Danette

Congratulations James and Christy Blessings to you and your Birthfamily. Danette

Congratulations Sara and Andrew, May God bless your new family and birth family and bless your little angel Gavin. Danette

Dawn and Ben, Congratulations!! Chris and I are so happy for your family. What a great Christmas present. It is nice to see that the Gliders wrapped it up in a little less than a year. We wish you peace love and Happiness and enjoy every moment. Welcome home Ben. Danette and Chris

Congratulations Patti and Todd and God bless baby Alejandro and his birth family. Danette

Congratulations to Leah and Kevin and Patty and Todd. Blessings on your expanded family and enjoy every minute. Danette

Please excuse us of being new parents but we just saw this most beautiful post from home office. I just called Abrazo to thank them for the most beautiful message that we could every receive and thank God they were out to lunch because I don't think I can talk with out sobbing. It means so much to us for this post that words can't express our thanks to Abrazo and who ever wrote this and I know who did because she writes so beautiful on this forum. I noticed that the above message that is in Greek was from the Desiderata which is italian. My mother Sharon's maiden name is Desiderato and she has passed 18 years ago and how crazy that a saying that was used for us was from the Desiderata which I have a couple of books on being it is a family name. Gus which is Costa in Greek is our nephew who was 8 years old and died in a car accident. They definitely are our angels. We appreciate Abrazo for recognizing two people we love and miss. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for this. I have copied and pasted it and it will be displayed at our baby shower that our family is having for us. It will also be framed and put in Christo's room. We look forward to camp Abrazo and I will hold on to all my baby girl things in which the theme was angels and look forward to when abrazo can make another dream come true. Sincere thanks to Abrazo, Chris , Danette and Christo Pontikis

Melanie, Thank you for sharing your journey with us. We met you, your daughter and her friend at orientation in January 2011. Chris and I were so moved on how beautiful an open adoption could be. We left that day saying to each other how lucky we were to be at the orientation to see how beautiful your relationship is with Amy and Craig. We were definitely inspired. We pray that our open relationship with our expectant family blossoms as yours has. We will pray for you and your adoptive family that your relationships strengthen even more than it has through the years and look forward to hearing more of your posts. God Bless Danette and Chris

Now that Chris and I are matched with our Birthfamily and going through the emotions of this journey I look back and think of the conversations and decisions that were made just recently. I imagined for the birthfamily making such a brave and loving decision that they go through similar emotions that we do as Adoptive Parents. I have respect for the birthfamily selection process and feel honored to have been chosen and that it was a big loving decision. Danette

Hilarious!!! Chris will take a double scoop!!

This defintely makes alot of sense. Clears things up for those who are interested in doing this. Thank you for posting. I will say it again!!! Great information. Danette

Hi Jessica, Good luck at orientation. It is alot of helpful information and the ladies there are amazing. A weekend to remember. I do have a friend who is a lactation nurse. She informed me that I could breast feed. I really did look at her like she has 3 heads. One thing to keep in mind and I do not know your journey to get to Abrazo. I did 9 rounds of fertility treatments with alot of hormones and one thing that always sticks in my mind is that I did not feel well. It was hard on my body. My answer to my friend was that I will not stick one more hormone in my body it has had enough. On the other side she said women do it and they seem to enjoy it and yes it does not always work for everyone. I admire you for checking into this and think you should do the research of what this all entails. One thing I think of is I do not have to feel hormonal when we are blessed with our baby and that will be nice. Good luck and I hope it works out for you. Danette

Hi Merae and Scott, Look forward to meeting you at the orientation. How exciting for the quick response. See you soon. Danette and Chris Pontikis

Thank you. Yes I did get them and gave the requirments to my Social Worker who is handling our case. Thank you again!!! Danette Hi Amy, Thank you. We are excited to get going. We figured we would start our home study so we can be ready for what ever comes next. I figured we would do all the homestudy work because I am sure there is post orientation work when we come back. Thank you for the encouragement. Danette

Chris and I had our first homestudy interview today!!! We like our Social worker and we have our work cut out for us. We look forward to all the knowledge we are going to gain after this. Lot's of great educational advice and learning tools for the adoption process. We are happy to begin this process. Danette and Chris :

Elizabeth, I tried to locate the Home study guidelines to bring to my first Homestudy meeting December 13th and I could no locate them under professional corner if you could guide me to the guidelines that would be helpful or email them to me at danette7166@yahoo.com. Thank you Danette

Elizabeth, Thank you for all that information. It has been helpful. I made sure the Homestudy included post placement fees and it does and it is 3,000 at the most so it seems to be right in line with what you found. I appreciate the time you spent on this. Thank you Danette

Thank you for the welcomes. The Home Study we decided to go with is at the most $3,000 and this includes post placement. When we heard $7,000 we did our research and were recommended to a Luthern Charities. So the numbers I see that have been posted are about right for a Home Study and post placement. Thank you for the responeses. We have our first meeting December 13th. We are looking forward to getting started. Thank you Danette

Hello Everyone, Chris and I are so excited to get started with abrazo. Reading all the subjects on the forum we sure have alot to learn. Our application is in and we are waiting for the invitation for January 2011. We have our first meeting for our homestudy December 13th 2010. If there is anyone on this forum who has done a homestudy in Illinois it would be great to get some information from you. We picked a agency to do the homestudy and I have been told that the fee may be too high. Would love to talk to anyone about there homestudy to see if we are in the right ball park. Look forward to being on this forum and getting started in this exciting process. Danette

Hello everyone my name is Danette. I was on the forum 2 months ago we were planning on shooting for the July orientation but we are in the middle of being relocated. When is the best time to turn all paperwork in if we plan on getting settled first and aiming for a late spring early summer orientation. Also should we wait for the home study until we know our exact orientation information. Thank you Danette