I am not taking this lying down!

I refuse to just give up on my dreams, on our dreams. We talked about it last night. I plan on calling Navy Legal today to see if there is anything we can do. Also we have decided to just pursue other avenues for foster care. I feel I have been discriminated against unfairly due to my physical and mental conditions both of which I have a pretty good handle on. Flimsy excuses were given. I was not given a chance to even defend myself. I was also told it is against California state law to discriminate against us for those reasons. No I will not take this lying down.

Today I was told that the foster care agency was not the right one for us.

I am feeling a deep sadness right now. I feel let down. I feel lied to. I feel like my heart is breaking again. Am I ever going to have children in my life? Am I just destined to always be on the outside looking in seeing what everyone else has and I will never have? I know these are very emotional responses and reactions that I am having as I just got the news.

I got the call a few minutes ago. I turned my physical paperwork in last week. I was honest as requested. I was told that the state of California did not allow the agency to discriminate against potential foster parents for documented physical or mental illnesses. They must determine that the child will have an environment that is stabile, safe, fosters growth and improvement for the child in a caring environment. I was certain that would not be an issue and that they would see that once they talked to me. I was scared but reassured that I would have the opportunity to go over everything with the Social workers during the Home Study Process. I had already begun gathering extra references in case they were needed.

Today they told me that they had discussed my physical with the Adoption Social Worker and the Director of the Agency and they had decided because my prognosis was "Fair" that they were not the best fit for us. Then they said they were sorry and asked if I had any questions. At first I was in shock so I said no I understood, because I did. I knew they took a look at some of the things written but not all of them. I tried to call back after a few minutes but had to leave a VM. I asked if it made any difference that every Doctor I have vouched for me saying they believed I would be a wonderful foster parent and adoptive parent. Every person I have ever Nannied for would also vouch for me if I was able to get in touch with them I am certain. The few I did reach already had agreed. I just feel I was not really given a fair chance. All we want to do is to have children but it seems like a dream that is getting harder as we go along.

I enjoy writing and having people read and then respond back to what I have written.

I would really like to build my blog back up. I think that will be a great way for me to work towards my self improvement goals. I can work through some of the things that flutter around in my head. I will dish out some great advice. Yes believe it or not I actually have been known to give good advice a time or two. It goes with the roles I have either been given or chosen to do in life. What can I say? I am who I am and no matter how much I fight it, I always seem to come back to me. The inside will shine through regardless of the superficial changes that I make on the outside trying to hide it or pretend its something different. In the end I have to just learn to love and accept me for me, nothing more, nothing less.

I am trying to build up my Blog, my Facebook pages, and I can;t for get our Adoption Fundraiser page. . Here is my blog link blog http://johannaspalding.blogspot.com/ . Here is my Facebook pages Help us Adopt and Grow Our Family, Ever Improving Me , and Johanna Spalding, Here is the Adoption Fundraiser page Help us Adopt and Grow our Family! Please share my links to on your blogs, Facebook pages, Pinterest  Pretty much any Social Media Site would be great! Also Feel free to post a link here on my blog to your blog or other page & I will be glad to share it on my blog or page as well if you like (just let me know). Please nothing with Extremist views in any direction (religion, politics, etc). I do reserve the right to remove anything offensive.  Thank you! 

Also for anyone who missed it, I am an Ordained Minister and I live in CA in Coronado. I will Perform FREE Wedding Ceremonies for LGBT couples Near San Diego with a valid marriage license. Please Pass this on to couples that are living in CA or are eligible to be married in CA who may benefit from this. I am trying to fight for equality in my own way. Thank you for your support!

Thank you, Johanna

In our efforts to adopt & grow our Family we are reaching out to you for help. Please Read

 We would love to have a baby. We have decided to pursue adoption, foster care, and/or surrogacy to do this as we are unable to have children naturally. We learned this through TTC, several miscarriages, extreme grief, sadness and many doctor visits including several fertility specialists. We have now chosen several paths towards our goal of having children. We want to use Angel Adoption Agency to work with for a baby. We are also starting Foster Care classes at the end of this month. We have set up this page to help us raise the money for adoption as it is very costly. To help us please donate whatever you feel moved to donate. We lovingly accept your financial donations as well as offer of services that we may need during the adoption process. 

Services that would be helpful are (If you have been through this process and see we are missing something please let me know so I can add it to the list):

Fundraising Help - we can use all the help we can get and we are always thrilled to receive help from people in this area as neither of us is really good at fundraising or marketing I guess it would be.

Sharing - this donation page or our facebook page would be helpful to get the word out so that someone may be able to help.

