Wished Home Studies only cost a nickel, I'd sacrifice mine

Well it could have been worse. . . N put on a real show for the social worker when she came to begin our home study.  At first he was totally into her, talking with her, and drawing pictures, but then things changed!  First, he randomly bit his brother, leaving a nice mark.  I placed him in time out, and he did okay.  

However, he later hit his brother for taking his crayon, and we had a battle of wills to stay in time out.  We looked like one of those videos of the failing parents on "Super Nanny."  Back and forth we went me: putting him back in time out, moving the bench closer to the oven timer to reset it, him slamming the bench down on my big toe, and finally, him calming down long enough to serve his time out.  

Following time out, he went to the bathroom only to come out with his pants down.  N informed the social worker of the proper names of his boy parts and loudly told her mommy has nickles (as he incorrectly calls them) as I carreled him back to the bathroom to pull up his pants.  Thank goodness the social worker understood my logic in teaching my children the real names for their body parts.

As she left, I apologized for the chaos.  She told me sometimes she hates how too perfect home study visits can be; they seem fake.  She said the good side was that she could easily explain the discipline techniques I used and that I had experience with children who could be difficult at times.  I guess there is an upside to everything.  

As I was hemming and hawing about my call to adopt again this spring, my friend shared this with me and I thought of it at that moment. 

God is qualifying me for the struggles ahead as I deal with Haiti, fundraising, and eventually expanding my family.  Keep praying! 

--------------

If you wish to help with the exorbitant cost of adoption, please consider signing up, shopping, or donating.  

SIGNING UP

I currently am signing up people for Ambit Energy, a Better Business Bureau A+ company as well as a recipient of the JD Power and Associates Award for customer satisfaction, which guarantees savings of 2% a year or 3% for my PA friends.  Although the rate is variable, they cannot do sudden huge hikes in the cost because they guarantee you the percentage savings for your state and will send you a check for the difference if it costs more.  Their hikes would have to be aligned with your current provider.  Most people in my area are saving between 5-6% which averages about 125.00 to 150.00 a year.  I get a kick back for signing people up which I can put in my adoption fund, and if as a consultant I get 15 people to a sign up by September 20th, I get the supply portion of my gas and electric bill free for the year which I can also put into my adoption fund.  There are no fees, contracts, or any catches.  It is a win-win for both of us.  Your gas and electric service company does not change either.  You still call NYSEG or National Grid or your PA company for help, and they still send your bills.  Message me if you are interested as lots of my friends have already been saving through other consultants and I want to hit 15 by September 20th.  

Here is the savings of my friend's dad over an 11 month period.

Here is my website for more information if interested, but please contact me too: 

http://finnertyadoptionfund.myambit.com/rates-and-plans

SHOPPING

I have a store front at Just Love Coffee Roasters where people can buy coffee.

https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/finnerty/

I am also selling adoption themed t -shirts I designed myself for 20.00 and will be placing orders by September 15th which I earn at least 10.00 on for my fund

 and selling chevron scarves with words screen printed on them for 20 dollars which I earn 5.00 on that I will be taking orders on through October 30th.  Message, call, or text me if you are interested in either.  

DONATING OR SHOPPING

I am currently raising money and selling items through One Mission Fundraising.  This is both a basic donation site as well as a site that sells gifts for fundraising.  So people can choose to shop or just donate.  

https://onemissionfundraising.com/fundraisers/finnerty-family-adoption-fund/

I am also taking donations for a yard sake in the beginning of October, if you had stuff you were going to give away anyway.  More information will be available for shopping as the date gets closer.  

DONATING

Anyone who just wants to make a donation by writing a check, and not have a portion of it go to fees for the One Mission Site, can make one to my agency on my behalf.  Because they are a non-profit, the donations can be written off on your taxes.  If you are interested, checks, that have a post it note attached with my name on it or a note accompanying the check with my name, can be made out to and sent to:

EAC Inc.

Attention Tina Fell 

12608 Alameda Drive

Strongsville, OH 44149

Thank you for any help you can give!!!

Why Adoption; why not?

We recently went on a trip to visit friends and family.  Z was holding my friends 6 month old very lovingly; he clearly loves babies, although we had to let him know a warning is needed before you decide to just stop holding a baby.  Thank goodness her mom is quick.

When we had some quiet time later, I said Z you really love babies.  Do you want your sister from Haiti to be an older sister or baby?  He said older.  This surprised me.  I have been thinking about it a lot because older children are more in need of homes, but at the same point I know I want a child not a teenager.  There are some adoption professionals that say you should not adopt children older than your youngest child, which is what I had been thinking, a child younger than Z.  Some people just say they should be younger than your oldest child.  

