Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Every day we get closer to be done, and every day is a little battle in patience.  Right now, nothing much has changed since our last update.  We are still waiting for our home study to be finished.  Last week we were told it should be done early this week, but here we still are, waiting.  We started our adoption journey this July, and still being stuck on the beginning steps has been harder than we expected.  

As terrible as it’s been, I think the lesson of patience is a good one for us.  We’ve been known to open all of our Christmas presents days before Christmas, just because we (mostly me) can’t wait!  Thankful our placement agency has been wonderful in working with us during the delay.  They just reached out to us, and offered to send all of our documents for translating in Hungary before we have our official government approval!  The traditional route is to get your home study completed and approved, get your i800a (national approval to bring home a foreign child) which takes 6-8 weeks, and then your documents all get sent in for translation which usually takes about a month. If we are able to have our translating done before our official government approval, this saves us at least a month! On top of that, if our documents are into the children’s ministry and translated, we could cold be tentatively matched.  We can’t formally accept any referrals or travel until we have our i800a approval, but it gets us one step closer!

The down side is, we now will have to pay our home study acceptance fee and our translation fee all at once.  It’s around $2,000 more than we were expecting to pay at one time.  However, this is where the thank you’s are in order.  We can not thank everyone enough for the help in our fundraisers.  Both our You Caring and Lularoe fundraisers have been more helpful than you can ever imagine!

We have a long way to go, and are excited to announce we have two more fundraisers coming up!

For all of our friends and family in Utah, The Pizza Pie Cafe in Layton will be hosting a fundersaiser for us January 8th-11th.  For everyone that comes in for dinner and mentions our names, they will give us 25% of the purchases.  Cory and I will be hanging out there all night on Tuesday the 9th, and hope to see everyone that we’ve missed so dearly. They also have all you can eat pizza, and gluten free pizza. It’s a win-win!

For anyone in Arizona, on January 17th one of my favorite places in the world, Someburro’s in Queen Creek will be giving us 20% of all profits for anyone that brings in our flyer or mentions are names. Come join us for my favorite taco’s in the world, all while supporting our family! 

In addition, we do now have a profile set up through Adopt Together.  This is allows people and companies to donate money to a 501(c)(3) charity.  This means that it is fully tax deductible.  We see a little less of the proceeds, but if you know any business looking for tax deductions come tax season, send them our way!

I’ll have more information on our two restuarant fundraisers after Christmas. I once again want to thank everyone for the best Christmas gift you’ve already given, the love and support in starting our family!!

Last Man Standing

This week one of the most wonderful things in the world happened. My best friend, sister in the battle of infertility, and creator of the blog Utahn Gone Texan gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy in the entire world! He is their perfect little rainbow baby, and is already so loved over here, even though we haven't met him.

Oliver Bryon Myers will be a force to be reckoned with.  I have no doubt in my mind that Marissa and Cody will be the perfect parents.  I am so excited to see the amazing things that this family will do together.  Don't worry, I'm already planning his first trip to Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  I'm pretty sure he'll be a Hufflepuff, just like his Aunt Leah.  

Even more I wanted to share this not because I'm beaming just as much as the proud parents, but if you've been brought here because of you struggle with infertility, I highly suggest you take a look at Marissa's blog.  Cody and Marissa are two of the strongest people I know.  After two ectopic pregnancies, emergency surgery, and struggling to get pregnant again, I've watched them come out the other side humbled, smarter, and so strong together. Their story is one of determination and love, and I can only see even more adventures and exciting things coming from their family and Marissa's blog!

With the birth of Oliver, came the realization for me that I'm what I like to call "The last man standing."  Out of my female friends that I talk to on a weekly basis, I'm the last one that isn't a mom.  When I first realized it, it was a little hard.  A lot of times I feel like it's my fault.  I knew about my possible infertility struggles since I was 18 and was diagnosed with celiac disease.  I've spent most of my time covering up my fear with "I never want kid."  Even for the first couple years of our marriage I was adamant that kids probably weren't for me.  As I got older, and Cory was ready to be a dad, my story changed to "I'm not ready, next year." Sometimes I wonder if we would have started infertility care sooner, or I would have been less guarded about really wanted to have a family, would be here today?  Life is full of what if's, and some days it's hard not to dwell on them.   Honestly, I think yes.  I can in no way regret so many of the adventures Cory and I have been able to embark on together.  It's hard to live with the misplaced guilt a lot of days, but I truly believe we are doing what we are meant to do.  This is the way our family is meant to start.  This is gods plan for us.  I just have to remember that in hopefully less than a year, baby Oliver will gain a very best friend!

For now, we focus on remembering that there is joy in our wait.  We're in a period of waiting on translators, government agencies, and social workers.  Things are currently out of our hands.  So we will enjoy all of our friends perfect babies, and drool over the pictures of Oliver's fat rolls.  Bring me your babies and children and let me love them forever! I'm already ready to force them to be Lil' Giff's best friend.

Treat Yo Self!

Last week was October 13th, so we all know what that means. It's time to...

If you aren't familiar with the comedic masterpiece that is Parks and Rec, there is no time like the present.  Sit on the couch and binge away.  Then next year, you too can treat yo self.

