I just wanna tell you all about me first! I am 12 years old, I am weird, my voice is weird, I play cello, I play basketball, I play baseball, I play! If any of you have questions about me feel free to ask.

K-MAN

Jen started a nice tradition last year of a birthday breakfast. We did that again this morning. Kee is very fond of biscuits, so Jen cooked some Pillsbury Grands in the oven for his special day. He loved it. We didn’t have any candles, so we used some long matches instead. Three of them planted in a Grand. Pure celebration!

The last three years with Keegan have been beyond life-changing. I thought that I could love him like I do, but it feels different than I thought it would. When he engages me, I see and hear nothing else. Nothing penetrates my hard outer shell like that boy’s voice.

Here’s a snippet of a recent bed-time “conversation” with mom. We’ve gotten into a decent routine of reading books and praying and “kisses all together” (which is Jen and I kissing him on each cheek at the same time. The kid comes unglued with glee. Love unfettered.)

(Jen was reading a new book of Five Minute Devotionals that Kerri Barfield recommended. The story involved a penguin and patience.)

Jen: See the penguin there?

K-Man: It’s Koko.

It looks like Koko, but it’s not Koko.

I want to watch Koko.

No, we can’t watch Koko now. Maybe later. See, the penguin is sitting on the egg.

He’s poopin‘.

No, he’s sitting on the egg, like when we have breakfast.

I want egg. I’m hungry.

No, you’re not hungry. You can eat tomorrow.

The moral of this story is that stories with morals don’t really register with three-year-olds.

But dang, that boy is hilarious.

In case you don’t happen to know the story about how we were blessed with Keegan, you can read the two-part story here:

Part one

Part two

But I am in the midst of doing some networking that requires me to talk about how “great” I am, and I am suffering from some cognitive dissonance about the whole thing. The dissonance comes not from whether I really think I am that good. I do. It comes from a belief that going around telling everyone about how good you are (like a Big 12 South team trying to convince pollsters) is unappealing at best. It feels so fake. Rather than be the annoying guy asking to be picked, I’d prefer to let my work speak for itself and “get picked.”

But I’m told it’s not as passive a process as that. I need to actively sell what I can do and how I can benefit another organization. That’s just sort of how it works. So I guess I have no choice. But to be believable, I need to find some level of congruence on what I believe about myself and the manner in which I convey that to others in this networking process.

Despite my less than consistent posting, you guys keep dropping in here. In fact, this week, one of you was the 10,000th viewer of this electronic journal. I’m guessing that at least half of those views are people searching for new photos of K-Man. I don’t blame you. Keep coming back because there’ll be more of those. And thanks for dropping in.

Speaking of Kee, I think this is going to be a big year for him at Christmas. Not because he’s all into the gift-getting. For the last few months, he and Jen have watched Polar Express about once a day. We watched it 1.5 times today. Of course what started the love affair with Polar Express was the train. In fact, it is still commonly referred to around the house as “Train Movie.” But in the last few weeks, he’s noticing the Christmas things in the movie — especially the Christmas tree. We don’t usually get our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this might be the year we do. Just to see Kee’s eye light up as we walk through the Christmas tree forest (in the parking lot at White Water.)

Thinking about them coming home got me to thinking about a story from a few weeks ago. Keegan has been on a quesadilla kick for the last month or so. Rather than spend money at Moe’s or Willy’s on his occasionally favorite meal, Jen decided to just make them at home on the pancake griddle. Works like a charm by the way. The problem was that he was just eating tortillas and cheese. Needed some more nutrients. So Jen tried to sneak in some more nutritious substances. First, she tried to add some veggies with the cheese, thinking he wouldn’t notice. Wrong. He took a bite and looked more closely at the assortment of quesadilla pieces on his plate and turned to Jen and said “no like.” Busted.

Next, she tried to add some chicken. Now, he’ll eat chicken from time to time. But apparently, he doesn’t like that in his cheese quesadilla either.

