Category: Adoption

Week CXXX:...And Then there was Three!

12/9/2012

Kaylee Cikiun Phillips

So, I should probably just say that the Phillips household is sorry for the tardiness of our posting. We have had a few other things keeping us busy, however, things are starting to mellow out a little and we can get to our missing posts.

Weeknight Phone Call

Monday and Tuesday were normal days to our standards up here in Togiak. School demanded all our attention, and we worked hard giving it our attention. Every Tuesday night Kaitlyn and I watch an TV show called “Castle”. It’s one of our favorites. We had just finished that show (about 10pm) and were thinking that we weren’t quite tired enough to go to bed, so we decided to put on an Office episode to finish up the night. We had just turned on the show when we got a phone call on Kaitlyn's cell phone. This was quite unusual because it was 10pm. Kaitlyn took the call and it was Kristine Heckman, Kaylee’s birth Grandmother (Jessika’s mother). She was the one to drop the bomb on us that Kaylee was going to come early. Apparently, when Jessika went in for a doctors visit she mentioned that Kaylee hadn’t moved much recently. To keep a long story short, they did some watching of Kaylee and decided that it would simply be better to prevent any medical emergencies and have Kaylee be born early. As you could imagine, when we got off the phone both Kaitlyn and I were a little excited. Excited may not be the best word to describe that feeling and I’m not really sure what would be the best word. The closest thing I can think of describing the feeling is to relate the experience of little kid trying to go to sleep on Christmas Eve when their excitement, anxiety, and anticipation make them wide awake for hours. This is what it was like for Kaitlyn and me. I got about 4 hours of sleep that night and Kaitlyn got even less.

Kaitlyn called Alaska Airlines that night and the soonest we could fly to Anchorage wasn’t until Friday morning (2 full days away). We decided that we were going to be useless as teachers, so we took Wednesday and Thursday off. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just walk away, so both Kaitlyn and I spent Wednesday and Thursday in the school library making lesson plans for the next two weeks for our classes. I feel so bad for our students, I don’t think they’ve seen so many worksheets in their life! Jessika’s mother kept us filled in as we worked, but it was hard to get anything done as we waited, filled with excitement. Kaylee Cikiun Phillips was born by C-section at 3:54 pm on Wednesday, December 5th. She weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 19.5 inches long.

To be safe, we flew to Dillingham on Thursday evening and stayed at Steve Noonkesser’s house. Steve is the Director of Instruction and Technology (or something like that) for our school district. He’s kind of the under-Superintendent for the district. We had a great visit with him and his family then flew to Anchorage the next morning. When we arrived in Anchorage we were met by Kaitlyn’s parents, Lewis and Myrna Hart. It was actually a little bit funny, because they met us on the way to baggage claim. Just happened to be on the escalator to meet us….good timing! We were really excited to see them and even more so….the McDonald’s cheeseburgers they had ready for us (you really learn to miss that greasy goodness). We rented an SUV and headed on to the hospital to meet Kaylee.

On our way to the airport we picked up some flowers for Jessika. We met Jessika’s mother, Kristine Heckman, at the hospital gift shop and she took us to the Jessika’s room to meet Kaylee. It was a really sweet experience and difficult to put into words. Both Kaitlyn and I were really excited. Kaitlyn held her first and held her for a while. I was asked if I wanted to hold Kaylee, but I declined, because there were way too many people in the room for me to feel comfortable (I can’t imagine what Jessika must have been feeling). In the room with us was Jessika, Jessika’s mother Kristine, Myrna and Lewis, and Valorie Rampton and her husband (LDSFS rep). We stayed there in the room visiting until the attorney showed up, then we retreated to the waiting room and allowed Jessika to sign her legal papers and we signed ours. Really, to make a long story short….we got there, we visited for a few hours, we signed some paperwork, we left. We then checked into our hotel, the Homewood Suites off of C Street.

