Brian and Cathy

Welcome Julie and mysterious husband My husband is also known as the "mysterious" one I, too, spent a few months lurking out here before I contacted Elizabeth with my specific questions before making the decision to go with Abrazo. The Forum has been a great wealth of information for me. I feel like it is part of my extended family and have since my first post I look forward to following your journey. Hoping to learn that you'll be attending an orientation session in the not too far future. Cathy

Karen, 14 can be a very rough age I'm thinking of you and your son during this difficult time. I will also light a candle for you all. Cathy

Congratulations to the guardian angels and the little cowboy (aka baby rat) Cathy

Welcome Ashleigh and Michael and, of course, little John I, too, lurked for a few months before I joined the Forum. However, I never did introduce myself but jumped right in. A bit late for me to introduce myself at this point Hopefully you'll be able to get everything together so that everything can come together so we can follow your journey with Abrazo. It's a great place with great Abrazochicks Cathy

Melissa, You might have already found your answer, but I'll comment just in case. It was suggested during our orientation that the front page contain a photo of just the two of you, but other than that it was okay to have family photos. It was suggested to make sure there were a few of the two of you throughout. Cathy

40 are now burning

Me too, and I definately do Cathy

I missed it Hoping you get your invite soon We'd love to follow your journey Cathy

Try "Parents-in-Waiting" under page 2 "Homework, Homework, Homework." I think that's the thread you might be looking for Cathy

21 now burning. . .

Elizabeth, you said there would be a first. . .though I don't believe you were referring to something like this. Is this AC really open to "open adoption" As I often say though, "to each his/her own." Cathy

That is sad, Jenny But, so nice that you and her other birth family members have welcomed her Cathy

Nice to see another happy ending I think it's sad that so many times adoptees have been told their birth mother is no longer living Why are they told that if it's not true? To keep them from looking? Cathy

I just lit 5, so now there are 9 burning

Thanks, Stork, for passing on this information. According to the site, it will be launched November 1, 2007. Cathy

Ours as well However, the distance is about 1 1/2 hours for our SW Cathy

It's early for Brian and me, but I've been reminding our family (mostly mine) that our child's BP will forever be a part of our family. I think part of it has to do with their age and thefact that they grew up in closed adoptions and aren't that familiar with open adoptions (yet). Cathy

Thanks, Adam and Elizabeth for your explanations. I do understand that we can not go forward until our homestudy is done. I completely understand that. I even told Angela that this past week when we spoke about how far along we were with our homestudy. I was just curious because I thought the profile was how a BP was informed about an AP. Based on what I've learned so far, I didn't think about those who have their homestudy done before their profile Thanks, again to you both! Cathy

Just curious. . .what information were the BMs given if they weren't given your profile? I guess I'm curious as to what they based their decision on? Please don't take this wrong--from what I know you and Beth very much deserve to be selected Cathy

We took a copy of our profile with us when we went to some friends last night. It ended up getting passed around. One person who was especially impressed was an adoptee. She looked at our cover picture and said from that photo alone she could tell we were a nice and sincere couple. The interesting thing was that we had never met her before, this was our first introduction We also pointed out our wedding photo and told her that sometimes it's suggested that you should leave that photo out if it's an old photo. Well, having been married over 17 years it's obviously an out-dated photo. She glanced at it again and said we didn't look old Now, if we can just find a BP who agrees with her Cathy

I'm sure Nichole appreciated you holding off on sharing this information about Joshua until you could tell her personally I know my dad hates learning something about me from someone else--even at this age I'm glad that Joshua is feeling better. Cathy

Welcome Maureen and Dan. I can't assist with your homestudy question since I live in Tennessee, but I wanted to at least welcome you to the Forum Cathy