Undeterred, Jen got some tofu, which is made from soy. Tofu is the food equivalent of that liquid metal stuff they made those next generation Terminators out of in Terminator 2. It can take whatever form you need it to. It’s white, like some of the cheese in the mexican blend of shredded cheese we use for the quesadillas. When placed on a tortilla with shredded cheese and heated on a griddle, it blends fairly well with the melted queso. And it’s tasteless, so it absorbs the cheese flavor. This one got by K-man’s cheese-dar. Poor kid. Duped by his momma.

A few days later, I was home with Kee while Jen was running errands. It got to be dinner time, so I asked him what he wanted for dinner. This question doesn’t yet generate a response containing a choice of entree. It seems to alert him that the parent will then rattle off a selection of options. To which he will respond “no.” Or he will repeat the choice that he wants.

So knowing that he’s on a quesadilla kick, I throw that one out first — hoping that I can shorten the exercise of dinner selection. I say “do you want a quesadilla?“

“Quesadilla” he repeats.

“Do you want a quesadilla?“

“OK.“

And as I’m walking from the pantry with the tortillas to the fridge to pull out the shredded cheese, he places his order: “Just cheese.”

It’s hilarious to me that the kid is aware that his mom is trying to sneak in foreign substances into his quesadilla thereby ruining the meal for him. “Yea, she calls it a ‘quesadilla,’ but I know she’s slipping other stuff in there.” And apparently, I’m guilty by association. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel the need to clarify his order with me.

So I grabbed the cheese out of the fridge and told him “Just cheese.“

“OK.” he shot back.

Keegan loved the scenery, the story, and the songs. He could barely sit still … and often didn’t. More than once, the excitement was so much that he spun around jumping up and down looking at us like “can you believe how incredible this is? That’s the great green room down there! That’s the old lady whispering hush. Those are the three bears and their chairs! This is totally awesome!!) A couple times, I thought he was going to pogo himself right over the balcony he was so beside himself.

His eyes sparkled. He was mesmerized by it all. And when it was over, we walked up the stairs and out into the hallway where Keegan let out a bellowing “Goodnight Moon!”

It was a good night.

Then he got ready for the real Halloween festivities in the neighborhood.

Posed for a picture with his Aunt Nicole and Uncle Jonathan.

On Saturday, we had some friends over (all of whom were dog fans) to watch the annual Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville (a/k/a the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party). I expected the game to be a Big 12 shootout with the winner being the last team with the ball. Fortunately, it didn’t matter who had the ball at the end of the game … or all of the fourth quarter for that matter. UF took advantage of some “timely” penalties by Georgia and Matthew Stafford auditioning for the Detroit Lions by throwing 3 interceptions. The final score was 49-10.

By the fourth quarter, John Mark, one of our UGA friends, had capitulated.

And decided to get a new tatoo.

On his forehead. See.

We took Keegan to the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History on Saturday. The kid is obsessed with trains at the moment — especially Thomas the Train. We wound our way through the museum waiting to get to the ultimate prize — The General. Fully restored and resting in its own room in the museum. Trains are large pieces of machinery when viewed outside. When resting in a building, their size is enhanced by the surrounding walls. It sure freaked out K-Man when he turned the corner to see the imposing General staring back at him. Never felt the kid squeeze my hand so hard as we slowly walked around the train. Eventually, he got comfortable with the size of the train and realized that it wasn’t going to take off through the building. He even asked to see it again before we left the museum store. The morning was topped off with several passes through the Thomas the Train jump ride set up outside the museum. The train stamp on his hand was a bonus.

Yesterday, Keegan and I endured Jen singing “Hail to the Redskins” from about 4:00 to 7:30 as she watched her beloved Skins get a win on the road in Dallas against their biggest rival. Jen was teaching Kee to yell “Go Redskins” and I was teaching him to yell “No Singing!!” every time Jen started with the fight song. (Not quite as annoying as “Rocky Top” … but close.)

