Don't press down so hard!

These past 2 weeks were pretty full. Sophia's due date came and went, January 18th, I stayed home from work thinking it was be a day of mourning, but I found myself finally with some sense of peace. I created the outline for her scrapbook and purchased a beautiful upholstered box for all the things we had of her (memories/pictures of places we went the last 7 months with her, cards of congratulations early on, followed by cards of condolence from late last year and the items from the hospital -her wristband, my wristband, locks of hair, hospital outfit, handprints/footprints and the beautiful plaster footprints of her they made for us). My friend K from NC also flew up to stay with us for the weekend and provide some much needed moral support. It was actually a really peaceful 2 weeks where Sophia was concerned. I don't think she'll ever be 'put behind us' but she's no longer a heavy veil of sadness hanging over us. I remember what I had with her fondly, wish for the future we never had with her and I remember what her future was all about, innocense, promise, hope.

This most recent week was the first of many mass filings of paperwork for the adoption. We'd already submitted our agency application about 2 weeks ago and had compiled certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license. But were floored by the amount of paperwork we received from the agency. A list of items to prepare in advance of the homestudy follows:

*Marriage Certificate
Physician's report of health
*Home Health Inspection
*Home Fire Safety Inspection
*3 letters of reference
*Employment letters
*Financial statements of net worth
*Statement of how we'd provide space for children
*State and Federal Criminal Background Check
*Child Abuse and Neglect clearnace
*Child support payment clearance
*Birth Certificates
*State Motor Vehicle driving record
*Statement of health and life insurance coverage
*Copy of the last 3 years of tax returns
*Proof of rabies vaccinations for the dogs
Copy of a will indicating how we'd provide for the child(ren)

(the ones with the "*" we've either applied for or have completed already)

Also included in the agency packet were instructions for the federal and state background clearance which required getting fingerprinted at the Criminal Justice Agency (the first of a ton of things we'll have to get out of work for). This was actually kind of cool, they don't use ink pads anymore and instead use a high tech 'photocopier' with glass pads about the size of your hand and another the size of your thumb. they just place and/or roll the finger they want prints of and scan them into the computer. I was grateful for this, saved me from coming up with a good story about why I had to be fingerprinted (since we haven't let the cat out of the bag about adoption yet)! But I can tell you I wasn't cut out for the 'scanning machine', all I kept hearing from the 'technician' was 'don't press down so hard', over and over again. I'm thinking, "I'm NOT pressing down"! Oh well, gave E something to tease me about that afternoon on the drive home!

The biggest hold up to starting the homestudy will be just getting the doctor's exam scheduled, we all know what a pain it can be to get an appointment for a regular physical... if we have to, we'll just claim to be really sick in order to get our foot (and paperwork) in the door!

In recent weeks past we'd determined who our references would be and let them know all the information they'd need to file. This was hard to do, we would have loved to use some family members we're close to but it's not allowed and most of E's friends don't know me as well as my friends know him, plus at least one had to be 'local', so this really cut down on options. As I understand it all of them filed their reference for us with the adoption agency this past week. The only other item we created ahead of time was our autobiography, required as part of the home study. I'd done a tremendous amount of research online to try and see what these might look like and what content it might contain, I was surprised to be able to find only 1 person willing to post theirs! (we obviously downloaded it!) Most homestudy autobiographies can easily weigh in at 10-15 pages typed (yes, 10-15 pages typed... most of my college papers weren't that long), E's was 8 I think and mine was 11... those who know us well would be shocked that E could write that much in one sitting and that I only had enough words to fill 11 pages... ok, I cut mine back a bit! It took us most of a weekend during our Christmas vacation to get them done. It was a really cool expereience and we both learned things about each other we probably would never know otherwise and were able to 'reminisce' about happy memories from our childhood. We sent these along to our references to help them out and now anxiously await the opportunity to share them with the social worker doing our homestudy.

Lastly, we submitted our I-600A, an immigration form filed with Homeland Security, that petitions for us to be allowed to adopt a foreign child. This form can take several months to process so we were glad to send this off and get the process started. The homestudy leetter of approval is required to complete this application but they can process much of the paperwork without it. Once the !-600A is approved, there will be other federal forms to obtain, or so I've heard... Amazing isn't it, how hard and cumbersome it is to adopt and how easy it is for some to just have kids... I think those who adopt spend a lot of time and careful consideration in planning and preparing for parenthood... it's a whole different ball game alltogether.

These have been some very busy weeks. During the next week, we have our home fire inspection... hope nothing fails code, we visit the adoption agency for the first time (another half day off work, ughh!) and need to scheudle our doctor's appointments so the homestudy can move along. We also anticipate scheudling our home health inspection and setting up an appointment for our I-600A form fingerprinting... yes, another set of prints! Another items coming up in the next few weeks... I am up for a promotion so E and I have been waiting to see how that works out. It's of course more responsibility, some uncharted territory in terms of what I'd be managing and more money possibly. And at this point, we could use any extra money we can get... adoption is terribly expensive.