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linlacor

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Great news!

If you guys are from the Memphis area, you'll have lots of support from the "been there, done that" Memphis crowd!! We've got a great group!

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Well, today was an exceptionally wonderful day. Tim and I got the call we were hoping for! We were invited to orientation in August and are booking our flight from Memphis now! This is such an exciting time and we feel so blessed. Now we will work to finish everything up with our home study before orientation! On a side note, the yellow turned out beautifully.

That is awesome!!! Look forward to hearing all about your time in Tx and your orientation weekend!!

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Well, today was an exceptionally wonderful day. Tim and I got the call we were hoping for! We were invited to orientation in August and are booking our flight from Memphis now! This is such an exciting time and we feel so blessed. Now we will work to finish everything up with our home study before orientation! On a side note, the yellow turned out beautifully.

Congratulations! One of the first of several exciting calls to come from Abrazo! I remember being thrilled to get that official invitation to attend orientation and we had a great time there! August is just around the corner, and from that point you have to be ready because you never know when more calls will come!

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Thanks for all the encouragement. Journaling is a great idea. Both Tim and I started our own "journals" when we sent in our inquiry. He does videos and I started wirting to our children, so they would know how much they are loved even before we knew how we would become a family. We are from the Memphis area, Collierville to be exact. It is great that there is such a large adoptive community here, I am sure we will get involved as soon as we can. Right now we are focused on the home study and our profile!! This forum is a wealth of information and support and we love it! I guess I should get back to work now:)

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Congrats on being accepted to orientation, it's such a great weekend that you will enjoy! A lot of people blog under the Joyous Journeys and Birthparent Blogs sections, so check those out too (if you haven't already). I know it took me a little bit to navigate the forum and get used to it, so another thing you can use is clicking the View New Content in the upper right hand corner and that will help point out the topics where there is more recent postings. There is so much info out here I know I haven't even explored a lot of the other topics, but I like keeping up with the day to day posts using that feature.

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Thanks for all the encouragement. Journaling is a great idea. Both Tim and I started our own "journals" when we sent in our inquiry. He does videos and I started wirting to our children, so they would know how much they are loved even before we knew how we would become a family. We are from the Memphis area, Collierville to be exact. It is great that there is such a large adoptive community here, I am sure we will get involved as soon as we can. Right now we are focused on the home study and our profile!! This forum is a wealth of information and support and we love it! I guess I should get back to work now:)

There is definitely a great group in Memphis! Our 2 year old son has a 4 year old biological sister and she and her adoptive family live in Germantown. I am pretty sure that is near Collierville if I remember correctly! We are hoping to get down to visit a few times this summer!

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Congratulations on the official invitation! How exciting - it is defiitely a weekend you will never forget! You will certainly a wonderful, huge Abrazo family around you already in the Memphis area.

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Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. Tim and I are trying to complete everything for our Home Study before orientation, which is just around the corner. We have to get physicals and were provided with a form, but wanted to make sure there were not different or specific requirements for the state of Texas. Any guidance is appreciated.

Leslie

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I believe there was a medical form that we got in the packet they give you at the end of orientation and it had some different tests on there than what our home study agency had us do, so you may want to call and ask Brianna about the requirements.

Jocelyn 1st-N-10 and BGE&s

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I ended up having to go back in to the doctor after my homestudy physical to get more blood work and tests done that the Abrazo medical form required but the homestudy physical didn't. So yes, check with Abrazo first!

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Thanks for the help, y'all!

One other question. Could someone assist with filling us in on the CPR info...which course is the one we need to take & is there a preferred way to take the course?

Is there something in your paperwork that says you need to take a CPR class? Maybe this has been added since we went through in 2010, but we voluntarily took a CPR class as one of our homework assignments (which you'll hear more about at orientation). We took it through a local hospital and sat in a class full of pregnant women and held CPR babies and learned about other general infant safety.

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Not too sure about the CPR.

It was not required by Abrazo last year but it might be now. As Melissa stated, it would. Be a great homework assignment.

Is it required in your state prior to adopting?

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I'm not 100% sure if it is required. I saw it mentioned on this page: http://abrazo.org/want-to-adopt/adoptive-parent-homework/ .

Just not sure if there's some required paperwork to turn in upon its completion.

I probably should've prefaced that we are trying our best to get as much checked off of our list before next month's orientation. This might be a question for me to send to the home office or simply wait until orientation to find out.

Thanks for the insight!

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My understanding of the homework is that it should be done throughout your journey up until placement of your child. This way you are learning and talking about adoption topics throughout your "pregnancy", so the homework is not necessarily something that should be done all at once or prior to orientation.