Home Study Needed - We need a National home study to be conducted. The one we are going through in Foster Care is only valid for the state of CA. If anyone is legally qualified to conduct a National Home Study and is willing to give us Free or Discounted rates please let us know.

California Adoption Attorney - (nearish Coronado) Willing to give us Free or Discounted legal service for our side of the adoption process.

Social Worker/Adoption Attorney - (in the state where the baby is found) Willing to give us Free or Discounted legal service for the birth parent.

Baby Stuff or Kid Stuff - We really do not have much in the way of either. We will need both in order to have a baby or to have children in our home for foster care.

We have been lucky that we found each other in this big world and we know that our children our out there waiting on us to find them too. We feel blessed with all of the support we have received from friends and family and coworkers. Tom is in the US Navy and the Navy is very supportive of adoptive parents and foster care. He has gotten all sorts of advice and ideas from those that he works with. The internet support of friends has been great too. Our Families are also very supportive as well. My old coworkers were wonderful and introduced me to some great people who had been through the adoption process with good advice. We are on the right path. Sorry for the very long blog!


Thank you for reading this.
Johanna and Tom

My Shop is Open Again

I took a bit of time to get organized and I am back with some changes. I took some time to look at my goals:

* Adopt a baby
* Save Money
* Build a successful business
* Be a better friend
* Workout & Get Healthy
* Go To Festivals

I have just listed the ones that really pop into my mind. In order to accomplish everything I want I have decided to take my business to part time. What does this really mean for the business? Well I will list things as I make them, though I probably won't have a lot of inventory all the time. I won't be doing as many custom orders. The custom orders that I do will have time limits that work for me. My clubs will now run quarterly. The next club is from March - May and it is already full. I will list the June - August club for sale in mid April and I will only have so many slots available.

Setting better limits to my business will help me be able to improve the quality and timeliness of what I make and send out. In addition to Batts, Roving, and Yarn I now have Bags, and Stitch markers in my shop. More sewn and hand made items will be added as I decide what I want to make and carry. I also plan on having a portion of profits go to the Adoption Fund. I am planning on having certain items in the shop whose profits go only to the adoption fun. To even begin the process we need to raise $5000 to start the contract with the adoption agency. We plan on using Angel Adoption. To help raise the money we have also started a GoFundMe page. If you want to help us with adoption costs you can donate money, link to my page, help fill my baby hope chest, or buy from my shop. Any help is appreciated.

I have some pretty good ideas about how this year will go business wise and personal wise. We are working towards our goals as we can. To help build my business I plan on continuing to create the best products that I can. I also plan to go to Fiber Festivals and to be more proactive online. I have several new and fun threads in my Ravelry group to help it become more active. I also have 2 fiber festivals lined up already. I plan on going to the Fiber and Music Festival on May 12-13 in Charlestown, IN. I will also be going to the Wine & Wool Festival at Sandhill Crane Vineyards on July 28th in Jackson, MI. There will probably be more added but for now this is what I have. Thanks for reading!

A treasury for the hope chest!

I made a treasury that is a wishlist for my baby hope chest.

Help us Adopt!

Hi everybody! I have finally started the page for fundraising for our adoption process. I tried to think of the major things to list in the Wish List area so you can see what our costs are and what we are wanting funds for. There are several ways you can help.

* Make a donation
* Buy something in the Bag’s for a Baby section. Half of all profits from this section will go to the adoption fund where the other half will be reinvested into the business.
* Link to my donation page so that others can see it
* Send me something for my baby hope chest or nursery

I think I have pretty much covered it but please feel free to add to this list. I really want to be well on my way to adding to our family by the end of the year. Thank you!

TTC: Some thoughts about adoption and babies

As many of you know we have decided to try adopting as my body is not really up carrying a baby right now. We want to start forward with our plans to make adoption a reality. One of the ideas I had was to dedicate some lines of fiber, yarn, and other random items to raising money for adoption. These are ideas right now but they will be finding a way to reality in my new shop line up next year. The thought there is any money made from those things will go into a separate account that we are setting up to save for adoption costs. I am feeling pretty excited by these ideas and wanted to share some happy thoughts with you all. I had a dream a few nights ago about me and Tom and a child. In the dream we were just a bit older and the dream was happy this time. I woke up feeling hope for the future and that is what I want to take into the new year. I am thinking about setting up one of those goal pages that shows a sort of fundraiser type thing so that we can keep track of where we are with our adoption goals. If anyone knows how to do this I would love to hear how. Best of luck to anyone else out there on their trying to conceive journey.