idea. Please spread the word! Don't miss out!! What can be better? Getting some CUTE new bags and supporting a great cause!! 

Second: We are selling frozen food, as well. Check out the AMAZING flyer my friend Jacky did! 

If you want to order food, just give me about a week or two's notice so we can make sure we get everything made. The food is delicious! It makes amazing gifts for new or expectant moms, friends that are moving, if you have friends or family in town, office potlucks or if you just want to take a night off of cooking and still have a tasty meal. Please pass the flyer to anyone that might interested!!! Let me know if you have any questions about the food! 

Thanks again for all your support. You guys have been wonderful!!! 

[triciastouder]

First Home Study: CHECK

Nate and I had our first of four home study visits this week. Amy, our social worker, is awesome. Even though it is called a "home" study - we had our first visit in her office. Our next three will be in our home. We chatted back and forth and learned a bit more about each other. She asked us some questions about ourselves, our relationship, and our reasons for adopting. It was good conversation and we are excited to keep working and learning from her. 

Our next home study visit is actually set for this coming week, and Amy is coming to our house. I'm definitely making sure our furry friends are on their best behavior! We'll continue our conversation from our last meeting, except this time, each of us will spend some time one on one with Amy. 

We also start our classes - a week from Monday. We are excited to learn from other adoptive families. We are rolling - trying to move through things as we are able to do so. 

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we move through this journey!

[triciastouder]

Forward, March!

How fitting that this is the month of March - because that is what we are doing! Moving ahead! Nate and I got some great news - our formal application has been approved!!! YAY! 

So what that means - we get to move ahead on the big checklist. We are now eligible to take our required classes through Bethany, and we can start to schedule for our home study process. 

Our first class is coming up in April - it is covering Transracial adoptions, and is aimed to help us determine our openness to a child of a different racial or ethnic background than Nate and I. We're really looking forward to it and learning more and connecting with other couples in the same position as us. 

We have been emailing with our social worker abut setting up our first home study visit. This one is actually not in our home, but in her office. That looks like it will be schedule for sometime in the next two weeks. Exciting, but nerve wracking. We want to make a good impression. 

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers - we really appreciate it!!!

[triciastouder]

Overall Adoption Process

It has been awhile since we have blogged so we want to get everyone up to date on our adoption process.  This is a longer post – very fitting with this step of the process that we are completing now. I’ll do my best to give an overview of the steps we have to take to get ourselves ready to bring a child into our home. In January we met with our social worker at Bethany Christian Services.  This was a meeting to go over the details once more before we officially started the process.  This was a good refresher meeting, and a chance to ask questions.  Our social worker has been great for answering our questions and being very honest with us.  After the meeting we were excited and ready to get started on the paperwork. ALL. the. paperwork. 

 I am sure it is really difficult to understand the process we are actually going through.  I am going to try to explain it so you can somewhat understand the process.  The first step is what they call the pre-application.  The pre-application consisted of three parts.  The first was a small application about us.  This consisted of general information about us – name, employment, and included information about the church we attend.  The second part is signing a statement of faith that we agree to. Because Bethany is a Christian Service, they require their applicants to also have a strong Christian faith.  This is also important for Tricia and me, which is one of the main reasons we chose Bethany.  Finally the third step is answering written questions about our own personal faith.  Both Tricia and I completed this.  The pre-application took us about 10 days from getting it to completion.   Each step is put into a “portal” – or an online program that we access information from. After each step we have to pay for that step in order to move onto the next.  After we completed the pre-application all we could do is wait until it was approved. 

 We were very excited when were informed that our pre-application was approved! It took about two weeks for us to get notified.  This meant that we could move on to the formal application.  The formal application is much more significant than the pre-application.  The first step was very detailed application.  This included personal information, employment information, information about our families, financial information, prior employment information, past addresses, criminal history, and more.  Let’s just say they want to know everything about us and this was just the first part of the formal application.  Tricia and I both had to provide and sign an employment verification form.  This gives Bethany permission to contact our employers to verify we have provided correct information on our application.  Both of us also had to have our employer sign a document verifying that we have health insurance and that a child could be added to our insurance plan at any time.  This wasn’t too difficult but still took some time.  One of the steps we had to do was get a background check.  This was a fun process (sarcasm).  In order to do this we had to get our finger prints taken at the Sherriff’s office.  This sounds easy but they only do fingerprinting on Tuesday’s between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM.  Real convenient, I know.  Fortunately we were both able to take time away from work to get it done.  Tricia and I also had to get medical exams from our doctor.  This was similar to most medical exams, but it also included a drug test.  It was good for both of us to get checked out but it was just another part of the process that took some time to get done.  One of the steps that we had to complete was a little easier for us but passed on some of the work to some of our friends and family.  We had to provide four names to Bethany that they could contact as references.  The only difficult part was deciding whom we wanted to be our references, especially since only one of them could be family. We feel really blessed that we have many people that were willing to help us out with this process – and even more grateful that they did it quickly! 

