We Had Our Home Study!

Or at least the first one. Our social worker did come over last Saturday and inspect our apartment, our apartment's pool, and us. It turns out that we have plenty of space for a child, the fence surrounding the pool at our complex is actually taller than it needs to be and she didn't make any weird comments about us either. Seems like things are going well at this point.

We each have to meet with her individually, but that should happen this week for both of us. Then she will send our home study to the courts so that we can get re-certified as adoptive parents (Arizona is apparently the only state that requires this). We can now start on the immigration paperwork and the rest of the stuff we need for our dossier.

There seems to be a little bit more to do in the way of paperwork, but these people seem to know what they are doing much more than the other adoption agency (or at least they are communicating those things to us better). So, even though we have had to start over, it should be done correctly when it is finally done.

Things to pray for:
1) That we can finish the rest of the paperwork with as few delays as possible.
2) That our doctor's office can fill out the forms correctly this time (yes, we have to go back to that wretched place and have them fix the forms they filled out. I would like to blame the doctor 100%, but I do think it is partly the agency's fault for not putting all the instructions on the forms the first time).
3) That we can prepare emotionally and spiritually for the waiting process once we get through this.

New Home Study Time

Okay, so barring any other unexpected delays, we should be having our home study this Saturday at 11:00am. We have (only by the grace of God) kept our apartment clean this week and should only have to vacuum and dust (and maybe mop the kitchen) before our visit. It should be a little less hectic at least.

John has been working back at MasterPieces, but only temporarily. They need some help during the holiday season (believe it or not, companies are already getting things ready for Christmas). It is as good a way to make a little extra money as any. We are still asking God for some direction as far as permanent employment goes, so you can still be praying for that for us. We are seriously looking at starting our own business (with a little help from the Lings) where John and Andrew would design freelance and also do things like wedding invitations, stationary, etc. Please keep us in your prayers- and don't forget our little girl as well. Thank you so much!

Pile of Cake®...­

So, those of you that follow this blog on a regular basis may be checking in to see how our home study went today. Maybe you've been praying for us and this was a highlight day. Well, we appreciate your prayers and that is why we're going to ask you to keep on praying. We did not have our visit today as planned. About a half hour before our social worker was supposed to arrive to opine about our prospective parenting capabilities, she had a family emergency and had to reschedule.

The good news is that our apartment is completely clean! So anyone who wants to hang out at our place tonight is welcome. This is an anomaly that may not last long...

A Minor Setback...

As is becoming custom in this process, something has changed yet again. I think I'm really getting sick of that word- Change. I don't know how we would be getting through this process if God hadn't given BOTH of us the strength of adaptability. We learned today that our first home study was not quite complete enough for our new agency (who knows how Ethiopia would view it?) and so we are no longer able to do just an update. We have to do the whole thing over, which will include three separate visits by the social worker. I'm not sure how everyone has such different requirements, but we are trusting that the people we are working with now are the correct ones so that when all of this is over, we have done things the way they need to be.

Our first visit is still this Saturday (at 11:00 am local time for those pray-ers out there). However, this is going to be quite a bit more expensive than an update would have been (like 4 times more) and obviously take more time. Please pray for our sanity! We have quite a bit of money saved up from before John lost his job and I know God will provide financially, but I was pretty excited to get things moving. Please pray that things will go well at the visits, that we will not be nervous, that our house will finish getting clean, and that things will go quickly.

One other note is that John was cleaning today and his back starting hurting very badly. He is a trooper and is continuing on with some mild pain pills, but it is slowing him down a bit and increasing my stress. Pray that his back would feel better and we could continue as normal. Most of all, pray that our dependence will be focused on God and not on ourselves. All of this is most likely a reminder to trust our Provider for a child and not an agency or ourselves to get us one. Thanks for all your support and encouragement- every little bit helps!