In honor of the beloved holiday, we decided to treat ourselves by completing our finally home study visit!  We are officially done with things that we have to do for our home study.  All we are doing now is waiting for our social worker to finish writing it, and then we are in the dossier and government clearance phase.

This visit was nice and simple, a whole lot less stressful than the last!  Since our home inspection had been completed the visit before, this was just to talk and interview us, I was able to clean to house in my usually way.  Stuff everything behind a closed door somewhere, and make sure the 10 square feet where we were actually sitting in looks spotless.  We were first interviewed together, and then we each had individual interviews, and then we had another interview together.  The entire visit took almost 4 hours, but everything went smoothly.

When I would read things about home study processes, everyone warned that you'd be putting everything on the table.  They weren't kidding.  Before this interview, I thought we had escaped talking about obscure and past stuff, but I was wrong.  If you are related to us, have no fear, you are probably in our home study somewhere.  We had to go through everything from mental health issues, to drug and alcohol consumption, to people we love that aren't related, and those who will be in contact with our child.  All of these things had to be listed all the way back into our aunts, uncles and cousins.  If you ever decide to do a home study, and you come from a big family like we do, start taking notes now! We also had to individually talk about our experiences growing up.  How our parents disciplined us, celebrated us, and taught us.  We had to go over how our views align differently from our parents, and what we want to do differently with our children.  Nothing is harder than trying to explain to someone how you're going to raise and parent your children, when you feel like you know absolutely nothing about being a parent and have never done anything like it before. Though I'm sure all knew parents feel this way!

Believe it or not, one of the hardest questions we were asked was "What do you love about your partner."  It should be simple questions, but we both just stumbled a little.  Cory and I have been together over 8 years, and usually when asked I just say "everything" or if I'm feeling sassy "he pays my bills" but that wouldn't cut it in this case. We tell each other we love each other all the time, and I have no doubt in my mind that he loves me, but having to pick out individual things catches you off guard.  Even harder was having to say these things directly to his face and in front of someone who is essentially a stranger. Once you're out of the wedding and honeymoon stage, life moves on.  You still love each other, but gone are the days of writing vows and explaining to all your friends why your partner is the best person in the world.  It was nice to have to take that time to stop and remember all the things we really do love about each other, for better or for worse.  Above all, I love that I married my best friend.  There are very few people I can be 100% myself with, and he accepts my weird off key singing, excessive number of high kicks, and love of puns.  So I challenge all of you who are married, or in relationships new or old, to force you and your partner to tell each other how much you love them. Even if it means tying them to a chair until they talk.  Not that it's what we had to do or anything.

We are in the finally few months of our adoption journey that require us to "do something."  Once our home study is completed, we can submit for our I-800a which is "application for determined suitability to adopt a child from an international country" which can take a couple months for the government agency to complete.  In the meantime we'll be working on our dossier.  Our dossier includes everything about us.  It's our home study, our reference letters, our income, everything.  Once we have approval through our 1-800a our dossier gets sent to Hungary, translated, and approved.  From there we just have to wait to be matched with our sweet child or children!  It's a slow process, but getting closer and closer everyday.  We can't wait.

When Social Workers Come Calling.

This week has been stressful and irritating, but filled with a huge milestone in our adoption journey!  This week we had our home inspection visit as part of a home study.  A big part of the home inspection is baby proofing your house for a baby that probably wont be there in a year and will probably come as a 4 year old. Here is a list of some typical things we were told would be checked in a home inspection:

• Working smoke detectors on every floor and near child's room
• Covered kitchen trash.
• Evacuation floor plan and emergency contacts visible. 
• Covered outlets
• Medications and vitamins in locked cabinets.
• All cleaning products in locked cabinets, or placed at least 5 feet up
• All soaps, lotions, and shampoos over 5 ounces must be locked up, or placed at least 5 feet up. 
• First aid kit and fire extinguisher easily available
• House clean and free of mold or harmful bacteria. 
• All blind cords and cables wrapped and hanging no more than one foot. 

This is just a small sampling.  It's pretty safe to say that I've been a nervous wreck since the date was set.  We know it was coming, but it didn't get real until we had the date on the calendar.  Lucky for us we live in a newer one story home and don't have a pool. That took out a lot of the others things we would have had to stress about.  I have to give a huge thank you to my mom and sister.  Not only did they help me obsessively decorate (yeah, probably not the best time to do that.) They spent so much of their own time cleaning and making sure my house was safe. I couldn't have done it without them.  

The only other time our home has been this clean, is when we first moved in and it had no furniture in it. 

The day finally came for her to come.  I was still walking around finding things to clean.  I Vacuumed the floors 3 times and started picking up individual cat hairs off of things. I was ready. The visit went really smoothly.  Our cats were even well behaved enough she thought we only had one.  You should have seen her face when we told here there were actually three running around here! It was mostly interviews and a little home tour.  The entire visit took about 2 hours, and we passed. Here are a few tips to help you if you every decide you want to be insane and complete a home study too. 