I have declared the official start to fall. Fall officially begins when I grow the goatee back. Shaved the goatee in last night.

First, I had to secure the services of someone to watch Keegan. No offense to the little guy, but mom and dad need some mom and dad time if you know what I mean. And K-Man doesn’t fit that plan. So I clandestinely contacted Jen’s parents about watching Kee. They agreed. Then I had to pick a date. I tried to get it planned around our anniversary date, but my sister had the audacity to schedule her nuptials for the weekend that fit that. No problem. I’m flexible. I found another weekend that fit. And made sure that worked for our friends in sunny Californ-I-A. It did. Plan moves forward.

On Valentine’s Day, I told Jen that I had a trip planned for our anniversary. I told her I’d reserved a place at Amelia Island. (Why Amelia Island? Because I knew there was no way that I could pack secretly for Jen. So I told her a beach location that she could pack clothes that worked for L.A. too.) I also told her that she couldn’t go online to search out stuff to do and start researching the area; I would plan everything for us. She agreed. I told her that her parents had agreed to watch K-Man while we were gone too.

Then we just had to wait 3 freaking long months. In that time, we had a family emergency with Jen’s grandmother and there was a question of whether our babysitting arrangements would hold. But they did.

Finally, the day arrived. We left for the airport yesterday morning. We got in line at the check-in kiosk at the airport. I upgraded us to first class (because I knew how long the flight was going to be and the option was there). Jen didn’t notice the kiosk screen’s indication of the arrival site of our flight. Then we got in line to check our bags. The guy took the printed tags and wrapped them around our bags. Jen noticed the “LAX” on the tags and said “those say LAX on them.”

“I know,” I replied.

Nothing.

We walked on to security. I handed Jen her boarding pass — which prominently displays “Los Angeles, CA” on it. But we passed through security without any cavity checks and without Jen bothering to read her boarding pass.

On the train, I tell Jen that I upgraded to first class. Jen says “I wish the flight was 5 hours long to enjoy that.”

“I bet you do.”

We get to the gate. Still Jen is oblivious. I make a point of looking at the gate board and saying, “looks like we’re supposed to leave at 9:25.” “OK” Jen says without looking up to see where this 9:25 flight is going.

As we are sitting waiting for the flight, Jen says “so are we flying into Jacksonville?”

(I realize this probably is going to be my only chance to finally spring this surprise on her.)

“No” and I hand her the boarding pass . . . again.

After a few seconds, it registers what she’s reading.

And all of the effort to get to that look on her face was worth all the wait.

K-man’s athletic interests continue. He bounces from the basketball hoop to the tee-ball set and back again. Jen’s parents were in town this week and picked up a small soccer ball for him too, so we’ll be able to work on some kicking too.

Keegan has also treated us with a tune. His song of choice? Row, Row, Row Your Boat. It’s priceless. (We’ll have to get video of that to share.)

We do have video of Keegan at the keyboard. He enjoys when Jen plays ragtime pieces, but he also gets on the keys and works on his finger technique all the time. See for yourself.

But yesterday, we found a good second option. It requires a 2-year-old whose language skills are good but not great and who hasn’t mastered volume control — even within the same word. And a parent in the background spoon-feeding words the kid knows. Here’s how our call went yesterday.

Jen noticed the “out of area” notice on the caller ID — dead giveaway for the telemarketer. So she handed the phone to Keegan after pressing the “talk” button.

Jen: Say hello.

K-man: Hello HEY!!

[Brief silence]

Jen: Say marshmallow.

K-Man: Marce-YALLOW!

[another beat]

K-Man: Bye-BYE!

It’s been a while since we laughed that hard! Can’t wait to spring him on some more unsuspecting souls. If they want to try and out-flank the Do Not Call registry, we’ll be ready for them.