I am hoping to discuss this with my home study social worker on Monday.  I know some people get nervousness about the process of doing a home study, but having adopted the boys I have been through this intrusive processes before and get it.

One of the things they always ask you is why are you adopting?  A number of people come by adoption because of infertility issues, but that's not me so I do not have to worry about the really prying questions.  Unlike China and Columbia, many of the people adopting from Haiti are like me, simply wanting to add to their families by helping a child and/or single parents.

Adoption has always been a part of my life.  I guess for a long time I just thought that was the way lots of people chose to make families.  I have 5 cousins, and of those cousins, only one is biological. 

When my two older cousins were adopted, they used to try to match the appearance of the child and parent.  With my cousin Dan, they did a pretty good job.  He looks Irish and very similar to my brothers, my cousin Sue though was not as good of a match.  I wish tall, skinny, and blonde were in my genetic make-up. I look at N and although he clearly is not an attempt to match the appearance of a child and parent, he is in someways so like my grandma Hayes and Z can be so much like my dad.  Maybe we start to see our relatives in our children when they are adopted, but I also think God's in control of everything so I bet there is still some matching of a different kind going on with my boys.

  (Jeff and the Boys during our recent trip.) 

On the trip where Z held the baby, we also visited my two younger cousins from the other side of my family,  Jeff in Philly and Bob in DC.  I remember when my Aunt adopted Jeff,  it was in January and I was in 4th grade.  My mom, teaching in the same school, passed a note to my teacher to give me.  It read, "Mary (my aunt) got a baby."  Being almost 10 years older than my cousin Jeff, we created an instant bond.  The same as when his brother came along 3 years later.  Adoption is more normal than birth in my family.  

It was neat to watch the whole thing come full circle as I watched the boys with my cousins on this trip.  Jeff is amazing with them calm, yet firm and not intimidated at all.  Bob is the cousin who will feed them 2-3 bags of cookies before his wife gives him the look like are you crazy.  I have tried to be open about adoption and to help the boys to see adoption as a good thing as I hope it has been with my cousins. 

I came to adoption in a much different way than my Aunts and Uncles.  I had always dreamed of meeting the man of my dreams, settling down and having a family, but Mr. Right never seemed to show up only Mr. Not Really Interested in Girls, Mr. What was I thinking, and Mr. Not Right.  This is what led me to  eventually adopt the boys.  

In my mind I had two thoughts: maybe God had not sent me a husband because he thought I would not be a good parent or maybe carrying my "Full Figure Midget Model" (as my sister-in-law has referred to it) body on was not the nicest thing to do to a kid.  I also feared that as I was getting closer to 40, if I had my own child, my baby might come out with two heads!  This is what led me to consider adoption and specifically foster to adopt.  My theory being that if I really stunk as a parent, it was kind of like rent-to-own and a better family could be found for the child.  

Now six years later, I have two amazing boys and am looking to add a daughter.  Unlike foster care and the fear of giving a child back (which yes, I have had to do,) I am so excited to begin this journey and know that when I see her face for the first time, she will be mine.  It is a feeling that probably most mom's take for granted, but I am so looking forward to.    

Please pray for my family and daughter as we begin our homestudy this week.  

----------

If you wish to help with the exorbitant  cost of adoption, please consider shopping or donating.  

I have a store front at Just Love Coffee Roasters where people can buy coffee.

https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/finnerty/ 

I am currently raising money and selling items through One Mission Fundraising.  This is both a basic donation site as well as a site that sells gifts for fundraising.  So people can choose to shop or just donate.  

https://onemissionfundraising.com/fundraisers/finnerty-family-adoption-fund/

Anyone who just wants to make a donation by writing a check, and not have a portion of it go to fees for the One Mission Site, can make one to my agency on my behave.  Because they are a non-profit, the donations can be written off on your taxes.  If you are interested, checks, that have a post it note attached with my name on it or a note accompanying the check with my name, can be made out to and sent to:

EAC Inc.

Attention Tina Fell 

12608 Alameda Drive

Strongsville, OH 44149

I am also taking donations for a garage sale in October, looking for people to start saving their gas and electric bills so I can save them some money while making some for the adoption, and open to any other ways people think they can help. 

Thank you for any help you can give!!!

