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!!!