1. Know where your family lives, where they work, and what their job title is.
• We didn't expect this one.  It sounds simple, but we truely didn't know the job titles or actually locations for work of some of our siblings.  Facebook to the rescue! 
2. Have a snack prepared.
• Our social worker didn't have any of my purchased with love cookies (even gluten free ones!) but Cory and I did.  We had been such obsessive wrecks, we had essentailly starved ourselves. It was nice to have a little something to fill our nervous stomachs
3. Use quirky decor. 



Who wouldn't obsess over these? They're adorable. 

• Maybe this isn't a real tip, but one of the first things she said when she walked in was "Wow, you guys really like Disney." Followed by a "Me too!!"  She then spent a good 10 minutes obsessing over these Disney are postcards my sister helped me put onto canvases. She was even trying to convince us we should sell them for a fundraiser.  Sure, it's not essential to the process, but it was a fun distraction.
4. Don't obsess over showing them all the work you've put in.  
• Our home tour and walk through took literally 5 minutes of the entire visit.  She walked into each room, asked what we used it for, and moved on to the next.  As much as I wanted to follow behind shouting "shake that bookcase, feel how stable!" and "Just try and find the chemicals in the room!" I didn't do it.  Did i feel a little cheated for all the hard work we did, of course.  In the end was it a relief because we were actually short one blind cord wind and I just hoped she wouldn't notice? Of course it was!
5. Relax
• They want to help put children in good homes. They aren't there to stop you, but to help you.  I was so worried about failing our first one, and in reality we just needed to have a few things around the house done. Most of the meeting was just getting to know us more.  So remember to stay calm, and remember, your social worker is on your team!

Now that it's all over, i'm thinking "this isn't too bad." though I definitely wouldn't want to do this again in the near future! We have one more visit scheduled for next week, and we'll be done with our home study.   Despite all of the stress, our social worker left us with great news.  Our home inspection has passed, and we have been approved to bring 1-2 children, between the ages of 0-7 into our home! Just to know that we have taken another huge step in the process makes all the work worth it.  We're hoping for a child that's more toddler age, but now we've been approved to accept a sibling group.  Some days I can barely imagine bringing one child into our home, but the thought of possibly two has me all kinds of excited.  To get to start our own family, while still keeping another together seems like such a beautiful prospect.  In the end, whomever and however many children we get, I know they will be the ones that are perfect for our family!  

My Maw-Maw

Per usual in the Gifford house, we've had a busy two weeks. We're in one of the quiet moments of our adoption. We're waiting for interviews to be scheduled, governments to respond, and paperwork to be accepted.  Despite the quite time, we've still been busy.

Last weekend was an emotional weekend. My grandmother, or Maw-Maw as we called her, passed away September 5th. She lived an incredibly rich life full of handwork, family, and love.  She was and amazing woman, and overcame incredible opposition in her life. She had more fight in her, than any woman I will have have the privileged of knowing.

Mary Magdalene Couvillon Rabalais at 18

Funerals and passing are always hard, but it was the celebration of her life that I loved the most.  One of my favorite stories, is actually the story of her birth.  She was born in August of 1931, prematurely, and weight only 2.5 pounds. From this moment, she started fighting. In a rural parish in southern Louisiana, there was no hospital, and no medical care.  A cow was brought over from the neighboring farm, and her incubator was a box with bricks that had been warmed from the fire placed around it. From that moment she never stopped. There are so many stories of perseverance and resilience in this woman life, I wish I could share them all!

She married my Paw-Paw in 1951, and they had a love story for the ages.  My Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw ran a hog farm, and were a team in every sense of the word.  They had a growing family of 6 children, were active in their church community, raised animals and crops, and in the end had a farm that ran smoothly and efficiently because they worked together. I don't know anyone who could have raised 5 boys, and still manage to do everything she did!  They had a marriage and partnership so wonderful. that I can only hope to emulate it in my own life. 

A young Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw

Every summer of my life, until I was around 16, was spent on their farm with my mother and our Cajun family. By the time I came around the farm was no longer working, the land was mostly leased, and life was slowing day.  Despite that, my time spend in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana are the best of my childhood memories.  The loss of such a strong spirit is always hard, and we will probably always feel that little hole in our heart. I was able to go down to Louisiana for the service, and stayed in my Maw-Maw's home.  At first it was a little weird, I could still see her sitting at the kitchen table, or standing by the stove. I can still her saying "Oh Leah" as she said so many time when I was doing something I probably shouldn't have been doing. (Usually it was high kicks in the kitchen, or trying to bring the farm cats inside.) In the end, it was the best source of comfort I ever could have asked for. That home was a source of safety, comfort, and love for me and all of my siblings.  It was a place we would go and just be loved. From my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, and cousins, there was so much love in that home. I am so blessed to grow up with such an amazing sanctuary, and such an amazing family.

I learned so much from this woman and my time spent there.  I will always be grateful for the lessons on hard-work, compassion, teamwork, and love that she taught me.  I could never have asked for a better Maw-Maw. Above all, I can't be more grateful to have such an amazing woman to raise my own mother.  I see so many qualities of my Maw-Maw in my mom.  She has the same drive and compassion.  She has a sense of hard-work and service unlike anyone I've ever known. So thank you Maw-Maw, for not only everything you've done for me, but everything you've done for my mother.  I will never know two more beautiful and strong women in my life.  I hope to one day have children as wonderful as you both have, and to have a home so full of love that you just never want to leave it.