Camouflaged and Questioning

N is standing stark naked in front of my 50's style dinning room chair with horizontal slats.  In all seriousness he says, "Look mom, I am camouflaged!"  This is mid-March and clearly camouflaged is the word of the week at daycare.  He continues through out the week camouflaging himself against my brown curtains, my brown bed sheets, and other brown items around the house.

One night in all seriousness he says,  "Mom, poopy is brown and I am brown.  Do you think that if I fell in the toilet I would get camouflaged and could get flushed down the toilet?"

Trying not to laugh I said, "No honey, I would never let you get flushed down the potty; you would get stuck in the drain just like the tennis ball you threw in the toilet and I would call Mr. A the plumber to get you out."  This led to a long discussion about how N wished someone in the family was brown like him.  It shocked me that he did not consider Z brown, he felt Z was the same color as my close Italian friend "tan" even though Z is his biological half brother.

I tried to point out African American friends we have, but was told they did not live with us.  As a mom wanting to try and make my child feel like he wasn't different and loving him more than words can express,  I even tried to point out the fact that Meemaw and Poppy's dog was brown and black but with no luck!  This conversation solidified the fact that when I chose to adopt, the little girl would have to be "brown" like N.

-----
Since my first post, I have gotten lots of positive responses and a few questions so I thought I would try to answer some them in this post and more in another:

Why Haiti?

 I was drawn to Haiti for a bunch of reasons.  My first choice would have been Rwanda as I have taught about the genocide that occurred there for many years and raised money for schools there, but Rwanda is closed off to adoptions right now.  Many countries sign The Hague Agreement and then find that they cannot meet the requirements of it within their systems.  I know this also happened with Guatemala.

That left me other countries in Africa and Haiti.  A few of the popular countries in Africa do not allow singles to adopt, the Democratic Republic of Congo suddenly shut down adoptions in the middle of the process for people, and a few of the countries have been cited for child selling which is clearly not why I am doing this.

This drew me towards Haiti.  I taught a student a few years back that was adopted from Haiti.  My second cousin had served there after the earthquake, my students had done a candy bar sale for a Haitian school after the earthquake, and also Haiti is a very impoverished country were children are in need of adoption.

Haiti does have it's own set of issues such as a long wait times between matching visits and the actual adoption, but it also allows you to visit the child during this time (although I was pretty sure I could not afford this, flying from Florida is not very expensive and the hotel chain my cousin works for has just opened a hotel in Port Au Prince which means my mom and Aunt could visit my daughter).

After your match visit, you can often Skype, and you can send letters and gifts too.  I liked the fact that the children were placed in Christian Crèches (orphanages) which were much more family like than institutional orphanages.  As well, any child that is to be adopted's birth parents must be found and testify that they cannot raise the child or if the parents cannot be found, the mayor of the town must testify that every attempt was made to find the parents and that the child has been abandoned.

Finally, "Haiti’s population was about 9.8 million according to UN 2008 estimates.  According to Hope for Haiti, over 50% of Haiti’s population is school age and the literacy rate is less than 50%.  Approximately 70% of the people live in poverty, with an average annual income of $400 per year. 15% of all children in Haiti are orphaned or abandoned (“practically orphaned”).  Most estimates put the number of orphans in Haiti prior to the January 2010 earthquake at about 380,000.  Experts now estimate that the number of orphans has doubled to about 750,000 since the earthquake" (http://haitiorphanproject.org/about/).The orphanages are overflowing with children. Once, they reach the age of an adult they are just put on the street, because there is no room for them. They are left to fend for themselves.  As well, over 35% of the children in Haiti are malnourished which can lead to long term physical and mental complications.  This is a country in need and I know there is a little girl there that needs us.

-------

What are you doing to fundraise?

I am doing lots of things.  I had a party where my friend donated her almost 700 dollar commission to me.  I sold end of the year t-shirts at school and had a garage sale in July.

A few things that I am currently doing are through Party-lite, Beach Body, and Just Love Coffee. My friend is having a Party-lite party and although I cannot attend, she is doing a 50/50 where squares can be bought 1 for 5, 3 for 10, and  6 for 20.  Half of the money goes to my fund, and the winner gets their half toward a Party-lite candle purchase whether they live in the Buffalo Area or not.  Another lady who adopted from Haiti has offered her commissions on her Beach Body sales to me through my Facebook page.  As well, I have a store front at Just Love Coffee Roasters where people can buy coffee and who doesn't need coffee-https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/finnerty/   If you are interested in Party-lite or Beach Body, let me know.