Home Study Update

As many of you know, John and I have been working on paperwork with the (short-term) goal of being able to schedule our Home Study Update. Well my friends, we have reached our goal. We will meet with our new social worker next Saturday so she can check us and our humble abode out and give her opinion on whether we are capable of raising a child. We are excited as we have been waiting for this step for a few months now.

Please pray for us as we will be scrambling to clean our apartment this week (a mighty feat for anyone who has not seen our spare bedroom), but we didn't want to delay this process any longer. Please pray that we will be calm during the Home Study (it is a little nerve-racking being interviewed by someone who sort of holds your future in their hands). Please pray for our future little girl- that she is safe and that she is being taken good care of and that God is preparing her heart to come home with us someday.

Thank you for all your support! We'll let you know how it goes.

So...

Alright, I know it's been a while. For a while, there really was nothing to post. But then, the optimist in me was just putting off this post since there really isn't any good news per se. (I like to post happy things that make people glad that they took the time to read this, but instead we'll just need you to pray for us for the time being. It will be worth your time in the end!) Anyway, here's the update.

We finally got all the paperwork from my idiotic doctor's office. We sent in a packet of paperwork a few weeks ago that we thought would be all we needed to set up our home study update. Of course, we should just stop thinking things because we are always wrong. It turns out that we do need our fingerprints re-done for the home study and we got those going last week. (We thought we just needed them for the dossier-part of the paperwork, so we weren't focused on them quite yet). So that's all in, but of course there is yet another hang up...

Two Wednesdays ago John went in to work and found out that he had been let go. Not because he's a bad employee or anything, but his company hasn't been doing so well and this was the second round of lay-offs. People have expressed their condolences when they hear, but it really wasn't the worst thing in the world. He really liked his boss and another guy there, but he didn't feel there was too much room for influence and his creativity was limited in that setting. Even the night before we had been talking about what to do for the future since this wasn't really the setting he wanted to be in the rest of his life. Well, I guess God agreed!

So, now it's time to figure out what's next for him. The ultimate goal is for John to make enough that I can quit working once our Ethiopian princess comes home. But what is that? Please pray that we would make wise decisions and that God would make our path very clear on what we are supposed to do now. And if you wanted to ask him that whatever it is, that it does not include me working at Geico the rest of my life, that would be great.

How this affects the adoption? We're not sure exactly, but I'm hoping not too much. We will have to re-fill out our financial form of course, but when we started this process, John didn't have a job and we still meed the financial requirements with my income.

So, that about brings you current. Eventually I will be bringing good news, but it may still be a while. Thanks again for all your support and love through this process. We do not doubt that we are on the right path, it's just a little longer than we anticipated.

Should You Be Worried About Competence At Your Doctor's Office?

Okay, so it's been a little while since my last post. I'd love to be able to tell you that we've got everything figured out and we're getting done with paperwork. Unfortunately, it's just not true. It turns out that even if you have done all of this once before, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to run any smoother. Silly me for being optimistic! :)

Since my last update, I have been to the doctor's office many, many times, like 8. I'm not sick and they didn't find anything wrong with me. It just seems that God is teaching me patience right now and I'm trying to deal with it gracefully. I had to go for my physical, then I had to go back to get my blood drawn (because the day I was there for my physical the lab was closed because someone had come in with the measles), then I got my TB test administered and then went back for my 'girl' physical. However, it was too soon to read my TB test at that same appointment (even though the girl who was scheduling me said I could do it at the same time), so I went back later that day to get the TB test read. You would have thought I could have gotten my paperwork signed and notarized at that visit, but you would be wrong. The notary only works certain hours and they don't necessarily coincide with the doctor's vacation schedule. Then, due to certain miscommunications, I have since been up there on 3, yes 3, separate occasions to pick up my paperwork and I still do not have it!