 We have finally completed all of the formal application.  This means that now we are in a waiting period.  We have to wait for the formal application to be approved.  After the formal application is approved we will move on to the home studies.  The home studies consist of home visits from our social worker. This allows Bethany to learn more about our family and our home environment.  These will also consist of interviews of Tricia and me.  During this time, the conversations with our social worker are personal and up close. They want to get a good feel for the kind of parents we will be, and beyond that, the kind of extended family and community we live in. We feel the difficulty of the home studies will comes with scheduling them.  We have to complete four different home studies and they are typically scheduled on weekdays during the week.  Luckily we both have jobs that will allow us to take an afternoon off to get these completed.  The home studies can be a little nerve wracking but we are excited to get started.

  Once the home studies are completed and approved we have to attend two educational classes.  The two educational classes are Whole Family Training and Transracial Adoption.  These classes will prepare us to be adoptive parents.  There are other classes that Bethany offers.  These classes can help us prepare for adopting but are not required.  There is so much information about so many different facets of adoption – it is a little overwhelming! We can’t wait to dig in and find out even more. As we get more into that step, we’ll post more about the classes – but in the meantime, just a few of the classes we can choose from: special needs, breastfeeding, baby care, easing the transition, attachment and bonding, AND MORE! After we complete these classes we can start to create our adoption profile.  We can be very creative with our adoption profile.  The purpose of the profile is to share all about our family.  This can consist of personal information, education, employment, our home, family traditions, pets, community involvement, and more.  The profile is presented to moms that are thinking about giving up their child for adoption.  There is a lot of pressure on this step because we don’t get to meet with the moms to explain ourselves or our lifestyle. They only get a profile to decide if we might be a fit. Depending on the circumstances, there are a lot of scenarios that mothers can be in when they are choosing a family for their child. For us this is just waiting game.  There is no guess on time frame, nor is there a guarantee. In order for a child to get placed with us, the mom chooses us.   This is why our profile is so important. We have to learn to be patient, open minded and to trust our journey to God. We cannot control it.

 You can probably start to gather the theme of adopting: hurry up to get stuff done so you can wait.  We knew going into the adoption it was going to be a long process.  So far we have moved through it pretty quickly.  This is probably because we are so motivated to bring a child into our home and start loving them.  We ask for your prayers and support as we continue throughout the process.  You have no idea how much it as meant to us.  If you have any questions about our adoption process feel free to ask at any time.

 -Nate

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Paperwork, paperwork and MORE paperwork!

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Blog Article on Open Adoption

Hey! 

We get a lot of questions on what “type” of adoption Nate and I are pursuing. We haven’t talked about it much here, but only because we are so early in the process. Nate and I are actively seeking an open domestic infant adoption. Domestic means a child from the United States. Infant means, well - baby. Pretty straightforward. 

Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other’s personal information and have an option of contact. In Open Adoption, the adoptive parents hold all the rights as the legal parents, yet the individuals of the biological and adoptive families may exercise the option to open the contact in varying forms: from just sending mail and/or photos, to face-to-face visits between birth and adoptive families. 

We feel like having an open adoption is the best case for our future child. There are no questions, no hidden mystery, no big secret - just love. Above all else, this journey is not about Nate and I - it is about our future child. It is about what is best for them.  

This is a really good blog article by an adoptive mom that has an open adoption. I highly recommend it! https://www.adoptimist.com/adoption-blog/10-frequently-asked-questions-about-our-open-adoption#.Ut8vm8Tnac8

*Note: not all open adoptions work this way. Every situation is unique, and sometimes, open or closed, adoption gets messy and emotions can run high. Don’t judge those pursuing this path - on either side. 

