Our Adoption Scrapbook

It took a lot of time and effort and a few very late nights; however, it was well worth the effort. We are so proud of the scrapbook and we were are so thankful and fortunate that Robin helped Norys to create it. It came out far better then we could have ever imagined.

Thank you, for taking a minute to get to know us. If you or someone you know is looking for a loving family to place your/their child with please contact Melissa at Kinship Center Santa Clara County Program Center in San Jose, CA.

If you are reading this blog from my Facebook feed in notes please visit the official blog to view the scrapbook: http://babytrevino.blogspot.com/2009/11/our-adoption-scrapbook.html.

YEAH!! We are officially Paper Pregnant

Yes, it is true we are officially paper pregnant and we have plenty of paper cuts to prove it. (Hee! Hee!) We filled out a lot of paperwork, completed many hours of training and several interviews with Melissa our Social Worker and it was all worth it.

We are so happy and excited to be paper pregnant. We came home on our final night of training to LaSandra, Jon, Alana (Sleeping), Shana, Lacey, Pam, Isaac and Gabriel suprising us by baby proofing our home, organizing our kitchen, putting contact paper in all of our kitchen cabinets, balloons, a cookie cake (Shana made it), and brownies (LaSandra made)! It was a huge surprise that kept Norys in shock for about an hour before her eyes watered and really realized what they had just done for both of us. We could not have been more thankful for all of the work they did and for all of the cabinet doors Isaac fixed for us. We are so blessed with such a wonderful and beautiful family.

The following week is when Melissa came by to do our final home-study interview and a walk through of our home. At that point she said she will be working on our home-study write-up but that would not slow us down. So now it could be any day now...but please help us be patient as it could take up to a couple years!

A Long Overdue Update

With the exception of Bobby hanging the blinds in the baby's room it is pretty much all done. It is absolutely the nicest room in the entire house. The room came out even better then we imagined and we could not be happier. Norys sits in the room everyday reading her book and enjoying the rocker glider.

We did two photo sessions (The photo's included in this blog post are from those sessions) with Georg Lester, which will be included in our "Dear Birthmom Letter", "Waiting Families Website", and photo album. We are currently working on the "Dear Birthmom Letter" and then we will work on the "Waiting Families Website” and photo album.

As for the Adoption process it’s self we have completed all of the paperwork requested by Kinship Center and are currently awaiting the start of our 8-week training session in Salinas (Every Thursday from 6:00pm-10:00pm). Although we are not looking forward to the long drive out to Salinas, we cannot wait to begin this class, as it is one of the final steps to completing the process. Since our classes do not begin until the end of August we hope to be fully approved and "Paper Pregnant" by the end of October. Norys can't wait to tell people that just because she is not showing that that does not mean she is not a "Mom-to-Be!" She has already looked into getting a T-Shirt (or 2) that say as much. :-)

Well, here are a few photo's from our photo shoot...KEEP US IN YOUR THOUGHTS & PRAYERS! :-)

Make a Smilebox photobook

Baby Room Update- FURNITURE HAS ARRIVED!!!

Well after lots of work, we are getting really close to having the room all set-up. Keldan, Bobby, Juan and I (I was the photographer) have been working relentlessly on getting the room painted, replacing the electrical outlets to GFI's (safer) and installing and painting the chair rail and boarder.

Several nights we stayed up late painting, touching up, and cleaning up the room and finally the moment of truth came last Friday when they delivered the furniture.

Although we are still waiting on the Eco glider, the blinds and the rug majority of the room is all set-up and it looks so good!! We couldn't be happier, we keep stopping in the room just to look at it, now that it is by far the nicest room in our home.

THIS POST WAS FROM JUNE 7, 2009

Our Home Study Packet

As we have told you in past posts we have filled out paperwork for Kinship Center but this packet was the biggest so far. We answered questions about where we grew up, how we grew up, and about our relationships with family and friends. In addition to the paperwork we also had to get our fingerprints taken for FBI, and DOJ background checks, request and submit our DMV records, take CPR (Adult, Chilt, Infant) and First Aid course through the Red Cross, and come up with a disaster plan.

Our favorite question that we are still giggling about is "How important are toilet habbits to you?". Really, how does one answer such a question. It is a necessary part of life afterall. :-)

Good news we completed all of the above and submitted our packet on Friday!!! We do not yet know what the next steps are; however, we did leave a voice mail for our social worker to find out and as we find out we will let you all know.

Congrats Tio & Titi Conners!!

If you are following Norys on Facebook or Twitter you know that she spent two weeks in North Carolina or the Wedding and baby shower of Baby Trevino's Tio (Uncle) and Titi (Aunt) Conners. It was a non stop two weeks of preparing for the wedding, setting up Baby Conners room and spending time with her best friend. Bobby joined them on the second week and played a few rounds of golf with Guy, went to a bachelor party and hung out with the boys.