The final straw for even me, the patient person that I am, was yesterday when I got a message from my physician's assistant. "Yes, Emily, the notary and the doctor are both here today and you should be able to pick up your paperwork anytime after 1:30." Great, Awesome! Finally! So we went yesterday evening to pick it up (of course, this would have to be after the notary had left for the day) and surprise! It is not done. They try to tell me this story about how the notary couldn't sign it that day because she needed to see my ID and write it in her book. I tried to explain the very nice waiting room attendant, Mary, that it is not my signature that needs to be notarized, therefore, not my ID that she needs to see. But of course Mary knows nothing about it and has no power there, so I left again frustrated. Honestly, I want to have faith in my doctor's office, but I think they just forgot about it. When will I get my one piece of paper that says that I am medically capable of raising a child?

I called the notary at the office today to explain to her why she did not need to see my ID and that she needs to notarize the doctor's signature. When I spoke with her, she knew it all already. Of course she doesn't need to see my ID, she tells me. They get things mixed up in that office. She notarized my paperwork this morning. I should be able to pick it up tomorrow after work. I would have gone today, but our car is broken (a whole other story) and I have to pick John up from work. So, if you read this before tomorrow afternoon, please pray that they haven't lost my beautiful, notarized, completed medical form and we can be one step closer to ADOPTION!!!

My Doctor's Visit

Thank you all for your support and encouragement after my last blog! I know our community supports us and is praying for us and our little girl. (And yes Carol- your comment did make me smile).

A quick update for you all. After my blog a few weeks ago, Jenn was thoughtful enough to give us the name and number of her doctor's office. We were both seen last week and our labs and blood tests should be back this week. The office does have a notary there (our last did not) and we should have all the needed paperwork back on Thursday when I go for my last appointment. This was a huge prayer request, so thank you all! We are currently working on the rest of our paperwork so that we can mail it in to our social worker. She needs our packet back before she can schedule our home study update.

When I was at the doctor's on Thursday, he was going through my medical history, asking me about past diseases and surgeries and current medications. When he finally connected the fact that he was preparing our adoption medical form, with the fact that I am also on birth control, he looked at me kinda funny. I knew what he was thinking, so I didn't make him ask the question. I just simply said, "We just want to adopt." I think sometimes it is hard for people to understand that we would want to adopt when we have no idea whether we can have biological children or not. I wasn't offended, but maybe he (and others that know us better) can see the love of Christ through us in this decision and throughout this process. (My last doctor didn't ever ask us, but her parents were missionaries to Africa and she spent much of her life there).

If you could continue to pray for us and our daughter, that would be wonderful. We need continued diligence in completing the paperwork. We are very excited to get things rolling, but sometimes when there is a mound of paperwork waiting for us, it is too overwhelming. And this leads to a bit of procrastination... Please pray that things would run smoothly at this point and that we would continue to trust and have patience. We love you all and thank you for loving us back!!!

My Mat

So, last night John and I had the pleasure of speaking with our new social worker, Johanna (silent H). We've been emailing back and forth for the last several weeks and I have spoken with her on the phone once, but this was much more lengthy. We really like her and I feel much better than in the past that she will help us complete our paperwork. She actually seems to care whether we get a baby and acts like our adoption is important to her.

That being said, we have to do a lot of paperwork over. I mean a lot. Like almost everything. So, that's a bit discouraging. As a positivity guru, part of me says, "Well, at least we know what we're doing this time, so it should go much faster," and, "We are in a much better place financially than we were a year ago (with John's salary), so we will look better on paper," etc. Those things are true, but I don't know if that is God's reason for all this delay or not. Perhaps our baby just isn't ready yet... but I know we are.

The truth is, this has been one of the hardest years of our lives already, and I hope that it doesn't continue on for another whole year. The adoption wasn't all that contributed to this year being hard, but it was definitely a part of it. So, alright Angel, here goes for the bearing of Emily's soul for all to read. (I don't do this very often, but I'm assured it will be therapeutic and good reading for the rest of you).