Saturday morning we did some last minute shopping and then met Jessika around noon. This was a great time for Kaitlyn and me. We got a few hours to just be in Jessika’s room with Jessika and Kaylee. We both got time to hold her and feed her. It was great; and difficult to express with words. We spent most of the day there just visiting. Bro. Rich Hartman, our LDSFS Alaska case worker came over around 5:30 and we signed the official adoption papers. We gave some time for Jessika and family to get ready for the placement ceremony. It was originally scheduled for 5:00, but was pushed back to 6:30 because Bro. Hartman arrived a few hours after he said he would. The ceremony didn’t really start until 7:00. Jessika had scheduled someone to come take pictures and she spent about 30-40 minutes doing that. Afterwards, Jessika shared a letter she wrote for Kaylee to be saved for her when she gets older and gave her a little charm bracelet. Jessika’s oldest daughter, Mckennah, gave her a gift (which was a blanket) and a drawing. Kaitlyn and I then said a few words and we presented Jessika a necklace with Kaylee’s birthstone. We also presented Mckennah with a Build-A-Bear. Kaylee has a matching one at home. The service ended around 8pm and we began to bundle her up and take her home.

Click here to see pictures from the placement ceremony.

We took Kaylee back to the hotel and ordered a Papa Johns pizza to celebrate. That night was very special to Kaitlyn and me….Kaitlyn got up and fed her ever two hours, whereas, I slept all the night through (probably for the last night). We spent that weekend simply enjoying our precious little bundle. We got to video chat with a lot of the family and we were very grateful about how much everyone cared and congratulated us. Sometimes, it feels like congratulations are said without feeling….but this time all the congratulations received seemed to give us strength, so thank you all.

Week XLIX: Chillin' in Zillah

6/26/2011

This past week as been particularly laid back. Tim and I have been spending the week in Zillah at his parent's home. My days have gone something like this: sleep in, eat breakfast, go for a swim and a run (I'm training for a triathlon), take a shower and do all those other things necessary to get ready for the day, eat lunch, read a book, do some homework, help Hal frame the basement, or play WiiFit, eat dinner, watch a movie or play a game while eating ice cream, and finally, go to bed. I'm sorry for all you poor souls who have had to go to work this week.

Using the air nailer to help frame the Phillips' basement.

Tuesday I attended a Relief Society luau dinner with my mother-in-law, Joyce, and my sister-in-law, Hillary. I won a funky pair of sunglasses for "doing" the limbo. We were also able to visit some old friends. Wednesday, we were able to go to the Columbia River Temple. It is a very pretty temple. We happened to run into two couples from Tim's parent's ward who invited us to dinner after the session. That was a lot of fun. Thursday, Tim's cousin Jimi came to town and we made homemade pizza for the occasion. The pizza was a hit. Friday and Saturday I helped Hal do some framing in the basement. (See the picture for proof that I can be handy.) Joyce made a comment that Hal isn't going to have to help Tim build us a house one day, he's going to be helping me build us a house someday. :) I have to admit those tools are pretty fun to use.
I don't feel like there's anything too exciting to report from this week. However, Tim and I have gotten some adoption pass-along cards made up. We give them out if adoption ever comes up in conversation, we leave them with our checks at restaurants, and basically just use them to help spread the word. The cards do two things. First, make people aware that we want to adopt and secondly, give people several ways to contact us or our case worker. If any of you would like any of them to hand out, let us know and we can get some to you.

Also, I know that some of you have put a post about us on your own blogs to help spread the word. Thank you; it's working! If you haven't posted about our hopes to adopt on your blog and you are willing to, we would appreciate it. We just ask that you DO NOT include our last name, specific location, links to this website, or other personal information of the sort. In this day and age a little bit of anonymity is important, especially when adopting. (Please send people to our adoption website: www.timandkaitlyn.com) Unfortunately, adoption scams do happen and we can prevent being scammed by not sharing personal information.

Week XLII: Senior Finals and Prom

5/8/2011

School is beginning to wind down. On Tuesday of next week of next week, the seniors will be graduating. That means, that this past week we've been giving out final exams and grades. I remember this time during my senior year. You want to do well on your exams, but you also just don't want to study for them anymore. Our students are definitely at that point. They just want to be down. I don't think many know what to do with their lives after high school, but that thought can wait till later. Kaitlyn and I kept up our tradition of giving out really long, and difficult final exams. I hate to say it, but it makes me smile a little bit to think that our students were were convincing their other teachers to give them time to study for our tests. Kaitlyn finished her Chemistry class this week and I finished my Early U.S. History class, both of which were primarily, if not all, seniors.