We also had the opportunity to hit the beach, and Duke Gardens and enjoyed them both so much. Norys has been driving Bobby nUtS about moving to North Carolina; however, he is not going for it! :-)

BIG THANKS TO LISA for helping us get our Glider, Ottoman, Drapes, Drapery Rod and rug for the living room (so the baby doesn't have to crawl on the wood floors). As you can see we decided to go with cranberry red for the glider, ottoman and the drapes. Our curtain rod is brushed nickel to match the furniture.

While in North Carolina Norys found this great registry tool that allows you to register for multiple stores across the Web and only have one link. So you know Norys she already stared setting it up: http://www.myregistry.com/public/Norys-Robert-Trevino she has intentionally not registered for any clothing or items that would be specific to a boy or girl as we are unsure if we will be getting a boy or girl nor how old exactly! :-)

Well the wedding was beautiful and we think Lisa was the most beautiful bride and are so happy that Guy makes her so happy. He is a good man and will make a great Dad (Brendon & Mandy told us so- Very Reliable Sources). :-)

THANK YOU GRANDMA NAOMI!! We love you!!! :-)

We are so excited to announce that Grandma Naomi (Norys' Mom) generously purchased our crib, and dresser with hutch.

Norys was excited when she found the furniture we fell in love with so she decided to take her Mom to Babyland Furniture to show her. Naomi thought the furniture was so beautiful she decided to purchase the crib and dresser with hutch for us that very same day. Naomi went to the counter with Norys to talk to the store owner about the price and before Norys knew it Naomi pulled out her credit card. Norys was jumping up and down for joy kissing her Mom and telling her how much she loves her.

Upon leaving the store Naomi wanted to get a little cake for Bobby for his B-Day so they went to Dick's Bakery (Great cakes!) in San Jose. When they got back to the house with the cake Naomi gave the cake to Bobby along with the receipts. It was so funny to watch as he opened the box to the cake he saw a message that Naomi gave him which said:
"Happy Birthday Bobby!
You have less then eight weeks
to finish the baby's room...
Furniture is on it's way! :-)
Grandma Naomi
Tic Toc"

It took him a minute to realize what she was saying and when he did he asked in a surprised tone "Wow did you get us the crib and the dresser with hutch!" and Naomi giggled and said "Yes, yes, Grandma got her future grand baby their first bed and dresser!"

Needless to say once we knew the furniture was on it's way we went to work. We emptied the second bedroom, touched up the paint, Keldan installed a light dimmer and we swept up the room.

Bobby and Keldan are going to be getting the 32' of boarder to go around the room, paint it and install it all before Norys gets back from Lisa's wedding in North Carolina.

Bobby also purchased the armoire that goes with the set (also in antique black) to complete the set of furniture in the room.

Last weekend we went to visit Anna at CSUMB and after a tour of her apartment and her college campus (she graduates this year- we are so proud of her) we all went to lunch in Carmel. As we

were walking around we stopped in our favorite store, Rip Squeak and Friends, where we ended up purchasing three more paintings and two figurines (one for each top corner of the dresser). The paintings are shown here; however, we do not yet have pictures of the figurines so we will post pictures when they arrive.Well that is all for now, however, we have an upcoming blog about our intake meeting with Kinship Center and our next steps in the adoption process. We still have quite a ways to go!!!

Adoption Paperwork...Furniture...Strollers OH MY!

We have been busy little bees since our last update, so much has happened! First we choose an agency, Kinship Center, for several reasons; they have a great reputation, they will allow us to pursue both finding an expectant mother that is putting together her adoption plan while at the same time looking at foster/adopt, and finally location as they are 2 minutes from our home.

Once we decided that they were our agency of choice Norys got so excited her eyes were watering and Bobby was looking at her like she was nuts. But then, what else is new. HEE! HEE! :-)

We went to their office to drop off our initial paperwork on Monday and by Friday we received our second packet of paperwork to fill out. Saturday we filled out almost all of it with plans to complete it on Sunday evening. Well, we had some friends over for dinner and while sharing the paperwork with them a drink spilled all over every sheet in our packet. So Norys called first thing on Monday morning to request a new packet.

So we received the new packet on Tuesday but with Grandma Diane’s funeral, work and life we just finished our paperwork last Thursday. This time we made sure there were no liquids near it (lol). We made copies and sent it in the mail on Friday so they would have it first thing on Monday.

