Home Study - Practically compete!

We got the draft of our homestudy today. She is recommending us to adopt! Judging from the report we're pretty great people lol!

I'm glad it came before we leave on vacation on Saturday. At least this won't be another hold up! We just need to make a few factual corrections/additions and point out grammatical errors and we are on our way. FINALLY something goes right!

We have decided to get a different lawyer....whew!

The facilitator called last night to let us know she got our paperwork (and check). She would be reviewing the draft of our letter after she got off the phone. She also said she would call tonight to let us know feedback as well as what our next steps are. Are you kidding me? Did I finally pick someone competent? proactive? professional? I about fell over!

Thank goodness for you guys!

Thanks for all the great comments after my lawyer rant. I don't know why I'm such a wuss when it comes to this stuff. Maybe it's the vulnerability aspect. I'm not like this in any other part of my life.

I've put Mr H in charge of finding our next professional. Hopefully, this one will be actually BE professional.

Why does it have to be so hard?

Today has been the worst day yet. I realize there will be worse days but right now right here this is the one that sucks.

We drove 75 miles to meet face to face with our lawyer today. I wasn't sure what the meeting was about. My husband took the day off from work. We get there. They don't have an appointment for us. IN FACT the lawyer is out of the office. IN FACT she is out of the state! Until the 2nd week in June!

I was beyond pissed off. I still am. No one in the office seems to know why we would be coming in. My husband keeps talking to them. I'm thinking I'm not paying $200+/hr for this crap! I want to get out of there. They give us a booklet (which could have been mailed to us with the application!). We leave and I lose it.

We're talking sobbing to hysteria. Mascara running down my face. WHY do I do such a horrible job picking out the "professionals" that are supposed to help us? How is a lawyer that can't even write our appointment in the BOOK going to navigate the ins and outs of the law so my non-existent, mythical baby doesn't get taken away from me??

She come very highly recommended. Remember two months ago in our first dealing with her/her office when our scheduled phone conference wasn't? Then it was another month before we could get another phone conference with her? And it's now been another month since then?

Isn't the homestudy and the lawyer supposed to be the cut and dried easy part of adoption??

Why can't I trust my instincts? I KNEW we should have called this morning to confirm our appointment.

I think I might throw up

I just sealed an application/contract and a HUGE check in a envelope to mail to a facilitator.

We're really doing this!

Are you kidding me??

I just saw a story on the evening news about a HORSE that got pregnant with twins via surrogate IVF!! Are you kidding me?? For some reason that really sets me off!

in other news - i sent my fingerprints off again today. So now we wait. I need to send the contract, our photograph and a HUGE check to the facilitator, too. I keep delaying that for some reason as well.

Mr. H's birthday is tomorrow. He'll celebrate it by going to Tucson on business for 3 days. Ugh!

Annoyed II

I just got my fingerprints redone. After my 3rd trip to the Sheriff's office today. I got home. I'm filling out the card. I realize I FORGOT TO HAVE THE DEPUTY SIGN THE FING THING!! I can't believe it (actually I can). He's done for the day. I'll have to go back next week. It's a smalltown he should remember that he did it. Otherwise I'll probably have to do it AGAIN which means I'll have to get another set of cards from the SW which will mean another delay! UGH!!

ANNOYED!!

Just got an email from our SW. Apparently, I need to redo my fingerprints. Never mind that we were told over 2 months ago that all four of us cleared the DCI and sex offender registries and everything was off to the FBI.

Her email is very unclear (imagine that). Either 1) the FBI lost them or 2) DCI lost them or 3) the prints were bad.

Well if they were bad why did I clear the DCI? Mr. H suggested perhaps they got smudged. That seems highly unlikely to me since they were computer generated and completely dry instantly!

She's going to drop off more print cards to Mr. H. Who probably won't get them because 1) he's in high level meetings all day 2) she's never on time 3) the person who acts as secretary/office manager/whatever is very uncooperative on the best of days.

How much of this do I 1) have to repay 2) redo 3) reauthorize?

Can you tell that I am 1) pissed off 2) irate 3) bitterly disappointed at the delay this is going to cause?

We've Decided (I think)

We're going with a facilitator. We just don't want to handle the screening/find ourselves. Of course, that means we now have more paperwork to fill out.

We are done with our SW except for waiting for the written report. We have verbal approval from her at this point. It doesn't appear that she used any references other than the ones we gave her. We had another almost 2.5 hour meeting with her last Friday to go over the TWO questions she forgot to ask us. We are not obligated to use her for post placement :-)

I went berserk at garage sales again last week. I got 5 or 6 outfits, what to expect the first year, and two huge baby gates - one of which has never been out of the box - all for under $10! My sister has the same baby gate and says one of them was $100!

The Letter

We working diligently on our Birthmother/Special People letter. UGH!! Karen (Evie's mom) is a huge help. She's an English teacher at heart. BTW Bristol Palin in on the news and annoying the snot out of me. Anyway.....

we're working on our letter. We have a shortened version and the long wanders into profile version. I'm at loose ends somewhat because we still haven't made a decision about private/agency/facilitator/skywriting as our method. I'd guess that most of these entities have guidelines to follow. I really don't want to start on my profile book until I know which of those directions we're going. I still can't decide between digital or handmade. As I may have mentioned I did such a horrific job picking our SW that now I'm scared to make any other decisions! We have to meet with her again on Friday. She forgot to go over some stuff with us. I wonder if that's going to cost us another $100.

There's a crib on sale at Targucci this week that I like. It converts to a toddler bed then to a full size headboard. I'm torn about that, too. If we get it we should put it together. But if it takes us two years get a baby the crib could easily get recalled between now and then. UGH!! Do you think I could think of anything else I could worry about? I'm such a dork sometimes. Keep in mind, too, that the more I blog the more I prolong working on our letter :-)

Holy Smokes!

It's been 3 months since we decided to adopt! I don't know if we are ahead of or behind where we should be! Yikes! One of our refence letters has been returned. Our friends - who are late for EVERYTHING - were the first to turn theirs in. I'm shocked and surprised. They must realize how very important this is to us. Except for a very few close friends I'm sure our decision to adopt has come as a surprise. Heck, it came as a surprise to us!

I've been a total slug all day. I hope I'm in a better frame of mind tomorrow.

Getting Back in the Game

Ok, I admit it. I've slacked off in the adoption pursuit process. I was really working hard on the birthmother letter and even getting started on the profile book. It was seeming kind of "cart before the horse" ish because we don't know if we're going with an agency, a facilitator, or just doing it independently. But all these paths require a letter and a profile. Maybe it's because I'm afraid of failing, of not writing a true enough good enough letter.

Anyway, I'm going to get back in the game.