Hi Erin and James, and Sugar Family, and all the new prospective parents. Welcome to Abrazo. My husband Paul and I originally started with a local agency in MD, and we were planning to adopt from Guatemala. But as we learned more about all the problems that Guatemala was facing in terms of regulations for adoption, we decided we would try domestic. The cousin of a friend of ours, and an Abrazo mom told us about her wondeful experience. THat was the Summer of 2007. We attended orientation in November '07, and we got a call about a BOG (baby on the ground, you'll learn all this alphabet soup of terms soon ) on Feburary 17. Our baby had been born the day before, and by February 19 he was in our arms.
I was just singing Abrazo's praises to a friend who came to visit me and Michael today. She sounded interested in the whole process and although she didn't say so, I think that having Mikey in her arms made her think of the amazing possibilities that a little one brings to your life.
Now, to all of you new families-- I have a package of materials that you might need when you start putting together your profile-- colored paper, some stickers, etc. I went a bit overboard when I bough the materials for ours (I literally went to 2 Targets and 2 Michael's in 2 different states ). I am glad to mail some of this materials for you to build your profile so you don't have to spend money on it. The paper is in blue hues, and I have some patterned paper. OUr profile is no longer posted on the Gallery since we're already in the post-placement phase, but trust me the colors are really cool and so is the patterned paper. So if anyone is interested, send me a PM and I'll be glad to mail you the left-over materials we have. I hope they will bring you luck like they did to us.