WOW what a few weeks it has been. FIRST Iwould like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Aunt AnnaLee for our first delivery of a sock monkey for baby Drew. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU...we are so excited by all of the positive responses to our Project Sock Monkey. I think my parents have at least 3 sock monkeys at their house right now. It is so nice to know we have such supportive family and friends.

Well ~ since we last updated you we have been to 2 meetings in Houston. The 1st was a couple conference with Jan. We talked to Jan for about 3 hours about all sorts of things : our family , jobs, how we met, our marriage, our infertility... it was like a therapy session. I cried for most of it because I was just so excited to finally be on a good track to getting a baby. A week later we went back to Houston for an ALL day orientation. We met up with our original 9 couples from our first orientation and 1 new couple. That day we listened to 3 birth mothers talk about their experience with giving their babies up for adoption. They were very genuine and gave us lots of information from their point of view. How very brave they were to share such personal stories.

Ken and I were especially touched by the 2nd birth mother. She was a very big (not fat but big and TALL) white girl. She was probably in her late 20s and she was very ghetto (lack of a better descriptor). Talked a lot of street lingo and slang BUT she was VERY REAL. She talked about how she already had 2 boys at home and how she became pregnant and just couldn't afford to raise a baby and 2 teenage boys. She talked about how she is very prominent in her boys lives and sticks to them like glue because she doesn't want them to get caught up in bad things like she did (gangs and jail). She found out that she was having twins (a boy and a girl) and decided that adoption was the right thing. She and her boys together picked out the adoptive parents. She was specific that the adoptive parents did not care what race the kids were going to be because they were biracial. It was very moving to hear how much she loved her boys and her unborn twins. She continued about her story and talked about how after the babies were born she receives pictures all the time and even talks to the adoptive parents every now and then. The adoptive parents now live on the east coast (can't remember specifics) and they even flew the birth mom and her 2 sons up there to see the babies when they turned 3. She said she thought she would be bothered a little by it but as soon as one of them "fell out" (had a hissy fit) she knew she had done the right thing. Any ways her story was so from the heart and she put the twins up for adoption so her whole family could have a better life. What an unselfish act. Her oldest boy is now in a junior college on a football scholarship and her youngest will be a senior in high school and already has big name colleges looking at him. She really has done a good job. Ken and I so appreciated the birth mothers sharing their side because we don't know what it is like to do that... that was a great experience.

After the birth moms talked we broke for lunch. The staff, volunteers, and birth mothers had made us lunch. It was very nice. We had a HUGE grilled chicken salad, layered dip with chips, and homemade cookies...YUM!!!

After lunch we got to hear about how it feels to be adopted from a 19 year old. He was very informative and said that he feels special to be adopted and that it is no big deal. He is actually Jan's son. Jan is our social worker. He was very smart and answered any questions we had.

After that we listened to Adoptive families. We now have 3 families in our group that have adopted before. Each one of them has a totally different story to tell and each one have the most precious kids. While we were there we found out that we can turn our birth mother book in whenever we get it done and if we get picked before all of our visits and paperwork are done then we get fast tracked. As a matter of fact one of the couples that already adopted already got chosen again and the baby is due June 6th. We are excited for them because last time they waited over 10 months. Now they only waited like 10 days. WELL NEEDLESS to say we mailed our book off yesterday and so it should be there by Wednesday. Then we wait.

We scheduled our home visit while in Houston too. We will fly Jan down on July 1st and she will do our 2 hour individual conference with each of us and then she will stay the night at a local hotel. Then , the next day, she will do our home visit and then leave that late afternoon. We had the option of her staying 2 days and we pay for a hotel room or driving back to Houston for our individual conferences. We figured with gas and everything we might as well have her here for 2 days and pay for a hotel.

Well I think that is about it. We also got our bedding in and it is BETTER than imagined I am so excited. We decided we are going to leave the room yellow and just add an orange stripe around the top. I think that is about it. THANK YOU again for being so excited about the Project Sock Monkey. We are so lucky to have such wonderful, loving, and supportive family and friends.