We are sad that Grandma Diane will never get a chance to meet our baby, as I know she would have been so excited. She was a wonderful, loving and witty lady that always made us smile. She will be sorely missed. She was eighty years old but with her personality she was more like 30 something because she was so with it. Norys and Diane shared a love of Danielle Steele books and since Diane read so fast Norys has a healthy collection now. Our cousin Stephanie has now taken Diane’s place in passing down the books that Norys will always treasure.

So, we said a lot has happened so here we go. Norys has been going everywhere looking at baby furniture, strollers, and car seats. She narrowed it down to what she liked then Bobby went with her and Norys was so happy. We picked out the furniture for the room, the stroller, car seat and Norys thinks she found the diaper changing station but wants to look a bit more to be sure. Norys even found a rug for the baby's room and for the living room that she wants to get so the baby doesn’t have to crawl on the wood floors.

Here are the things we have decided on this far:

Infomative Friday

WOW! What a Friday!! OK we all love Fridays however this one TOPS our favorite of all Fridays in a long time! What an exciting day. First, a good friend said they might know an expectant mom looking to place her child for adoption. Then we had coffee with friends of a friend that adopted a foster child. Finally in the evening we attended our final adoption 101 class.

Now, we know we can not get too excited at the prospect of the expectant mom at this early stage as we have little to no information about her, nor her about us. However, we can get excited about the fact that our network is AWESOME! Not only have they led us to this potential prospect but our network also led us to coffee with a wonderful couple.

At work we are always taught to network and told the benefits of networking. To no surprise, this is just as important in life outside of work. Thank you to those individuals who have reached out thus far such as our friend Derek for his suggestion to meet with his friends over coffee and shannon72 Norys' Twitter friend that suggested we look into Family Builders (we meet with them on April 3rd).

So today's key take a ways:

• We need to follow-up on our potential expectant mom and ensure she is educated on the process to help her make an informed decision no matter what she chooses. We know it will be the best choice for her child because knowledge is power
• We need to look into the differences in adopting through Santa Clara County compared to going through an agency if we are unable to match with the potential expectant mom
• Our Open Path adoption 101 training was one of the best things we have done thus far. We have met an incredible group of people and are so thankful to have them in our lives. We look forward to future play dates and gatherings.

Finally, thank you all again for the outpouring of support and comments posted both here on our blog and on Facebook. We are very fortunate to have you in our lives and thank you for all that you do, even when you are just being you.

How & When Our Journey Began

Our parenting journey began in December of 2008 over the Holidays. We began talking more seriously about growing our family and how we wanted to go about doing that. The options we discussed were; another round of artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation, surrogate mother or adoption. It did not take us long to come to the conclusion that Adoption would be the best option for us to grow our forever family.

Over the break we began our research by first calling Joyce & Ruben (Norys' God Parents) who adopted a beautiful little boy, Brandon. They gave us wonderful advice and sent us some reading material to get us started.

Next Norys did what she always does when learning something new, she "Googled it!" One of the most informative resources found was Open Path. We signed-up for this 6 week informational/support group which allowed us to better equip ourselves with the knowledge to make informed decisions regarding our adoption choices. We refer to it as our Adoption 101 class. In that class we met some wonderful people, which we hope will become lifelong friends. These are people we were able to share our inner most thoughts and feelings openly with and visa versa.

For us, this was an incredible class as each week we learned more and more about adoption and our options. The two choices we are most interested in are Foster Adopt and Open Adoption. On one hand there are children forced into Foster care and are in dire need of a permanent home. On the other hand there are birth parents looking for a loving family to parent their child. If we choose Open Adoption we would not only be gaining a child but would be gaining an extended family. In both cases we would be the lucky parents to a beautiful child/children.

All of the classes were very informative and Lisa (Class Facilitator) was great at making sure each week we went home talking about what we learned from our information packed classes. Some classes were heart wrenching and made us feel for the birth parents and their difficult and selfless choice to place the child they love for adoption. In other classes our heart went out to the children forced into Foster Care making our decision challenging as both options have something positive to offer us.

With all of the research including our Adoption 101 class we were led to Adoptive Families Magazine. We found it is filled with lots of information including the annual guide, which helped us to develop our adoption plan and determine next steps. Bobby is utilizing the budget planner to ensure we make not only good emotional decisions but also good financial decisions.

So where are we in our journey today? Well, our final Adoption 101 class takes place this Friday. We have learned so much from this class and feel we are armed with the appropriate information to choose the right agency for us to work with no matter which option we choose.

We have been to three different agencies thus far and have plans to visit a 4th:

* Independent Adoption Center (IAC)
* Black Adoption & Research
* Kinship Center- so far we are leaning towards this agency
* Family Builders - We visit this one on April 3rd


Come see us again as we will continue to give updates along our journey into parenthood. :-)