As we are starting our own journey to become parents, I've noticed the effect the amazing women in my life have had.  Become a mother is terrifying, no matter the route you take to become one.  I've started to think about it often.  How can I handle this? How can I learn to put someone else before me at all times? How do I change my entire life? They say its mostly instinct, which I sure hope it is. Lucky for me, I have so many people and places to reach for help.  Not only do I have my Maw-Maw and Mother as amazing examples, There are so many others. My sister, my mother-in-law, and my friends who are already mom's are just some of the people I look up to.  No one is perfect, but from someone on the outside, thank you all for being examples and for being kick-butt women. You have no ideas how much your love, support, encouragement, and advice means to me. 

Welcome to Our Adventure!

Well, the cat is officially out of the bag.  We couldn't hold it in any longer, and it was time to share.  We figured since we had officially been accepted, there was no time like the present!

A huge thank you to my sister for making this photo happen.  I had jumble of ideas for announcements, and she just saw through my madness and put this together.  She even took the picture for us!

I'm sure a lot of you who are just joining us have a lot of questions. If you go back to one of my first posts, there is a little Q&A, though i'm going to answer a few more.  I love getting to talk about this adoption.  We are so excited to start our family, and the more we get to talk about it, the more real it feels.

Here are just a few basic questions, that I would be asking if I were you:

Why international adoption?

When we first starting considering adoption, we put everything out and decided what fit best with our family.  We are very lucky to have the means to adopt internationally. No, we don't have tons of money, but we do have very supportive jobs that are willing to give us the time off needed for the lengthy amount of time you need to be gone in international adoption. In addition, working for a major airlines has its perks.  We're lucky that part of my benefit package includes positive space travel for all adoption needs.

Why Hungary?

We kind of did the same thing as above.  Once we had settled on international, we looked at all the countries, and found out we didn't even qualify for most of them.  You'd be surprised how picky they can be! For example, we weren't eligible for China, because i'm under 30, most other Asian and South American countries wouldn't accept us because Cory takes anti-depressants, I didn't personally agree with some of the ethics of adoption from Ukraine, and Uganda has wait times of over 4 years.  There are so many other countries out there, that i'm not even mentioning! Eventually we had it narrowed down to India, Poland, and Hungary.  We knew we wanted a younger child, and we knew we wanted a child with "corrective or minor disabilities."  This was a big factor in narrowing it down to these countries.  In the end, we turned to prayer and endless research.  We learned most children adopted from Hungary are of Romani Descent.  If you aren't familiar with the Romani people or the struggles, I highly suggest looking it up.  This did play a factor in our decision.  Another one of the big factors was that the country requires an extended bonding period.  You are required to spend at least 30 days with the custody of your child, until the adoption can be finalized.  We loved the idea of getting an entire month of nothing but bonding and learning about each other.  Most families never get an uninterrupted opportunity like that!

Baby or Child? Boy or Girl?

Adopting internationally means the opportunity to have a baby isn't realistic.  The Hague Convention, put in place by the united nations in 2014 greatly regulated the way adoptions are run around the world.  It's a great program that helps to fight child trafficking and unethical adoptions.  Because of this, for a child to be adopted internationally, all reasonable resources must be taken to have the child adopted in country. Children under one year are never eligible, and children under 24 months are rare.  We are open to any child, or sibling groups under the age of 4. As for as gender, we have no preference as long as they get to become ours. Though from Hungary, over 85% of the adoptions are of boys. 

How long will it take? 

We really have no idea how long it'll take, but for now our guess is around a year.  We are announcing it early, because we need all the love and support we can get.  We're still in the beginning, and it's been full of highs and lows.  We love getting to include our friends and family in the planning and everyday of the adoption process.  Plus, if our little blog helps even one person trying to make the same decisions some day, it has been a success. 

What comes next?

Our current tasks are to finish up on our home study, and getting our dossier prepared to be sent to Hungary for translation. In the mean time, we will be doing tons of fundraising and applying for grants. (The total cost of international adoptions is around $40,000, which sadly we don't have) If anyone has great fundraiser ideas, feel free to let us know!  Once our dossier is submitted and accepted, its between a 2-24+ month waiting period for a referral. Since we are both young and have no other children, we're hoping our referral period will be no more than a year.  Once we have a referral, and we have accepted it, we have about a month until we travel.  from there we will spend just under 2 months in Hungary, and then we head back home.  Once we step into the U.S. as a family of 3 (or maybe even 4) our entire family will be U.S. Citizens. 

If you every have any questions about our adoption process, what we've struggled with, and what led us to our decisions, feel free to drop them in the comments or sent them to us privately.  Like I said, we love to talk about it and want you all included in our story.  Just like the old saying, says "It takes a village!" 

Reasons to Celebrate

 August 30th, is always a special day in our house.  It's this hansom man's birthday!