In the near future, I will be selling really cool adoption t-shirts I designed hopefully through an etsy store.  As well as, selling infinity chevron scarfs with screen printed words on them that another friend of mine who is adopting from Haiti is making for me to sell.

I will also be having another garage sale with my friends hopefully one in September and definitely one next summer and I welcome donations. (This will likely be a yearly event until my little girl comes home.)  If you were going to throw it away or donate it, I would love it.

Another friend has offered to do a raffle where people win gift certificates for for Lia Sophia Jewlery and I sell tickets at 10.00.  Hopefully people will want to pick up a cool scarf, T-shirt, try a raffle for high value gift certificates for Lia Sophia or get some Party-lite candles for a Christmas or Birthday presents.

I am hoping to have a "Break the Winter Blues" event with Karaoke, comedy, and a DJ along with a basket raffle in the far future.  I also would like to sell some items made in Haiti and possibly do a photo shoot for families, have a 5k run, and do some other ideas I read about in a book about adopting without debt.

The biggest thing I am currently doing is raising money and selling items through One Mission Fundraising.  This is both a basic donation site as well as a site that sells gifts for fundraising.  So people can choose to shop or just donate.

https://onemissionfundraising.com/fundraisers/finnerty-family-adoption-fund/

Finally, anyone who just wants to make a donation by writing a check, and not have a portion of it go to fees for the One Mission Site, can make one to my agency on my behave.  Because they are a non-profit, the donations can be written off on taxes.  If you are interested, checks, that have a post it note attached with my name on it or a note accompanying the check with my name, can be made out to and sent to:
EAC Inc.
Attention: Tina Fell
12608 Alameda Drive
Strongsville, OH 44149

-------

What are you doing personally to raise/save money?

I am couponing, have cut back our cable, am hoping to tutor as much as possible this year, am asking more friends to babysit for free when I need a sitter or offering to babysit for my friends kids to make some extra cash, and am trying to do mostly free things with the kids like the beach, playground, and staying with friends to feel like we have gone on a vacation. I am beginning the process of opening an Etsy shop which will sell the  adoption T-shirts as well as adoption themed items, and a few other things I can create such as infinity scarfs, wreaths, and paintings.

The one thing I am trying not to do is make the boys feel like they are living a very different life, but I am still trying to keep them excited about making good purchasing choices to help adopt their sister.

I have sold items on Craig's list, sold the boys' old clothes and my own to consignment stores, and am trying to get anything new we need at the used stores.  Also, my agency offers a financial coach.  I am going to be taking her class soon and learning some other ideas.  I hope to apply for grants although those can be limited, but my agency is doing everything possible to help me qualify for them.

I am also hoping to sell electric and gas through a wholesale company.  This not only saves people money, but makes me money.  Since NYS deregulated utilities, companies can offer to sell you gas/electricity at a reduced cost.  You still receive your bill through NYSEG, NiMo, National Fuel. .  . and they service your lines, but the actual gas/electricity is wholesale.  You do not have to be just in NYS, so if you think you might be interested, drop me a line.  The great thing is I make a few bucks,  and they guarantee you save at least 2% a year over what you would be paying, but many people are seeing up to 5-6% savings.  If you figure 200.00 a month for both gas and electric combined which is low, that is 2400.00 a year a person pays and even at 2% savings that's 48.00 at 6% you could be saving up to 150.00, and helping me to adopt.

Finally I am hoping that if the adoption tax credit stays in place for the year I finally get to adopt, I will be able to take out a low interest loan to pay off the adoption and then repay the loan with my tax rebate.

-----

I will leave you with a few words that could apply to any Christian but are written for Catholics and have inspired me on this journey and I continue to ask you to pray for my family.  (Please feel free to share my blog with others via Facebook or email if you think it would be inspiring or of interest to them.)

Godone-Maresca said, adding that "adoption is a ministry in which every Catholic should participate, whether by adopting, by helping others adopt, by praying and by making the plight of those kids known.”

“As Catholics, we cannot remain unmoved by the plight of thousands and even millions of children dying from preventable and even curable diseases in many places of the world,” Godone-Maresca said. “We cannot remain unmoved by the plight of children feeling unwanted and asking for a family of their own. We cannot remain unmoved by the knowledge that if not adopted by a certain age, in many --- countries, orphan children with any kind of special needs are thrown into mental institutions, where life is no more than a slow death.”


(Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/unicef-blamed-for-decline-in-international-adoptions?fb_action_ids=10202239507001405&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B469882676421405%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D#ixzz32DaiITUz)