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We are excited and relieved to have finished all the piles of paperwork!!! Well almost all the paperwork...

We completed 99.9% of the paperwork. Still being worked on is the auto biographies we are each required to complete. We also are currently reading the books that are required. So as of now we have completed enough stuff to move forward with the second meeting. When is that second meeting? It just happens to be scheduled for my birthday! What a great gift for me to be able to work towards starting our family on my 40th birthday!

Jeff and I are so excited that we moving so smoothly through the home study. Knowing that we are one step closed to finishing our home study is so exciting. We like to compare it to being about 4 months pregnant. The time when your family knows your expecting but it's still to soon to start shopping!

So until the next blog I hope everyone has a blessed day and enjoy sharing in our excitement!

Cleaning

As many people know one of the big things in adoption is the home study. Of course as I have mentioned in earlier posts there is more to a home study then the actually inspection of the home but there is an inspection at the end. Since Jeff and I have lived in our home for 5 years now things have collected and dust is a major collections!

So we cleaned. Well in the process of cleaning. Everything! Everywhere! And purged!! First we worked in our office aka the half the kitchen. This area tends to collect a lot for the simple fact that our heavy trash and recycling gets put there. Also any hunting and fishing equipment that hasn't been put away yet ends up in front of the desk. So we dedicated one full day to just cleaning that. Mind you we moved all the furniture, mopped the floor, and reorganized the room.

Then we rearranged the living room. Well I rearrange the living room twice a year so this year I happened to have help. Later that night I did the dinning room by myself. Fear of breaking the glass in my china cabinet kept me from moving it but I did my best to dust behind it. I know they aren't going to look behind the furniture but as a girl with a dust mite allergy I prefer to get rid of all the dust! Mind you Jeff and I have 24 hours off at the same time! Of that 24 hours one or both of us are asleep for 12 -16 hours and I have church. So doing spring cleaning like this takes multiple Sundays. One per room is our average but during that we are still trying to have a social life, do the adoption paperwork, read the books require, start taking classes, and oh yeah spend time together to make sure we keep focused on our marriage. Maybe it's good adoption is costing us so much money because we are so busy we don't realize we have no money!!

Then came Memorial Day Weekend! Most people get all excited about going to the beach, going to BBQ's, and visiting family. Jeff and I tackled our bedroom. A room that hasn't been rearranged ever! Other then cleaning what I could get to quickly between sleep schedules the bedroom hadn't had a good cleaning in a year. Plus all the furniture in our bedroom is heavy! So instead of spending time with family or spending the day at the range shooting we cleaned. Again. Jeff had worked over time that weekend so he wasn't 100% and I was moody from missing out on a get together to clean. But we cleaned and cleaned and Jeff moved furniture and we cleaned again.

Then when we were done the room felt empty! Why empty you ask? During all the cleaning Jeff and I have decided that Winnie didn't need the kennel anymore. So after 5 years her kennel has left the room. So as we prepared to move one baby into our bedroom we had to accept that our first baby isn't so little anymore. So as we prepare for parenthood in this private, lonely way our emotions range. Many people don't understand, many don't care, but we clean and we get ready to be parents. Please understand during this time we aren't being anti-social, we are cleaning and we are adoption poor. And even though we may have our moments were we wish we could go and do whatever both of us know there isn't anything else we would rather do then prepare for our future. 

Medical Forms and Finger Prints!

Two of the forms that came in our home study packet are the medical form and the finger prints. Both require little of us other then showing up and doing as we are told.

The medical forms was pretty easy. We are blessed with a wonderful nurse Nicole and a great doctor we call Dr. D. Since Nicole had been informed ahead of time that we were pursuing adoption she was not surprised when I showed up with the forms. After we reviewed them together she recommended that Jeff and I make a joint appointment and come in to see Dr. D. Quick and easy we had our appointment for the next week. On the day of the appointment we reviewed our records, got our Tuberculosis test, and then it was time to have our drug test. Dr. D is a great guy with huge smile and always a sly comment so when he made a joke about hoping we passed the test we were not surprised. What did surprise us was when we left the exam room to go to the nursing station Nicole made the same joke word for word. Three days later we returned to have the tuberculosis test checked and have Dr. D joke with us that he was disappointed that we passed the drug test. Always joking but also so happy for us as we go on this great journey.

The second thing that had to be done was get our finger prints done. The new modern way of doing it is to make an appointment with a private company that the state uses and go have computer scanned finger prints done. It's not a cheap process costing us $56 a person and included Vickie. She had been through this for her job so she was a pro and had it scheduled and done with no issues. I on the other hand was over stressed and had so many dates in my head that I mess ours up. I had made the original appointments wrote everything on the form down and told Jeff the wrong day. Yes we showed up 1 day late! So I had to go home, go online make a new appointment and pay again! Finally today we had our appointment and got our finger prints done. Its pretty simple with the new system because there is no ink involved just a scanner, computer, and finger printing expert. Of course if the computer doesn't like the way the scan comes through you have to keep doing it. I was told I have awesome fingers for printing because the computer took everyone on the first time! Jeff well his thumbs and the computer didn't agree! But we were finished in ten minutes and out the door. The picture above is the hail we encountered on the way home from the finger printing office. IT'S JUNE!