32 never looked so good!

Usually, I like to have birthdays be big events; Cake, tons of food, going out all day, and just an all day party! Well, poor Cory this year had more of a low key birthday.  We had super fallen behind on our adoption paperwork. After we got back from Berlin, we went strait back to work. On my 2 days off for the rest of the month, we found out my grandmother was sick and I ended up in Southern Louisiana on my only days off.  Because of all of this, Cory's birthday was spent running around getting our last minute paperwork done.  We started at the doctors office getting physicals, followed by state finger printing, and rounded it out with our FBI fingerprinting.

We were just finishing up with our final (for now) round of finger printing, and I was bragging to person doing the fingerprint that we were FINALLY done with our home study paperwork.  I was so excited, it was so much work, and I was done! Just as we were paying, and getting ready to head out, we both received emails at the same time. We opened it, and were in for a nice surprise.

We are official!  We have been accepted into our agency's Hungary program, and we are 1/4 of the way through our home study.  The best part about it though? We now have even more paperwork to do! Silly me for being excited that the first round was done.  Though, the real exciting part about this round of paperwork, is it is a lot of stuff that will get set directly to Hungary with our Dossier.  Every day this gets more and more real.

when we woke up the morning of the 30th, I told Cory 32 will be the best year yet.  After getting to celebrate both him and our adoption on the same day, I think it's safe to say i'm going to be right. Be on the lookout for an official announcement soon!

Ich bin ein Berliner

It's been a few weeks since an update, and truthfully, not much has happened on the adoption front.  We are still trudging through a mountain of paperwork.  When we first received it, I thought I could tackle it in a week! Boy, was I optimistic.  We have made a good dent in it, just not quite enough to turn it back it.  We're running into the problem that there is just not enough time in the day. We're down to just the paperwork that Cory needs to do.  Between work, school, and keeping himself sane, it just has not happened.  On top of that, we still haven't gotten our FBI clearance or Cory's finger print card done. They are both appointment based, but the only appointments are available Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm.  It's a little hard to make those times when you are also always working! I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed and impatient, but those are just two emotions I'm great at!  I have a new goal to get all the paperwork finished by this time next week, and all of our clearances started by the next.

Now, I really shouldn't complain about it taking us so long to finish this stuff up.  We did get to take and amazing week off playing tourist, avoiding responsibilities, and just having fun. Last week we spent a beautiful 5 days in Berlin, Germany.

The Brandeburg Tor

We had been planning this trip pretty much since the day we got married.  This trip has actually been planned 3 separate times.  The first time was after we had been married a few years.  We were going to use buddy passes from my brother (I didn't work for an airline yet), go through Paris, and take an amazing adventure. With that one, life got in the way. We went to Disneyland a bunch, and ended up buying a house a few years later.  Last year year we had the entire trip planned including hotel, rental car,  and train tickets booked.  We were scheduled to fly standby into Amsterdam, and take a train to Berlin. Everything was perfect and set to go. That is until 5 days prior I fell down the stairs at work and broke my foot in 5 places. Not my smoothest move, and the trip got shelved again.  Last summer my airline had a total meltdown.  It was a disaster. Crews and passengers were stranded for days, people will sleeping in airports, and flight attendants were getting lost in the system; stranded for days at a time.  As a thank you, the company gave all employee's positive space passes (real, free tickets) to anywhere we fly.  A few months after that, they announced we were going to start a direct route to Berlin just for the summer. It was a sign! A few months after that we booked the trip, and painful waited the few months for it to arrive. The wait was worth it!

You might ask though, why Berlin?  Before we were married, Cory served a 2 year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you aren't familiar with the process, they don't get to pick where they go, and they are in full missionary mode for two full years.  Doing service, proselyting, and spending all of your time teaching the gospel and spending time with members there.

  

Some of the first pictures I saw of Cory before we met where these pictures.  Can you blame me for falling for him?  For as long as I've known him though, he's always spoken so lovingly of his time in Germany.  Don't get me wrong, he often talks about how hard it was, but he still looks back on it fondly.  He has always wanted to go back, and with my work just putting the opportunity in our laps, we couldn't not go. 

It was the trip of a lifetime!  We actually didn't spend much time in areas that he actually served in, so we didn't get to meet any people he knew,but we did get to spend a week playing, exploring, and reminiscing. We did four days throughout Berlin, and a day in Potsdam exploring the old Prussian Palaces. Here are some of my favorite pictures. 

Sanssouci Palace

The Reichstag Buidling

Sanssouci Guest Home

The East Side Gallary

The Berlin Zoo

The Pergamon Museam

The Siegessaule

Inside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Checkpoint Charlie

The Berlin Cathedral

The Berlin Wall at East Side Gallery

 I'm already ready to go back again.  I don't know what it was about this city, but i'm in love!  I already miss the green landscape, history down every street, affordable Haribo gummies, and most of all the Mezzo Mix. I want to go back and bring an entire suitcase full of the delicious orange coke back to the states with me.  You can still buy Mezzo Mix in the state, but only at World Market.  I want it in every restaurant, and in every vending machine!

