Eighteen

I was just telling my neighbor that these last 6 weeks have been the most stressful of the entire application process. We're at the point where the social workers are making sure that every last detail has been covered, which requires a lot of back and forth, getting lots of papers notarized, redoing forms that may have had a tiny error and now need to be completely done again, etc. Just when we think something is complete we get an email or phone call that more information is required. It's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, extremely time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating. (For example, there was a very small mathematical error on one of our financial forms, so the entire thing had to be redone, including getting it notarized again.)

We had our home study a couple of weeks ago, which went really well. A social worker came to the house and asked us a million questions, talked with Khai and Avi (who did an amazing job. It's like they really understood the importance.), and then looked around our whole house, including the messy basement, which was embarrassing. But the social worker was extremely nice and friendly, and she is the person who will do our follow-up visits once the baby is placed with us. She will visit every few weeks for 6 months and once that is complete, we will go to court to finalize the adoption. So we still have a long road ahead.

We had our video session earlier this week where we had to talk about ourselves and our family. Birth moms will view these videos which will help them to make their decision. Khai and Avi had to be in the first part of the video and they did an amazing job with this as well, but the promise of a new toy immediately after we left the adoption agency was probably the main reason why. My very smart friend, Nica, told me that this isn't bribery because the deal has been made ahead of time. This information made me feel better about myself as a parent in a major way.

At this point all we're waiting for is for our profile to be accepted, which should happen in the next week or so. Then we're finally, finally, finally done with the application process. From start to finish it has taken almost 8 months. It has been hard in some places, easy in others. I'm not really sure what to expect with the next stage of all this, but I do know we will look back on this time and think of it as easy. I think the true hard part is coming up.

I also think the next part of this journey is the part we will need to be more private about. It's been so amazing to write about the application process and to get comments and messages from so many people in our lives. The level of support we have felt has been astounding to us and we will never be able to adequately express our gratitude. But during this next part we could hit some bumps and disappointments and I have a feeling that we will only want to talk about it with our friends privately. So I think this is going to be my last blog post until the baby arrives. If you're the kind of person who prays, we would love your prayers for a healthy baby, a short wait time, and a smooth transition for all of us.

So let me say for now, thank you so much for reading this silly blog. Thank you for your support, for your encouragement, and for your empathy. Nghia and I are so grateful for the amazing people in our lives. All of you. Thank you and we love you.

Seventeen

Our New Jersey background check came back today FINALLY!!!!!!! It took about a month longer than it was supposed to, but at least it's done! (I've been thinking about this so much I even had a dream about it last night.) Now we have our home study, we hand in our profile, and we are on the books!!!

Very happy right now!!!

Sixteen

I haven't posted an update here in a while, mostly because we're in another one of those long waiting periods. At our last meeting, about a month ago, we handed in our massive folder of paperwork. Among those papers were the background checks we needed to send in to every state in which we have lived. How that works is we fill out a piece of paper answering about a million questions. We send that paper to some huge office in that state. Officials at that huge office run a background check to make sure our records are clear. They then sign another piece of paper saying we're good and send it back to the adoption agency.  Once all of the background checks are sent back to the agency, the next step would be to schedule our homestudy. That was supposed to take place at the end of last month. Then we'd have one more meeting to record our family video and then we'd officially be "on the books." (That means our file is complete and is being given to birth moms to read.)

Surely it is obvious that things haven't exactly gone according to plan. Perhaps because of the snow, or perhaps just due to governmental bureaucracy, our background checks from New Jersey haven't been returned to the agency yet. The checks from all the other states in which we have lived have come back, but we are still waiting on New Jersey, as are all of the other adoptive parents in our group. We can't have our homestudy until the paperwork is complete, and until that check comes back our paperwork is considered incomplete.

About a week ago I called the adoption agency just to check in about all of this and our social worker told me that it is likely that our final date will be pushed back a bit. I figured this meant it would be pushed back by a week or two, which is frustrating, but not really that big of a deal.

Today I got a letter in the mail informing us that our final date has been pushed back until the end of March! So this is obviously disappointing. From the start of this process I've had the month of February in my mind as the month when we are officially done, when we can sit back and just wait for the phone to ring. Of course I am aware that we could likely be waiting for a long time, but at least our part would have been complete. I am really having to shift gears to now think of March as the final date. It's the middle of February now and to think that we have another month and a half left of the application process is discouraging. Until I got that letter today I really thought we only had a couple of weeks left.  But there it is and there's nothing we can do to speed the process up.

So now we wait for the New Jersey paperwork to come back. (Stupid New Jersey!) Then we'll have our homestudy. Then we'll record our video at the end of March and THEN we'll sit back and wait.

[Insert disparaging joke about the Garden State here.]

Fifteen

My winter break goal was to complete my entire folder of paperwork. Here are the forms that needed to be filled out and signed by both of us:

Home Study Evaluation Agreement
Notification of Placement of Child in Home
Discipline Policy
HIV Policy
Guardianship
Medical Living Expense Non-Reimbursement Acknowledgment NJ
Financial Form with supporting documents (like our mortgage statement, etc.)

Here are the forms that required going places in order to get them completed:

Medical Examination Form
Pediatric Report
Local Police Clearance
Employment Verification Letters
NJ State Criminal Fingerprint Clearance
FBI Criminal Fingerprint Clearance
NJ State Child Abuse Clearance
Out of State Child Abuse Clearance (for every state lived in since age 18, which for me is 4 different states and for Nghia is 3.)

And here are the documents we had to make copies of:

Driver's License
Health Insurance Cards
Birth Certificates (Although Nghia doesn't have one because he wasn't born in this country, so he has Proof of Citizenship.)
Marriage License
Social Security Cards
IRS Forms (W-2 and first page of 1040)

In addition to all of this, we both had to fill out 20 pages of questions for our autobiographies. It took me 5 hours to complete mine.

It is with situations like this that my uptight, anxious nature really works for me. It feels so good to know that nearly everything on this list is complete. I still have to get my Medical Examination Form filled out, but the appointment is scheduled. The earliest my Dr. could get me in is next week. Other than that, everything is done! Well, everything at this stage of the process. There's still more...

In 2 weeks we will have our second Home Study meeting. Sometime this month we will have our actual Home Study, where a social worker will come to our house to make observations. In February we will have 2 more meetings and THEN WE WILL BE DONE!!!

(Of course, everyone who has gone through this before tells me that the waiting is the hardest part. I can't even imagine what waiting for a year would feel like, and it's a very real possibility. So I guess I shouldn't get too excited yet.)