I grabbed some video of the work-out. My first video actually. We’ve been without a digital camera for about a year. And as I am want to do, I went to BestBuy the other night and replaced the lost camera. (Jen’s in Cozumel. Seemed like a fair trade-off.) I like it so far. Feel free to give me some tips on posting videos to YouTube. Not sure I like the quality of the upload. It looked better on the computer before I uploaded it.

And now … Keegan at the bat:

But what am I going to write?

Rather than look forward, I am going to pause to look back. Not that I can do anything about what happened in 2007, but I think there are some lessons to learn in the review.

In the fall of 2007, I took part in a men’s group at church. I plan to continue the second half of that course this spring. What I learned by participating was not really anything new. It was a reminder that men need to be with other men for accountability. A reminder that I am flawed. (Jen will be surprised to read that I am flawed. She thinks I’m perfect in every way.) And encouragement that my crazy background is matched by a lot of the backgrounds of other men — many of whom I would never think shared life experiences with me. In 2008, I want to be even more transparent — and I think I was fairly transparent in the small group I am in. I also want to be more intentional about acting on some of the things I learn/realize/experience in this group. That’s not the easiest thing for me. I am cognitive. I enjoy the mental exercise. Which also means I can overthink things into inaction. I don’t want to do that with this group. If that’s all I do, I will have wasted this opportunity.

In 2007, I did a decent job of making time for Jen and Keegan. But as you might assume, “decent” signals much room for improvement. I need to be more intentional about being present when I have time with Jen and K-Man. I can’t waste those opportunities.

In 2007, I was unsuccessful in reaching some goals at work. I am an attorney, and I work in a firm. What that means, is that my life is ruled by the billable hour. The firm places expectations for billable hours on attorneys like me. We have to bill a minimum of hours each year. We are encouraged to bill more than the minimum by the firm’s bonus structure. When 2007 started, I set some goals for myself in terms of billable hours. I did not meet those goals. (I hate even admitting that!) But what did I learn from 2007? That sometimes, I need to worry about me and my family more than I worry about what is best for my reputation. Huh? Suffice it to say that I left some money on the table in 2007. Money that my family could have used in any number of ways. So for 2008, I intend to do what I have to do to ensure I am in a position to earn what I can for the family. Now that doesn’t mean that I need to work more hours necessarily. What it means is that I need to make every opportunity I have count. If my workload slips, I need to secure more work. I don’t want to waste this opportunity.

2007 was a good year. Here’s to a solid 2008. Here’s to a 2008 that balances life and family and friends and faith and work. In the first fortnight of the year, things seem to be on course.

So Jen called Marcia. Marcia gave Jen the contact information for the agency out west. And Jen called that woman. She gave a little more information. It was a baby boy, and both of his birth parents are Hispanic. She had been on the phone on Christmas Day with a couple who considered the boy but ended up saying “no” because he was “full” Hispanic. (Huh?!) She was on the phone with a second couple but she thought they were going to say “no” for the same reason. So Jen and I talked for a little bit. We were comfortable with his Hispanic background. But we didn’t know anything about the birth mother’s medical background. Had she gotten any pre-natal care? Was she an alcoholic? Any drug use? We couldn’t get that information before the agency would want to know if we wanted to be considered. So we moved ahead on faith. That this was who the Lord wanted us to have and everything else would take care of itself. So Jen called the woman back and said we’d like to be considered if the second couple turned him down.

I immediately went online trying to get a flight to that area of Florida so we could be there by 6:00 p.m. No dice. Not many flights available the day after Christmas. I found one seat to a nearby city, so I bought that for Jen. She would have to rent a car and drive over the rest of the way. Then we just had to wait. But if this was going to happen now, we really should have some stuff for a kid. All we had was a bassinette and a swing. That’s not enough. So we went to Target.