#bringmezzomixtotheUSA

While it may have slowed our home study down by a week, I wouldn't trade our week in Berlin for anything.  It was the perfect break, and we needed the time just the two of us.  I hope that one day we can bring our future family back, and get to share a part of something Cory, and now I, love so much!

On Your Mark, Get Set, Paperwork!

It's happening, and it's real.  We are officially in the Home Study phase!

We had our first meeting with our home study agency last Thursday.  Though the meeting almost didn't happen. I always thought the concept of "If you're doing something right, it'll always be hard" was a joke.  Why would something right be hard? Well, This must be the most right thing we've ever done! We had gotten over the problem of choosing domestic or international, and decided on a country through trial and error, and found a country that will let us adopt with depression, we thought it would be smooth sailing.  It turns out my job had other ideas.  

Now, you know we live in Phoenix, but what's fun is I actually work out of Salt Lake City.  The airline I work for doesn't have a base in my state.  Luckily this job does come with some great benefits and the ability to commute across the country if you need to.  It's all done on our own time, and it's our responsibility to have a place to stay in the base, and get there on time.  So next time you complain about your 40 mile commute, remember mine is 670 miles.

Of course our meeting was scheduled for the day after I got done working.  Usually, no big deal.  Oh no, this time it was different.  My trip ended up changing, and I ended up getting done too late to catch a flight home. I was a complete mess.  Thank goodness for an amazing crew who kept the trip fun, calm, and helped me see that it wasn't all hopeless. After a night in the airport, I luckily was able to catch a very early morning flight home on another airline.  I landed just in time to drive the hour home and pick Cory up, then head right back to the adoption agency.  Turns out the agency was right next to the airport!

Meeting with our social worker for the first time was great.  She was calm, focused, and laid everything out for us.  She went over the home study process, and made sure we knew all of our options.  We once again discussed the prospects of switching to infant domestic adoption, and she was a great resource for finding out how it really works.  We still feel very strongly about going internationally even though it costs us more, and means we will adopt a toddler instead of and infant. It felt good to talk it all out with someone that didn't know us, or what we've been over so far. Now we are getting down to business, and there is a lot of work ahead of us. The first step in all of this is a ridiculous amount of paperwork! I was expecting it, and I knew it was comings, so I had my binders and dividers ready to go!

I never thought i'd be so proud of a binder.  I am not the most organized person, and this little book is my pride and joy!  Now we are in the process of getting our fingerprint and FBI clearance, filling out monster amounts of paperwork, and getting our certifications of health.  I was mentally prepared for all of the paperwork, but I was not prepared for what was actually required in the paperwork.  In addition to the regular financial, work, and basic lifestyle questions, we have some other fun ones to answer.  Here is a sample of some of the harder ones:

• What age of your childhood did you like most, and why?
• Growing up, how did members of your family show happiness/love/frustration/stress/etc.
• What was the main reason you married your partner?
• what would you most like to change about your partner? what would they most like to change about you?
• How important will grades and school performance be for the children in your home?
• How do you handle privacy and nudity in your home?
• How will you discipline you children?
• What do you think will be your least favorite part of parenting?

The questions just go on, and on, and on, from there.  Some of the ones that are hardest to answer, are all about being a parent.  It's hard to imagine how you'll parent when you've never been faced with it before! For now, we do a lot of googling, and a lot of asking our families what they would do in a situation. 

Our current task is to get this all finished, and in about a week we will apply to our placement agency to start our dossier and USCIS approval! We're estimating about 3 months to finish our home study, and once that's done less than a year until we have a referral for a child! It's still a long ways away, but getting closer with ever piece of paper we fill out!

Wish us luck, and please send help if we drown under all this paperwork. 

The Best News Comes From Disneyland

“To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

Alright, you get it. We love Disneyland.  I'm sure you're ready to get back on track. This is an adoption blog for heavens sake! I promise, this is all going somewhere. 

Since we established that so much of our story started at Disneyland, let me add that so many big things happened in our life there. From getting good or bad news, to life events, Disneyland for us is more than just thrills, turkey legs, and long lines. 

Here are a few of the snapshot of our Disneyland memories:

March 20, 2010. Cory proposes in front of sleeping beauties castles.  He asks me "if you could wish for one thing, what would it be?" I of course respond with "a cat" right before he gets down on one knee.  Lets just say I got something better than a cat (and later still ended up with 3 of them).  We then call our families to tell them the news while waiting in line for The Matterhorn.

May 02, 2011.  While walking around in the park, we hear the news that Osama Bin Landen was killed.  I know, a weird thing to put here, but it's one of those things we'll always remember. 

February 2013.  Not only do I survive life with a dark brown pixie cut, I get to celebrate getting my dream job as a flight attendant with Skywest Airlines.  I fly home early for training, and my hair eventually grew. 

January 2014.  Just one year later, while we are walking to the park from our hotel, I get a phone call from Delta Air Lines recruiting that I've been selected to do a face to face interview with them. Moving to a mainline airline would mean better pay, international trips, and more flexibility in my chosen career.  I again have to cut the trip short a day and go home before everyone else.  I land the job, and get the career of a lifetime. 