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Next Fundraiser

Hello everyone! We are excited to announce our next fundraising efforts for the Baby Stouder fund! 

I am hosting an Arbonne health and wellness party in my home next Saturday. I have used Arbonne products for a number of years, as has Nate and my mother. A friend of mine, Megan, an Independent Consultant with Arbonne, heard about Nate and I’s plans to adopt, and she wanted to help by donating her income from a party to us! How generous!! 

First - Arbonne is a health and wellness company with over 400 botanically-based products for the family including skincare, nutrition, weight loss, baby care, personal care, and cosmetics.  We have something for everyone and probably something you’re already using!  If you’d like to personally help us with this fundraiser we have a couple of ways for you to help.

1.  Join us January 25th at 10 AM for a fun event featuring delicious snacks, samples, and door prizes. 

2.  If you can’t make it on the 25th, view the WebEvent via the link provided (http://www.mywebevent.com/M2W3LBNMJN8lt3oJczuW) to learn more about Arbonne.  If you’d like to purchase some products, please contact Megan Fischer, at 641-425-9432 or staley.megan@gmail.com.  She would love to help you get something you’ll love and use and help you save some money, all while supporting us.  If you want to just order directly from the party, visit this link - https://www.arbonne.com/shop_online/vpPresentationCode.asp and enter presentation ID 1002208.

3.  If you’re a fun-loving person who loves to shop at an 80% discount, get a couple of friends together.  All events booked from this fundraiser will help us financially as we continue on our adoption journey. I’m really hoping we have a couple people take us up on this – the parties are always fun! 

Let me know if you are planning on coming next week! Can't wait to see you! 

[triciastouder]

Tricia and I both have a strong passion for the 4-H program.  4-H is a youth development program.  In 4-H, youth learn through active, hands on educational programs and in working with caring adults. We both grew up in 4-H and were greatly involved.  Tricia and I belonged to the same 4-H club, the Busy Bees/Future Feeders.  The 4-H program is a big part of who we are today, and we give the program a lot of credit for our successes in life.  Because we feel so strongly about 4-H, we are both still involved in the 4-H as adults.  Tricia is involved through her profession -she is a Youth Specialist for the 4-H program.  She oversees the 4-H program in four counties.  Part of her job includes developing learning programs and opportunities for youth in her four counties, as well has writing grants to help support 4-H programing.  I am currently involved as a 4-H volunteer.  I serve as a club leader in two different counties.  In this role I get to help the youth in my club find new interests and help them be productive citizens.  I am also on the 4-H beef committee in Johnson County.  This is new role for me but I am very excited for the new opportunity.  Part of what we do in 4-H is model how to give back to our communities – and I’m excited to show young people what that looks like as an adult.  

  Just last week, Tricia and I both helped at the Johnson County beef weigh-in.  This is where kids bring in their 4-H cattle to get their beginning weight for the year.  It was a little cold, and we were outside for four hours, but it was fun to get to see all the kids, especially the ones in my club.  Beef was my favorite project when I was a 4-Her, so I really like helping out the kids with their cattle.  It is events like these that make me see the growth of youth in 4-H.  Through livestock – they learn so much.  By doing chores, they assume responsibility.  To make it lead, they must practice. This takes discipline and patience.  Through feed records, they learn about record keeping, feed rations, and so much more.  The lessons youth can learn from livestock are endless. It makes me proud to be a 4-H volunteer.

 You may be asking why I am posting about the 4-H program on our adoption blog.  Well, 4-H was and is a big part of our lives and we want to continue this tradition in our family.  I am excited to be a 4-H parent one day.    My dad was a 4-H leader for both of us – and he and I worked with cattle together.  I learned a lot from him.  He taught me a lot of life lessons, as well as a lot about cattle.  It is something we still share today through Stouder Shorthorns. I love going to cattle shows with him, talking about genetics, and more. Just the way our parents passed on the tradition of 4-H to us, we are excited to pass this tradition on to our child.  4-H and other traditions have always been a big part of our family.  I am excited to continue those traditions and start new ones with our child.   

--Nate

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Nate’s dad helping scoop cookies. 

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Our table filled with cookies to deliver!