At Target, we went to the baby area and looked at car seats. Found one. Then we started looking at bottles and formula. Too many options. So Jen called a couple of friends to get their input. What bottles? Which formula? Then the other line rang. It was the adoption agency. Jen clicked over. The second couple said “no;” he’s yours if you want him. Are you freakin’ kidding me? A rush of excitement, fear and joy overwhelmed me. What the hell was happening?

Thus commenced the Target mad dash. Bottles, formula, t-shirts, onesies, socks, pacifiers, diapers, wipes, lotion, baby powder, butt cream, blankets, towels, and on and on. Nearly $400 worth of stuff all crammed into a red Target buggy.

The agency said they needed a copy of our home study. Ooops. We didn’t have the final report. Jen called the social worker. No answer. Jen left a voice-mail to call her back as soon as she got the message. We went home. The ticket that I bought for Jen wouldn’t get her to Florida by the 6:00 p.m. deadline. Jen called the agency to let them know. The agency made arrangements to let the baby stay in the hospital another night. Jen called the social worker and left another message.

The social worker called Jen back from the airplane she was on traveling back for the holiday. She was going straight to her office to print out the report, but she needed my medical exam. (This is where it does not pay to be a procrastinator.) Who is going to be able to give me a physical on the weekend? Of course, Jen’s OB/GYN. We hoped anyway. He goes to church with us, so we called him. Sure, he says. Meet him at his office. So I go to Jen’s OB to get my medical exam, and Jen has to leave for the airport. We would reconnect in Florida.

At the OB’s office, as you can imagine, I got some weird looks from the nurses. But the doc assured them I was in the right place. He was able to do the complete physical except the TB test. OK, we’ll take care of that tomorrow sometime. So I go back home and pack all of the newly purchased baby stuff from Target into the Explorer, grab some clothes and head to my office. There, I grab some work-related things I needed to take care of that week and sent a mass email to everyone telling them where I was headed. I had let most of them know that we were planning to go through this process, but I didn’t think it would come this quickly. I got back in the car and headed south on I-75.

I have driven into the wee hours of the morning before, but I have never been as wide awake as I was on this trip. I was making calls to people telling them where I was headed, and my Blackberry was buzzing as everyone replied to the email I sent out.

I arrived at the hotel around 4:00 a.m. I slumped into bed and quickly fell asleep. Around 9:00 a.m., I got up, and we went to find a place that could do the TB test. We found a worker’s comp clinic that fit the bill just down the street from the hotel. They ran the test and told me to come back for the results.

We went back to the hotel to wait to hear what was next. Around lunchtime, we received a call from the attorney’s office. They said they’d like us to be at the hospital around 4:30 p.m. She said that the birth mother might want to go to dinner with us to meet us and talk to us. I was not in favor of this. I’d just rather pick up the baby and move on. If she wants to talk at the hospital, I’m fine with that. Jen agreed with me. But as the time crept slowly by until 4:30, we both softened. If she wants to meet us, we could do that. We’d have the rest of our lives to be with this baby. She deserves the chance to meet us.

Eventually, enough time passed that it was nearing 4:30. We went to the hospital and waited in the maternity lobby. The attorney came out to us with the paperwork. The birth mother had signed the paperwork and revoked her parental rights. What about the birth father? Well, he was not available to revoke. He was in Panama. The attorneys would have to go through the process to notice the birth and give him an opportunity to come forward before they could consider his rights revoked. OK. Would’ve preferred a little more closure on that, but we’ll deal with that. We signed all of the paperwork and then the attorney walked us back to the room. She said that the birth mother was feeding him.

When we walked in, she was sitting on a bench seat feeding him a bottle of formula. Jen sat down next to them, and I stood looking at the baby. I’ll admit it; I was looking to see if there were any problems with him. There didn’t appear to be. He was beautiful with his stocking cap on sucking on that bottle. So at peace.