August 2015.  We attendant our first D23 expo, and are in the room when Bob Iger announces that Disneyland and Disney World are getting Star Wars Lands.  I can't even describe the electricity of being in the room when something big like that is announced.  We are huge Star Wars fans, and are still counting down the days till 2019 when it opens. 

July 17, 2017. While riding Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, I feel my phone buzz. Minutes before this picture was taken I read the email stating that despite our small issues, Hungary will accept us as adoption prospects!

Yeah, you read that right. We finally have a little more progress into our adoption! We had been waiting to hear back from Hungary about adopting while on anti-depressants and they did not seem to want to get back to us. We had been patiently waiting for a response for almost a week, and when I finally got an email, I thought we would finally have some progress. Turns out all the email told us was that they were forwarding our question to the ministry of children, to really ensure it wasn't an issue.  We were told it'd be at least another week until we heard back from there.  This was the one thing standing between us, and finally starting this processes that could take us years. We had been told to expect it to take a weekend to hear from Hungary, and patience isn't something Gifford's are known for.  Lucky for us, this past weekend was the D23 Expo 2017.  

I LOVE going to D23. It's a crazy, exhausting, exciting, and informative weekend of all things Disney. Disney holds it every 2 years at the Anaheim Convention Center, and it's where they announce all of their new movies, TV shows, video games, theme park changes, and just about everything else.  There are signings, and panels with Disney Legends. It's pretty much a Disney fans dream come true.  We were able to do so much fun stuff, and above all we are able to see a lot of our friends that we don't get to see very often since we moved.  Sure, we had to wake up at 3am to wait in line to be in the standby for the live action panel that didn't start till 10:30am, but we're some of the only people in the world to have seen scenes from Avengers: Infinity War. All in all, the convention proved to be a great distraction. It was the first time in almost a month that I wasn't refreshing my email like a madwomen. It was exactly what I needed. 

On Monday after the convention, we decided to go to Disneyland for a half a day before driving home.  The first thing we did was run over to California Adventures to ride the new ride, Mission Breakout - The ride formally known as Tower of Terror.  I absolutely love the ride.  We had already ridden it our first day, and needed to do it again. Just as Tower of Terror was, the ride is a complete dead zone for cell coverage.  I wasn't expecting an answer till later in the week, so I wasn't worried.  As we were on the ride, catapulting to our doom, I felt my phone buzz.  I didn't think much of it, and so I didn't even bother to check it.  After going through the gift shop, (I'm a gift shop addict. It's not a problem, I could quit if I wanted to!) we went outside and I found the guy with the sign celebrating Disneyland's Birthday.  I chased him down, and when I pulled out my phone, I saw one sentence in an email that will change our life forever. “according to their (the ministry's) reply the family can apply to Hungary”.

Now that we know we can adopt, it's time for more waiting! I know that was the first of many hurdles to jump over, but it was the one we were facing to even get to the starting line. We have an appointment scheduled on the 26th with a home study group, and hopefully we can start that process soon.  Once our home study is done, we can submit our Dossier to Hungary to await a match for a referral for a child! 

From Utah to Disneyland - Our History

As anyone who knows us should know, Disneyland is a huge part of our story.  When I met Cory I was a college freshman, working on my degree in dance education, and mostly failing out of college.  My roommate and best friend has started dating an awesome guy (they're now married), and he set me up with his co-worker. One afternoon over Thanksgiving break, I received a text from an unknown number.  All this message said was "Hey, this is Cody's friend Cory.  Do you know how much a polar bear weighs?" Being the smart alack I am, I of course responded with a perfectly googled measurement of what a polar bears weighs in both pounds and kilograms. Turns out all he wanted to say was, "enough to break the ice!"

We went on our first date the next evening.  If was a night of Kermit the Frog impressions, bonding over our same love of music, our love of Disney and Marvel Comics, and a whole lot of giggling on my part.  We had gone to Temple Square to look at the lights, and were so caught up in everything, he even forgot to feed me dinner.  We ended up staying up till 1am, just talking on the couch in my parents basement.  He scandalously kissed me at the end of our first date, and the rest is history.

                  

Everything was near perfect.  He was kind, hilarious, and had a sweet car. (Honda Elements, always a lady killer.)  There was only one little problem. The summer prior my older brother and his wife had taken me to Disneyland.  I fell in love.  It was the costumes, the music, the food, and the magic.  I felt at home.  I spent my entire first semester in college focused on doing well enough to get into The Disney College Program.  Lucky for me, I was working for Radio Disney at the time as a dancer doing live events and promotions.  It gave me a good reference, and less than a month before meeting Cory I had been accepted into the program.  I was overjoyed, excited, yet still heartbroken to leave this awesome guy that I had fallen in love with in such a short time. We had just over a month before I packed up my Chevy Aveo with my sick collection of pop-punk CD's and headed to Anaheim.  We spend that month practically inseparable, but the time still came to leave.