Saturday night was Prom. This years theme was "Masquerade". This is the one "big" dance the school holds each year. It was open from grades 6-12, plus the community. There were a few community members there, however, most of the people were middle and high school students. Prom started at 7 pm and went to 12 pm. Middle schoolers were allowed to stay until 10:00. Honestly, I'm really glad the middle school was invited, because they were the life of the party. The middle school boys acted just like middle school boys and hung out near the refreshment table, and the girls had fun dancing and giggling all night. Most of the high schoolers made a "fashionably late" entrance between 8:30-10:00. Most of the high school girls had dresses on and were the talk to the party when then arrived. One thing that was quite unique about Togiak Prom was that the kids didn't stay around for very long. The middle schoolers had to leave around 10:00, and once they left the high schoolers left too. By 10:45 we had about 20-25 kids there. Kaitlyn and I left around 11:00. We are told that around 11:30 so many people had left that the dance ended early, because of lack of attendance. Apparently 1.5 to 2 hours in a dress is long enough. Overall, it was a rather uneventful evening. Everything went according to plan.
The best news about this week is that Kaitlyn and I are officially "published" on itsaboutlove.org. Our case worker notified us this past week that we were up and running. You can find our official profile page at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/25493550/ourMessage.jsf This is exciting for us, because it has been 8 months since we started this process, now our name is out there. If you know of anyone who is considering adoption, please suggest us and direct them to our profile page. This isn't a time to be shy. The more open we are and the more the word gets out, the better the chances we have. Thanks for all your help and prayers. We definitely feel them up here.

Week XXXVIII: Adoption process complete! Sort of…

4/11/2011

This past week has quite interesting for us, or at least for me (Tim). This past week at school was statewide testing. All across Alaska, schools were administering state exams to measure for Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), a school’s grade report, and High School Graduating exams. This is a very important week. In reality, it’s the most important week out of the whole year because what happens on these test scores drives what happens to the school and students in the future. If we, as a school, don’t make AYP we are in danger of having the state step in and take a more firm hand on what is being taught and how. On the flip side, if high school students don’t pass their High School Graduation exams they, essentially, don’t graduate. They can walk at graduation, but are merely awarded a “Certificate of Attendance” instead of a diploma. So, it’s really important that they do well on these exams.

We, the staff, did everything we could to make the testing week a good experience for the kids. We fed them breakfast in the morning, a service not usually offered at school here, and had plenty of breaks with fruit and other good food to support them throughout the day. In the high school, classes were split up by test and learning abilities. Kait got a class full of 10th graders all taking their high school gradating exams for the first time. I got a class with students with Individual Education Plans (IEP) and had to read each question and response to them. Surprisingly, my class finished about the same time as the rest of the students.

Overall the testing week went well, if you don’t count one of my students ditching school during lunch. :)

The testing week was neat, however, it is slightly overshadowed by our weekend. On Thursday after school, Kaitlyn and I flew to Anchorage for adoption training and food buying. We were lucky enough to stay with another adoptive couple’s parents. They are empty nesters who had a spare bedroom. They were very friendly and welcomed us into their home. We stayed with them for the whole weekend. We are very grateful for their hospitality.

Friday we used the opportunity to shop for food for next year and just hang out. I can’t believe how much I missed the “big” city. We walked in a Walmart and nearly cried. There were so many vegetables, all shapes and sizes. It was fantastic. We went crazy, buying about 50 lbs. of veggies. We filled 3 totes, filled 70 lbs. each of various non-perishable foods and mailed them back to ourselves. We also bought a bunch of food for a student council activity we’re having at the school this week and stuffed our checked bags with more food.

Friday night we went to an adoption dinner/fireside. It wasn’t exactly what I though it would be. When Kaitlyn said dinner, I thought...dinner. Dinner was actually code for “munchies”. The fireside was different than expected as well. Fireside really meant “birth mother panel”. This means that we sat and listened to a birth mother’s experience of giving up her child for adoption and what it was like for her. Surprisingly, it was very informative. What I learned most that evening was that adoptions are going more and more “open”. Meaning, that there is much more contact between birth mother (and family) and the adoptive couple. Without getting too lengthy, it really feels as if the adoptive couple is “marrying into” the baby’s family, or as if the baby’s birth mother’s family is the adoptive couple’s in-laws. Lots of contact; both families just have to learn to deal with a new family in their lives.