She asked Jen if she wanted to hold him. She did. Then the woman started to tell her story. She is 35 and from Panama. She has 3 kids. A 16-year-old boy, a 15-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl. Her mother lives with her in Florida, but her father lives in Panama. She visits him periodically. On one trip back to see him, she went out and met a construction worker. They had sex, and she got pregnant. She did not tell the guy because she didn’t know him and his construction work was somewhat nomadic. He went to where the jobs were, and he was not living in her father’s town still. She had not seen or heard from him since that night. (We found out later that the birth mother had returned to Panama a number of times during her pregnancy and received pre-natal care on each of those visits.)

She did not tell anyone about the pregnancy. She was planning to move her family to a new house in a new school district, and another child was going to complicate that. She managed to go through the entire pregnancy without telling (or showing) anyone that she was pregnant. On Christmas Eve, she was at a party and felt her contractions start. She got up and drove herself to the hospital. Had the baby. An hour-and-a-half later, she checked herself out of the hospital. She said they made her sign a release before she could leave and gave her some Tylenol to take with her. She went back to the party so that people would not suspect anything. She had not seen the baby since she left that night.

On Christmas Day, she went on the internet to find an adoption agency. She had done some research during her pregnancy but didn’t get involved with one earlier because she was trying to keep the pregnancy secret from her family and friends. She called an agency in Florida, but it was closed because of the holiday. Several others she tried were closed as well. She managed to locate someone at the agency out west, and that is how they became involved.

We thanked her for making the decision that she made and trusting us with the baby. After sitting with us for about 30 minutes, she said she was happy and felt that she made the right choice. She took one of the stocking caps they had for the baby as well as a card with his footprints on it. We hugged her, and then she left. I can’t imagine how she felt walking away that day. I do hope that she felt a peace about it. When the door shut after she left, Jen was crying – no doubt thinking about the strength it took for this woman to give us this incredible gift.

The nurse gave us a quick lesson in diaper changing and feeding. The attorney gave us a little information on what would happen next in the process and that she’d call us in the next day or two to give us an update. Then they let us leave the hospital with Keegan. They just gave us this kid, and let us walk out the door. Unbelievable.

Here’s a shot of him on that day.

So we went back to the hotel after picking up some dinner to take back with us. We laid him on the bed and just stared at him. Did this just happen? Did they give us this baby to take care of? This kid? The one laying right there on the bed?

We had to stay in Florida until the State of Florida gave its initial approval. Then we had to have Georgia’s approval to bring him across the state line. That could take 7-10 days they told us. I had to go back and get my TB results. They were negative. No TB for me! That was the final part of my medical exam. I faxed that to the social worker. And the home study was complete.

Then we went to Babies R Us, because we had never registered for any baby stuff – despite the encouragement to do so from others. We spent most of that week in the hotel room waiting to hear from the attorney. I did have to go to the bank to arrange for a wiring of money to pay the adoption agency. (They made a lot of money for 3 days of work by the way.)

On Thursday, we heard from the attorney that Florida had given its approval, and the information had been forwarded to Georgia. On Friday around lunchtime, I called the attorney to see if they had heard from Georgia. No, not yet. If they didn’t hear on Friday, we wouldn’t hear until Tuesday because Monday was a holiday. So I prepared myself for another 3 days in the hotel. Around 2:00 p.m., the phone rang. It was the attorney. Georgia gave verbal approval over the phone. We were free to go. I rushed to the front desk to see if they’d let us leave without paying the extra day. Under the circumstances, they were more than willing to do that. We decided not to go the whole way back to Atlanta given the late start, so we went to Gainesville for the night. We met our friends, Greg and Stephanie. Stephanie is at UF med school studying pediatrics, so we made her give Keegan a good once over. Everything checked out. It was good to get another opinion. I mean, he seemed perfect to us, but the second opinion never hurts. On Saturday, we headed home.