John and I chose this road. We have never tried to conceive a child, so that is not a reason for our adoption. We knew before we got married that this was the path we were supposed to take. And we have not faltered in that decision. We knew this path would be difficult and different and we are totally okay with that. And I have never begrudged anyone the choices they made. I just want to let you all know that before I go on. Because I feel alone in this decision a lot (I say "I" not because I'm excluding John, but because I don't necessarily want to speak for him). I know that our community supports us in this decision and that you are all praying for us, but it's the part of really understanding what we are going through that's different. When a member of my community gets pregnant, all the other women who have ever been pregnant sit around and talk about what that experience is like (a lot). They give advise and warnings and they can truly appreciate the joy of feeling a first kick, etc. But we don't have that (especially a visual reminder). I feel I have to explain the adoption language to people, something I don't really understand myself very well. Very few people have felt what we are feeling right now.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about my friends or family or anything. It's just that sometimes the road less traveled is a lonely one. I feel like because we chose this path deliberately, I'm not allowed to complain or be upset. If someone is having a hard time conceiving, people can understand that. It's not their fault. But I feel that just by making this choice, we have lost our right to be frustrated or something. "If we really wanted a kid, we could just have one the regular way." And I know that statement is true. But then there's a small Ethiopian girl waiting for a family that will never come get her because they didn't want to wait, or fill out another financial form, or get another background check. There has been a little girl growing in my heart for the last 15 months and I don't want to give up now. Someone who gets pregnant doesn't give up on their baby and I don't want to either. (And I can only imagine how a woman would feel if she was pregnant for 15 months!)

But it doesn't make the wait any easier. No one would ever say to a couple having problems conceiving, "You're so lucky you don't have kids yet," or, "At least Mother's Day doesn't affect you." (Both have been said to us recently). We want a child as much as anyone else and we want the one that is meant for us and we feel that she is in an orphanage in Ethiopia. So we will wait and we will pray and we will try to be patient some more. But if you all could wait and pray and be patient with us, that would be really helpful. Because we might have chosen this mat, but I feel like we need some help carrying it. Thanks for loving us through this, we appreciate all of you that pray. I know that God hears you, so speak as loud as you want in the next few months!

New Prayer Requests

We got an email from our new social worker on Tuesday. She got the home study and the certification (yeah!). She had already let us know that we would have to do an update for the home study, but I guess we didn't realize what all that was going to entail. I was a little disappointed when I saw the list of things to redo. We have to get new background checks, new physicals, a new home visit, new employment verifications and new Child Protective Services documents. It makes sense because we did all of this about a year ago when we did our first home study, but I guess I didn't realize it would all need to be redone.

Please pray that we would be able to get this done quickly.
Please pray that we would find a new doctor soon since the one that did our last physical is no longer practicing.
Please pray that God would provide a notary to go to the doctor with us (again). All of the medical forms have to be notarized.
Please pray that everyone else that we count on (our employers, the county) would do their pieces of this quickly.

Thanks again for praying! As you can see, we really need it. We love you for being interested in our lives and supporting us in this adventure.

What's Going On Right Now?

Okay, I will not be posting on this thing everyday or anything, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief! It's just that my first post didn't really give an update of what was going on in the adoption process. We really do need some prayer right now, so I thought I would fill you all in and ask that you guys remember us in your prayers. I'll start from the beginning, but I'll try to be short and sweet.

In February 2007, John and I started the process to adopt a little girl from India. Shortly after we completed the initial application and got approved, we found out that India changed their adoption laws and we no longer qualified to adopt from that country (we are not old enough). We quickly changed our paperwork to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. We spent the next 9 months or so filling out paperwork, visiting with social workers, collecting birth and marriage certificates, getting background checks, getting physicals and generally showing everyone that we were financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically ready to take care of an orphan from across the world.

Around Thanksgiving last year, the adoption agency that we had been working with told us that their channels to place children from Ethiopia might be falling through and they were working on getting things fixed. After Christmas, they made it official and told us that they could no longer place children from Ethiopia. If we wanted to continue the process, we would have to find another agency to work with. Many people ask me if we could have changed countries. The answer to that is yes, but we would have had to start over from the beginning. Each country is different in what they require and all of our paperwork was Ethiopia specific. Plus, we didn't really want to pick another country. We had spent the last 10-11 months in this mind set and we have gotten attached to the idea of a little girl from Ethiopia.