Saturday we were expecting to have more training all day, however, all our training got rearranged and we ended up just sitting through 11/2 hours of it. We are suppose to receive 10 hours of adoption training every time we want to adopt through LDS Family Services and the purpose of Saturday was to finish everything. After our 1 ½ training on Saturday combined with the other hours we had completed, our case worker informed us that we were done (or at least close enough) and that everything was ready to go.

This is where the “sort of” part of the title comes in. We have finished all the pre-requisites for adoption and can now be published. Being published means that our profile is on the LDS Family Services website (www.itsaboutlove.org) where birth mothers can search us out. We aren’t up just yet, our case worker said it would take her about two weeks before everything was up and ready to go. This is exciting because now we are eligible and things can happen. It’s bittersweet, though, because it could take just a few months or years before we are chosen. Oh well, at least we’re available!

Week: XXXIII: Home Study and Sickness

3/6/2011

Sunday drive out on the tundra.

   This week has been very tiring. Last Sunday evening last week, I (Tim) came down with some sort of bug. It doesn’t really surprise me because the the school has been laced with sickness for the past month. Anyway, I caught it, and it was something terrible. Fevers, shivers, and nasty chest infections. Not fun. I stayed home on Monday and Tuesday. I reluctantly went back to work on Wednesday and Thursday, but I still felt weak. Luckily, we didn’t have too much to do because our basketball teams are at their regional tournaments, which means that most of our classes don’t really operate.
   On Friday we were scheduled to take adoption classes through LDS Family Services. They were suppose to start at 8 am and go till 4 pm (AKST). It was really just a meeting for new adoptive parents in Seattle that we got to listen in on. The information provided was good stuff, however, we weren’t able to listen to the whole training because our LDS Family Services social worker came to Togiak to do our home visit. He was an elderly gentlemen who had worked for LDS Family Services for about 31 years. He retired, served two proselyting missions, and now is serving an LDS Family Service Mission in Anchorage. Really nice guy, however, it was his first visit to a village and definitely didn’t come prepared. He arrived with only a warm coat and some gloves. Luckily, the airline agent was nice enough to give him a ride in his truck to our apartment, because it would have been a very cold ride up the hill on our four wheeler.
   The Home Visit was actually quite short.   He came in and chatted with us for a while, asked us if we had any questions (which any questions we had were already answered in the training meeting that morning), and then proceeded to take pictures of our apartment. We didn’t really know what he wanted to do. I think he was simply excited to be here. So, we bundled him up and took him on a four wheeler ride down to the post office and grocery store.   It was apparent after a while that he was not accustomed to four-wheeler travel. We took him to his apartment (the school visitor apartment) and let him get ready for the night. That was pretty much our visit. It last all of 2-3 hours or semi-awkwardness and 20 minutes of questioning.

Week XXVII: Inservice Again

1/24/2011

Well, unfortunately, we really don’t have much to share this week. It’s been a very ordinary week. We went to school and stayed there all day, came home, watched some White Collar episodes, and went to bed. That’s about it. The most exciting thing that happened was that our principal told us that we were having another inservice on Friday. So, for the second week in a row, we only saw students 4 days. I do love having inservice on Friday. I wouldn’t complain if it were to happen again.
   Our principal officially resigned. We all knew it was coming, but he sent his papers in that said he won’t be returning next year. Tim and I are pretty nervous about the administration for next year. There’s a couple of scenarios we could see happening and we’re not sure how good they will be. I guess change is always scary.
   I got talked into playing in another basketball tournament this weekend. It was slightly humiliating, but fun as well. We did lose both games that we played. I guess if I want to be any good I should probably practice. Robin is slowly wearing me down though, I’m pretty sure before long she’ll have me a gym night practicing with her. I did make 2 points in the first game, so that was exciting.
   One exciting thing that happened this week is that we finally finished writing our birth parent letter. Thank you to all of you who gave us feedback and helped us improve it. We submitted all of our online paperwork. I believe all we have left to do is our home study and 10 hours of adoption training and then we can officially be approved as an adoptive couple.

Week XI: It’s getting cold, so let’s wrestle!

10/4/2010

   This week brought many firsts for us. For one, snow finally touched down on the tops of the surrounding hills. In Anchorage, that’s called “termination dust”, which signifies the end of summer and signal that winter is coming. Although, in Togiak, I feel that saying that the snow on the hill tops is signifying the end of summer and a signal for winter to come is an understatement. It’s already bone chilling cold. Well, at least when we ride on our four-wheelers to work around 6:30 am. This week, the locals brought out their winter coats. If that’s not a sign that winter is coming I don’t know what is!
   Wrestling started this week, and I am the head wrestling coach for Togiak. I have consistently had 12 students show up. Because Togiak is a K-12 school, I also have a few middle schoolers on his team. There is one guy from the community who is assisting me coach here. His name is Dallas. He is a great guy and seems to know his stuff. He graduated from Togiak about the same time that I graduated from Zillah. On Monday, I had a parent meeting to start off the season. I presented to the parents what I wanted to achieve with the team this year and had them watch a required drug and alcohol abuse video provided by the state. I was definitely nervous that the parents wouldn’t appreciate the way I wanted to handle the team. I wanted to institute a study period twice a week to help the wrestlers stay academically eligible for the season and emphasize that school comes before wrestling, or any sport really. The parents really seemed to like that and mentioned how glad they were to have me coach this year. They said that, “it was apparent that I had a plan in mind”. That was comforting. Well, they are right. Togiak has a great chance at becoming a wrestling powerhouse. There are quite a few very athletic students here. I guess we’ll see what happens.
   At the end of last week we heard that one of the elders had passed away. This is always a big deal, and especially big in a small community where everybody is related in some form or fashion. The funeral was held down town and then everybody was scheduled to come up to the school around 4:00 pm for a huge potluck. Because of the funeral, we lost more than half of our student body. Kaitlyn and I ended up combining our two classes (total of 4) and watching a history movie in my room. I am actually surprised that school wasn’t cut short or cancelled for the day. It would have been better than requiring the students here to work and having to catch everyone else up later.
   On a happier note, both Kaitlyn and I were awarded $1,000 each to attend teacher conferences. This is pretty exciting for a couple of reasons. One, we each get to attend a teacher conference about the subjects that we are endorsed in. This is great because we always need new ideas and strategies to present material. Two, we just need to get out. Both of our teacher conferences are “down south”. Kaitlyn’s is located in Kansas City, Missouri and mine is in Denver, Colorado. Kaitlyn is attending the national science conference and I will be attending the national social studies conference. Unfortunately, our conferences are not scheduled at the same time. Kaitlyn’s conference is scheduled for Oct 28-30 and mine is Nov 11-14. We’ll each take about 5-6 days to venture down to attend these. We’re both really excited.

Exciting news number two is that we bought a camcorder. We thought that pictures just weren’t cutting it. So, we bought a camcorder to record our various activities up here. An email was sent out by our superintendent, Jack Foster, about a week ago asking for a teacher to volunteer his or her time to redo the Togiak teacher video. I volunteered and now that I have my own camera I can do it. I am excited to update the Togiak teacher video because it is because of the old video that Kaitlyn and I felt comfortable coming up to Togiak. We are so glad that we did.
On another note, Kaitlyn and had our first visit with an adoption agency this past week. The agency we visited with is named Adoption Network Law Center. We felt absolutely great with them. They told us that they do a lot of work to advertise for us and help us adopt a child. They said that the average wait time for parents is 2.5 months to 7 months for child placement. That’s awesome. Unfortunately, that cost more than we could afford. So, we went back down the road of contacting LDS Family Services. For some reason, they have been ultra difficult to get in contact with. Granted, the closest office is in Seattle, and we work crazy schedules. Luckily, we were able to get ahold of them and we are starting to fill out our papers with them. Wish us luck!

Week CXXX:...And Then there was Three!

Week XLIX: Chillin' in Zillah

Week XLII: Senior Finals and Prom

Week XXXVIII: Adoption process complete! Sort of…

Week: XXXIII: Home Study and Sickness

Week XXVII: Inservice Again

Week XI: It’s getting cold, so let’s wrestle!

Tim & Kaitlyn

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