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I'm not 100% sure if it is required. I saw it mentioned on this page: http://abrazo.org/wa...arent-homework/ .

Just not sure if there's some required paperwork to turn in upon its completion.

I probably should've prefaced that we are trying our best to get as much checked off of our list before next month's orientation. This might be a question for me to send to the home office or simply wait until orientation to find out.

Thanks for the insight!

The biggest lesson I learned about profiles (we asked lots of "been there, done that" folks for input) was more photos, less text. Let these expectant parents get a visual of your life. From there, they can decide whether or not they want to hear more straight from you.

We read as much on the forum as possible to get our home study (TX approved) out of the way. We were ready with a completed profile on day 1. Within two weeks of what would have been our orientation weekend (ours was cancelled), we were took our first phone call.

Homework is definitely something you can go ahead and get started on. "Book reports" or classes make for good homework assignments. Read a book and write a couple of pages about your thoughts or theme your paper around something (kinda like a term paper, only with less documentation and siting... and only one source + your personal thoughts). You can also watch a movie and write a paper about that. It's always helpful (and more meaningful) for both you and your husband to include thoughts in your writing. Classes can be done locally... we used Methodist hospital for our CPR class. It was held at Methodist Germantown in a little building behind the hospital that looks like a house. It only took a couple of hours. We asked for our pay stub and included that on our write-up of what we learned at the class. You can sign up for their classes by calling the hospital and asking for a contact name/#.

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Talked to someone else today who's been accepted to the August orientation... another Memphis couple! Makes me want to jump on-board to have the first nearly all-Memphis orientation group! :P

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  • 1 month later...

Hey all! Is anyone else out there working on their application? We haven't gotten our official application packet in the mail, but found the blank copy online and are working on a rough draft! Also took some house photos and drew our floor plan today (thanks to my engineer husband)! Question: for letters of reference, they all have to be non-related right? Is there ever a chance for relatives to contribute? How much does it matter if the personal reference has not seen you interact with kids much (for instance, a college roommate)? What is the purpose of putting down your family physician- so they can be a personal reference, or so they can give medical records? I really don't have a family physician since all I have been seeing doctors for since moving here is infertility. Thanks!

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Hey, Grace! I think it's awesome that you're searching ahead like you are and getting things out of the way. Steven and I did the same thing and conquored each thing one at a time. I had lists everywhere keeping me organized with what I needed, what was due next, etc.

Yes, letters of reference need to be non-related. It's okay if they haven't seen you around kids. I had one from friends of the family who have 7 kids and could attest to how I was with children. The other was from my boss (who'd never seen me around kids). I think we also had one from one of my good friends. I think the main thing is that someone can attest to how you are as a person, talk about how they feel you'll be as parents, etc. It's nothing too big. For one agency, we had a letter from our pastor. My mother also had the chance to write a letter about us at that point. It might be very healing for your family to have the chance to feel like they are contributing to your journey in some way. Even if it's not required at Abrazo, asking a family member who's especially involved (or who you might want to nudge into being more involved) could be a good addition to your application.

Not sure about the family physician part... I know we had to go to a family physician to get a TB (tuburculosis) test at some point in the process and also to get a well check/physical saying we were fit health-wise to become parents. It could have something to do with that.

I'll have to check, but maybe earlier in this thread people threw out some suggestions of what could get done ahead of time. I'll look back through some posts and re-post what I find. Also, if you PM me your email address, I can email you a few profile samples so you can get a head start playing around with things if you'd like. :)

Oh, one thing you could go ahead and get is a letter from your infertility doctor stating (in no uncertain terms) that you guys are "infertile." That was a painful part of the process for me, seeing it in writing like that, but there was also a part of me that felt thankful that it qualified us for Abrazo. I'm not sure if you've already had to send that in, but if not, it will need to go with the application. It takes some doctors a few weeks to prepare things like that, so it wouldn't hurt to call and be very clear that you need a letter that bluntly states the fact.

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Good to know on all of the above. Thanks. We thought of 3 folks to do the reference letters, and I called my infertility specialist today to ask for a letter. I can understand your sentiment about seeing the diagnosis in writing- almost like a judge's sentence. But you are right that maybe there is some relief/freedom in the bluntness of it, since it can truly open your mind to the prospect of adoption.

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Hi-

Also, your social worker might require a family reference. Our's did and my dad was more than happy to write us a beautiful letter.

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  • 1 month later...

Do againers need to have three new references submitted or will the ones on file do? I don't mind hitting people up again... but won't if I don't need to!

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