When we arrived at home, we were completely blindsided by what had occurred in our absence. Amy Fritchman and Misty Eldridge came in and cleaned the house. They took down our Christmas tree and decorations. They went by Babies R Us and picked up the crib we’d ordered and put it together. They picked up the changing table. They painted K-Man’s room!! And set up everything in there. It was unbelievable. They were all there waiting for us when we got home. It was great to celebrate with them.

Here are some shots of Amy’s and Misty’s handiwork.

On April 27, 2006, we had a telephonic hearing with a Florida State Court judge who finalized the adoption for us. Everything was legal from that point.

So that’s the story. I think I covered it rather completely. Now you know the rest of the beginning of K-Man’s story. Two years later, he remains the blessing that he was on that first day. He’s just much more mobile now and capable of wreaking greater havoc.

This time two years ago, I was speeding down I-75 headed to Florida and Jen was already down there waiting for my arrival. We were only hours away from seeing K-Man for the very first time. But before we get to that part of the story, there’s much prologue to cover.

Sometime in 2000 – it doesn’t matter when at this point – Jen and I decided to start a family. No, that’s not right. We were already a family. We’d been married almost 7 years by that time and been through 2 advanced degree programs for me. We decided to try to have a baby – the traditional way. Well long story short – we were unsuccessful in that department. Not for a lack of trying I can assure you. They say that practice makes perfect. They are lying.

Come 2005 – and way too much unsuccess for anyone’s psyche – we decided to go the adoption route. We decided rather than spend $10,000+ for the privilege of me giving Jen shots all the time and trying in vitro, we would spend that money (and then some) on an adoption. We, of course, looked into the costs for such a thing. They are many. There’s a fee for the adoption itself. There’s a fee for the lawyers involved in making it legal. In some cases there are fees for the birth mother’s medical expenses and living expenses. There’s a fee for the home study – to be evaluated by a social worker to get a report that says you’re fit to be parents. There may be travel expenses depending on where the birth mother is. And there’s a fee if you use an adoption consultant. That’s a $%&#-load of fees. It’s a racket really when you look at the grand total and consider what some of the fees are actually for. It’s tragic to let costs be an obstacle when there are so many couples who would love to adopt the hundreds of kids out there waiting to be adopted. (But that’s for another post.)

Now that we’d decided to adopt, we needed to figure out how to do it. My sister had a friend whose aunt (I think) had used an adoption consultant to walk them through the process. So we checked her out. She has two children, and she adopted both of them. After working herself through those processes, she decided that there was a need to help other couples navigate the adoption waters. When we met her, she had been helping couples for about 15 years. We started by visiting an informational meeting. We liked what we heard. She provided example after example of adoptions that only took 3 to 12 months to complete. We know people who waited years from the beginning of the process to when they picked up their babies. We wanted to move as quickly as possible. She was no-nonsense. She was a little animated for me, but I appreciated her passion for helping couples. Now that we knew that we wanted to adopt and we had a consultant to use, we had to figure out how to pay for the adoption.

We bought our house in the summer of 2004. Twelve months later, the prices in our neighborhood had risen about 20%. This allowed us to refinance and use our second mortgage to cover the expenses. I had always doubted that we would be able to pay for an adoption. Thankfully, the Lord had other plans for us. Armed with the means to cover an adoption, we moved forward.

In the second week of November 2005, we had our first meeting with the consultant. She runs her agency out of the basement of her house. Normally, I would be skeptical of such things, but oddly enough, I wasn’t in this case. Before we met with Marcia, she gave us some paperwork to complete. One of the items was a tolerance inventory. This was not a measure of how many adult beverages it took to make us tipsy. The inventory asked us what aspects of the birth parents’ history would we tolerate. Black? White? Hispanic? Asian? Mixed? Heart disease? Drug use? Marijuana? Cocaine? Heroin? Cancer? Smoker? Alcohol use/abuse? Sickle cell trait? HIV+? The inventory went on and on. Tough issues to consider. Makes you think hard about how much you want a child and how bigoted you really are. The kicker is that the more you tolerate, the quicker you’ll get matched with a birth mother. Before we left that first meeting, we scheduled the second meeting with her for the first week of December. Oh yea, and I wrote a check for the first half of her fee.