We found another agency to work with (one that has a social worker here in Tucson) and started the paperwork with them. We filled out their initial application and had our old agency send our paperwork to them to review. We were hoping it would be a smooth transition and that we would be almost done with this chunk of the process. It turns out, I was being a little optimistic.

We found out about a month ago that the home study we had completed with our previous social worker had never been returned by our county's court system (a requirement for the state of Arizona). Our new social worker told us last week that if we didn't get it back soon, we would most likely have to redo our entire home study (an expensive part of the process). She also didn't really know how much of our other paperwork we would have to redo.

Well, we heard from our new social worker on Friday and they received the paperwork back from the county that they needed! This is a very good thing since now we won't have to redo the home study. We will have to do an update, which means that the new social worker will come to our house to check us out since it has been a year since we met with the previous social worker. She is sending the rest of our paperwork (called our dossier- pronounced dos-ee-ey) to our case worker in Virginia to review. She will let us know what else we need to redo. So, that's where we are now.

Prayer:
Please pray that as much of our paperwork as possible will transfer over. It took us a long time to get everything together and we would like to move to the next stage of the process.

Please pray that anything that we need to redo would be done quickly with no delays.

Pray that we would be very proactive from this point on. Sometimes John and I don't like to push people and that has caused some delays in the past. Pray that we would be bold for our little girl!

Pray for our little girl in Ethiopia. She is most likely already born and waiting for us. Pray that she would attach and bond with someone taking care of her to ease the bonding process with us. Pray for protection and good health and that God would be shaping her to fit in our family perfectly.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I will try to do this more regularly so that it's not so long next time. We love you all and thank you so much for your support during this long and rough process! We could not do this without you.

A Pile of Cake®

Many people know that my husband's favorite food is cake. (Some people laugh at this, but I find it endearing. How many adults are truthful enough to admit that a dessert is their favorite food?) The other day, John really wanted a cake, so after unsuccessfully begging me to make him a cake, he decided to try it himself. Now, John is a really good chef. In the almost five years we have been married, he has learned the art of making an amazing dinner. But I am the baker in the family and cake was uncharted territory for him.

So he greased the pan, he preheated the oven, he mixed the cake mix (yes, from a box) and the eggs and the oil and by the time it was done baking, it looked and smelled like a wonderful cake. It wasn't overcooked, it was perfect. This was something my mom would have been proud of... Until he tried to remove it from the pan. This is when disaster struck. You see, John didn't know he really should have greased and floured the pan because the box didn't tell him to do that. It's a trick newbies don't know. When he flipped the cake over to remove it from the 9x13, the middle fell out and the edges stayed in. So, we were left with something we dubbed immediately as "A Pile of Cake®". (John is so fond of this term that he insisted we trademark it- another quirky, endearing trait).

Now some people might have been upset by this, and to be honest, if I had needed it for a birthday or something, I would have been one of those people. But since we didn't have any frosting anyway, we just ate it as it was, in bowls. And it was delicious- still warm from the oven, moist, and heavenly.

Why am I equating this story with our adoption, you may ask? Well, I'm not that great at metaphors or anything, but I think this is a great metaphor for what we are going through right now. We've been on the journey of adoption now for over 15 months and while we started out expecting the unexpected, you really can't expect the unexpected. It has taken longer than we thought and there have been turns we didn't see coming. We thought we were going to adopt from India before that country changed their adoption criteria. We thought John would get offered a permanent job sooner than he did. We thought that we'd have a baby by now. But we hold on to faith that even though things aren't happening in our timing or in the way we thought they would, it will still be a great, wonderful outcome in the end when we have our Ethiopian princess. So even though we started this process imagining a perfectly shaped 9x13 cake, I think we might like the Pile of Cake® we end up with even better.