My college program experience was a unique one.  As I look back on it now, it was some of the best times of my life.  However, if you were to have met me then, you might have thought I hated everything about it. The hours were long, it was my first time living more than an hour away from where I grew up, my roommate could only fall asleep while listing to the score or book on tape for Lord of the Rings, and I was incredibly sick. (I was diagnosed with Celiac disease during my program, which is why it was cut short.) Despite all of that, it was still an amazing experience.  I made awesome friends, went to Disneyland almost every day, and ate too many Churro's to count. If you asked me today if I'd do it all over again, I would automatically give you a big yes!

Working at World of Disney meant awesome tapestry vest, and Deny's trips
 at 3am after the park was asleep for the night.

One of the best parts of working for a Disney park, is the free sign ins for your friends and family.  You're essentially given a certain number of free park tickets every year.  Because of this, Cory was able to come and visit a few times.  Despite us both being huge Disney fans before we ever met, I think our relationship starting with Disney definitely helped add to the craziness. So if you're reading this and think, "these people are insane, why are all their pictures from Disneyland?" You can thank a couple of nerdy college kids, and the Disney College Program.

Brace yourself, another Disneyland post is coming.  

The Penguin and the Soccer Ball

I never thought I would dread the weekend. I love the weekend, even though i'm usually working.  Weekends are for garage sales, parties, and flash sales at the Kate Spade outlet.  Well, since we started into this adoption process. I hate the weekend.  Why would I hate something so innocent and pure? What did it ever do to you? Well, I'll tell you what's wrong with them, they give people an excuse not to go to work.  Sure, that's a little selfish, but i don't get progress emails when people don't work.

We have big news though.  We've decided on a country.  As long as everything in the next few days goes as planned, we will be...

We had our first real conversation with an adoption agency on Friday.  It was nerve racking, exciting, informative, and terrifying all at one time.  They were so sweet, and did an amazing job at answering all of our questions.  No one ever tells you about this part of the adoption process. When you're ready to go, but it's just not quite time. That point where you and your partner are ready to roll right into the process, and some nice lady on the phone runs up and kicks the ball out from under you.

Exhibit A: we're the first penguin and the nice phone lady is the second. 

We only have one little thing stopping us from a bright green light.  As many people who are close to us know, about a year ago Cory was places on Antidepressants by his general care doctor.  Sadly, depression and other mental health issues are stigmatized even more in other countries then they are in the U.S.  Countries such as Taiwan and Poland will not even look at an applicant with any sort of mental health issue.  However, the person we spoke to from the agency was very honest and helpful when it came to our family and adopting.  She made sure she knew it was not a no go item. Before she had even called us, she had already sent two emails out to contacts in Hungary to see if this will be an issue for us.  Before we can get any official paperwork filed with an agency, we have to wait to hear from Hungary on Monday.  We're hoping and praying that we get nothing but good news.

Lucky for me, she must have known i'm an obsessive researcher.  She made sure to give me something to google till my finger bled before hanging up the phone.  Just in case, she suggested we check into both The Republic of Georgia and India as possible other countries if we don't get the news or the referral times we want from Hungary. We also need to do the pre-application, and fill out the hardest part of all of this, the special needs consideration checklist.  It's literally a list of birth defects and childhood disease.  We had to go through each an every one, and decide what we are capable of handing.  At first, it was hard to do without filling guilty.  Researching these things and realizing there are real children with these real conditions out in the world was heartbreaking.  For every disease we didn't select, it was hard not to feel like you were keeping a child from having a home because of something they were born with.  In the end we had realize that we have to work within or means, no matter how much we feel for these children.  Taking on something way out of our capability range wouldn't be fair to us or the child.  Despite it being hard, I am so glad the agency asked us to do it.  It's a big reality check that you will probably adopt a child that isn't healthy or completely perfect.  It also helped us to realize what we were and weren't capable of. They say if something is easy, it's not as worth it.  I'm hoping this is one of those things!

What was the point of this post you may ask? Well, it was to let you know that nothing has happens, but also that so much has happened! We have an actual email about us sitting in someones inbox in Hungary.  The little things have become such joy!  We will also be starting our home study soon.  I'm currently grilling a handful of them in Arizona to make sure they're a right fit.  As soon as we find one, we will have officially started the process!

 At this point I think it's safe to say we are all in with this adoption adventure.  We want a family, and we feel so strongly that this is the way our family is supposed to begin.  We're currently deciding on when we want to announce our plans, and it's a tough decision.  When you're pregnant, you know it's safest to wait till you're out of the first trimester to announce anything.  With adoption, there is no such rule as nothing is ever guaranteed.  When adopting a newborn from inside the US, it's customary to wait until you've been placed, or until the child is born.  Going internationally there are no such rules.  You essentially need everyone to know before hand.  You need a good support group to handle the paperwork, fundraising, and endless number of character referrals you need. For now, our plan is to wait until we've been official accepted by the agency. Though we'll see how long we last once our home study is started.  So I hope everyone is prepared to hear us ramble on about our adoption journey for the next year or so! Even though nothing is official, we're already having too much fun with it.  We've been throwing around names, walking through the Disney Store and quietly day dreaming, and trying to comprehend what we're getting ourselves into.  In about a year, we could be adding a toddler (or even two) to our family.  We can't wait, and I can't wait to finally tell everyone about it!