When we left Marcia after the first meeting, we had a couple of assignments. First, we had to get moving on our home study. Second, we had to get our “profile” done. Marcia gave us the name of a social worker that she had just started working with. Jen called her to get that ball rolling. Next, we called Mike Moon and asked him if he could help us put together our profile. What is a “profile?” I know you’re asking yourself that question. Glad you asked. A profile is really a set of marketing materials about you as a couple. Here’s Bill and Jen. The way Marcia explained it to us, when a birth mother reaches the point of deciding which couple to give the baby to, she uses these profiles to decide which couple(s) to consider. We collected pictures of us and our families to use. We wrote copy for the profile about each of us as individuals and as a couple; about our interests; and about our families and friends. We gave Mike the pictures and copy, and he and Sabrina (his wife) put together the best profile – bar none – that we could ask for.

At the second meeting with Marcia in early December, we showed her our profile and let her know that we were moving forward with our home study. She gave us a binder chock full of information about five or six adoption agencies that she thought would fit us best. One of our goals was to adopt in a state that had a very short revocation period . . . or none at all. Our homework was to choose one or two agencies to apply with. [The idea was that we would select an agency and apply with them. That agency would work with Marcia if they had a birth mother who matched with us and wanted to talk to us. At some point, we might meet with her and a match would be made. We would then wait for her to complete the pregnancy, and we would get a call when the baby was coming. That was the “usual” way this process works. As it turned out, there was nothing “usual” about the process we would follow.]

Over the next couple of weeks that December, we finished our three meetings with the social worker for the home study. We would need that done to move forward with the agency we would decide to work with. On Christmas Day, we spent the bulk of the day at my parents’ house with all of the other relatives. It was a fun day, but it was long. We came home that night and crashed. We slept late on the morning of the 26th with plans for a very lazy day. [Again our plans would be thwarted.]

Some time after lunch on the 26th, Jen decided to check her email. She had received an email from Marcia shortly around 11:00 p.m. or midnight the night before. Marcia was forwarding an email that she had received earlier Christmas Day from an adoption agency out west. The email said that there was a baby in a hospital in Florida who was going to be placed in that state’s version of DFCS if he was not picked up by 6:00 p.m. that night. I was in the living room reading the paper. Jen called me from the study with an understated tone like the tone that Donald Quinelle might use after discovering that he’d brought the wrong bullets to a survivalist exercise. (“Hey Bill, you’re not gonna believe this…”). I read the email and stared back at Jen with a look of disbelief I’m sure. She broke the silence.

“What do you think?”

“Call her and see what she says.”

So Jen called.

Tomorrow, you can read the end of the beginning of Keegan’s Story.

That was pure.

That look on Ronaldo’s face after the kick. Where have I seen that before? Hmmmm.

Oh yea, here:

(We’ve seen a picture of Ronaldo as a youngster, and there is a bit of a resemblance. Jen’s worst nightmare. Jen is not excited about keeping all the womens off of K-Man. The boy is cute with a capital UTE!)

1) In the Thanksgiving edition of the AJC — the one with all the sales papers for Black Friday — Jen noticed a circular for Dollar Tree. Isn’t everything already super-cheap there? You know, like a dollar?

4) This is not my inner Gator talking, but it would be wrong if UGA plays for the national title without even playing in the SEC championship game. With the way this college football season has gone, I would not be surprised if Pitt beats WVU and OU beats Mizzou this weekend. With Ohio State and UGA not playing, they would likely move into the #1 and #2 slots in the BCS poll giving them the spots in the title game. That would be wrong. The only good that could come from such an anomaly would be the creation of a +1 game for next season.

5) There is a part of me in this cartoon: