Friday, February 26, 2010

Almost There!

We had our last meeting with our social worker Wednesday, this was the time she came to our house.  I spent the entire afternoon on Tuesday cleaning with my mom, what a sweetheart!

Comes Wednesday evening I was twiddling my thumbs as we waited for her to arrive.  She was a little late, which made me that much more anxious.

As soon as she got here, all of my fears dissolved.  She is so nice and we ended having a good time, just like the last two meetings.  When we finished she said that she was going to start writing the home study and would send us and our agent a draft before finalizing everything.

We are still waiting on just a couple things, but this doesn't prevent her from writing everything.  We just won't be able to send the completed copy until we have what we're waiting on.

Once our agent approves the final draft, we will send this information on to USCIS so we can get approval from immigration to bring a child in to the country.  This is a slow part of the process.  It's been taking between 8-12 weeks to get 171H approval (what we'll be getting).  This waiting time will give me the opportunity to prepare all of the remaining documents needed for our dossier.  Once we're approved, we will send everything off to the Congo and await approval from their government.

The most exciting part about sending our dossier, for me at least, is then getting our referral.  As we have said before, we decided to wait as long as possible to take a referral to help ensure the child is as young as possible.  Well, sending the dossier is the longest you can wait and therefore we'll find out about our baby at that time!  So, if everything gets done quickly over the next week, we could possibly find out who our baby is at the end of May.  It would be the best anniversary present ever!

Along with finishing up documents, our goal is to have the attic finished and ready for the baby.  I will confess, I spent some time wandering Baby's R Us looking at pretty much everything.  But I have to defend myself somewhat by saying that I was there to get a shower gift and just made sure to have enough time to wander too.

Anywho, we are so excited as always and can't believe how quick and smooth this process has been so far.  We just pray that is continue this way.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Amazing Friends

Yesterday I spent probably too much time online with my mom.  I was showing her my ideas for bedding, decor, themes, etc.  Which I'm not complaining about, it was definitely loads of fun.

But on to actual projects...The attic has the electric done and Taylor will start refinishing everything this week.  It's crazy to think that it could be done in as little as 3-4 weeks.  The only downfall is that I will have yet another room to paint.  I told Eric that after the attic's done, I would like a break from projects.  Whether he actually takes a break is another story.

Last week Eric and I started talking to my parents about organizing a fund raiser to help with the costs associated with international adoption.  I'll be honest; I wasn't too keen about adding more paperwork and planning on top of my work, school and adoption responsibilities.  But I knew that it was something we HAD to do.  We had to work at compensating some of the cost.

Well, last week I spoke with our wonderful friend Robb.  He asked me the ideas we came up with and then told me not to worry.  What?!  Yes, he offered to take on all responsibility for planning our fund raiser.  He said his goal was for us to just show up and that he and other incredible individuals would handle the rest.  How awesome is that?!

The planning has begun and without any added stress on my end.  Wow!

That leaves me to focus on having an immaculate house this week for when our social worker comes on Wednesday.  My mom offered to come Tuesday afternoon to deep clean, what a great mom. 

Well, there you have it; another day, another update.

Love you all!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Home Visit

Eric and I just had our second meeting with our social worker and I have to say I love her!  She is very easy to talk to and we end up spending WAY more time there than we should.  But when we get on tangents about movies and the Oscars, it's hard to stop us and she's totally in to movies too.

We have our third and final visit on Wednesday.  Although this time, she's coming to us.  Since we enjoy each other so much I may just make dinner even though she's coming at 4:30pm.  We'll probably be there all night.

But seriously, we are going to kick butt this weekend and finish everything so I won't have a meltdown about the state of our house when she comes.  We even made progress already.  I framed a chalk board, cork board and magnet board for our "office" and the kitchen a couple of weeks ago and this past Wednesday, Eric hung them for me.  See....I think it turned out great!



Below is the one in our kitchen.  I am planning on putting a lot more frames around it (like a collage) with art and photos.  So we still have some work to do but at least they're off the floor :)



Along with hanging my frames, Eric put up the last of our blinds.  He's just so handy.

 

 



Aside from all of the projects we need to finish, I am working on finishing our paperwork.  I had to have a letter from my doctor notarized stating that I am in good health.  Sounds easy right, wrong!  My office doesn't have a notary on staff so I spent about 2 hours last Friday calling everyone in the Yellow Pages under Notary.  Thankfully I found a wonderful man who agreed to meet me at the office today.  When leaving, he refused any sort of payment or compensation for helping me.  What a blessing!  In spite of how difficult it was to get this done, good is still shining through.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Just for Fun!

So, we have our second home study meeting this Thursday.  I'm still just plowing through the paperwork to finish it and starting to prepare for our dossier.

Since there isn't a lot to update on, I thought I would show you some bedding I checked out recently.  I haven't let myself get too excited about these types of things, but what's a girl to do with her bestie on Super Bowl Sunday?

Plus, posts with pictures are always more fun :)

Anyway, here are a few I'm fond of...


This is probably one of my favorites for a boy, I like that it doesn't have any blue.  I feel that anything boy HAS to have blue, but I like this combo of green, gray and yellow.

Eric and I have thought about doing a travel theme, with an atlas in the room designated where the Dem Rep of Congo is and having little things we'll pick up in country.  Sadly, I haven't found any airplane bedding I like.  I am open to buying solids and maybe sowing patches on it.

Along with this one, I love this space ship bedding.



Isn't just adorable!

And I MUST have at least one zoo bedding, it's just what most people do.




Now, for girls I only have one set that I really, REALLY like.  It's just perfect in my eyes.



Ta-dah! 

But, since we do not know our child's gender we don't have a reason to make any sort of decision.  This is just for fun mostly and to start getting some ideas.

Which do you like best?  At least out of the boy options.

And, I'm open to suggestions!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Pluggin' Away

Since our home study, I have been gathering information slowly but surely.  I sent out for originals of our birth and marriage certificates which should hopefully come soon.

This week I want to make our doctor's appointments, get the letters from our employers, mail letters to our references and Friday I have to call our social worker to set up our next meeting.  Hopefully we can find a time that will work next week.

With Eric being gone, I have just been focusing on the paperwork needed.  I borrowed a book from the library for our "Independent Report" to move closer to completing our Adoption Education.  It's about attachment and is very informative, but it mostly applies to families who adopt older children.  Hopefully there will be a section for infants. 

Being alone on Super Bowl Sunday, I ended up spending the evening with my wonderful friend, Katy.  Instead of watching football (which wasn't an option since neither of us have regular television), we spent the night looking up baby bedding and nursery decorating ideas.  If there isn't much to post in the next couple of days, maybe I will put up things I like and you can let me know what you think!

Sorry for such a skimpy post, just not a lot to report about.



On a non-adoption note, Eric and I have reservations for V-Day.  We don't give gifts or anything; we just like to go out to dinner.  I do not know where we're going though.  Eric usually likes to be in charge of planning this "holiday" outing.  I will just have to wait and see.  I hope I get a chance to dress up all pretty :)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Home Study - Part One

Yesterday afternoon we met with our home study Social Worker for the first time. Surprisingly, I wasn't a nervous wreck which I usually am when it comes to these sorts of things. She has her office out of her home, so off to Rockford we went. I'll be honest, I had no idea what to make out of my immediate impression of her. You know how you can look at someone and instantly have an opinion of whether you'd think they're nice? Well, I didn't.


Thankfully, she was wonderful and patiently listened as I rambled on and on about almost every topic imaginable. We spent almost two hours with her! I guess I would rather get along magnificently with our social worker than be unable to relate. We are planning on setting up our meeting for two weeks from now.

Before leaving, I had a few questions for her which she directed that I ask our adoption agent. I emailed her last night and got a lengthy response this morning. To avoid confusion I called and got everything clarified. Thankfully our agent is also patient since my 2 questions quickly turned in to 12.

Talking about the next wave of paperwork really put things in perspective. I have been running on this high since everything has been going so quickly. Once our home study is done, we have to wait for a certain approval which is taking up to 12 weeks. I have been pretty realistic so far, except for the timeline. It’s good to hear about this wait so when it comes times, I won't be anxious.

So between now and our next visit, I have to get the rest of our home study documents together. Thank God for the internet since it makes things a whole lot easier.