Overdue Post and 5150 Revealed

Yes, I know this post is entirely too delayed. There just has not been a whole lot to report on. I was hoping that our homestudy report would be finished by now, but not quite yet. I think it should be done any day now though. I think our agency should have everything and is probably completing the report and interacting with our international agency to be sure that it is all completed properly.

I know plenty of people that have gone through the homestudy process in much less time, but it hasn't been too bad. At the same time that the homestudy process has been ongoing, we have also been accomplishing the other items for our dossier. There are really only a couple of items that we still need. We need one reference form completed from our Church, the license from our homestudy agency, pictures of us and the house and the I-171 (which is approval to adopt from U.S. Citizenship and Immigraton Services or USCIS). We will accomplish those last few paperwork items while USCIS is processing us.

Once we have those done, we will send them to our agency to verify that everything has been completed properly. Then we will send items for apostilling/certifiacation with the secretary of state.

So...it is coming along. Just have to make this final push with the paperwork.

My apologies if the posts have become boring. As I look back it appears I have resorted to just checking in and updating on the next paperwork that we are doing. How dry is that? I am sure that it would be much more interesting to read about our preparations for becoming parents. I know you would rather read about whether we hope for a boy or a girl, what kind of stuff we will buy to prepare the child's room, what names we are considering or how we expect our lives to change when we become a family of 3 as opposed to 2.

These are mostly areas that we have not even thought about yet. It is like we don't believe there is a child at the end of the process. I don't know if that comes from our infertility disappointments or what. I just still feel like something may go wrong, like our agency may suddenly cease to exist, Poland may quit permitting international adoptions, or, if they don't stop adoptions, maybe we will never get "matched."

I need to have a little faith though. I have followed quite a few families that have completed adoptions through Poland, and other countries. The chances that something will interfere at this point are minimal. I just need to get over myself and realize we are doing the right things to make this happen.

So, that leaves me to the 5150 issue that I left you with on the last post. Yes, besides the mileage between Omaha, Nebraska and Poland, there is another meaning to it (and there is no way I would have expected you to know this, unless you are a police officer in California.) 5150 is the California police code for insanity and it is a call-in for a mentally unstable person that causes disrest to the general public.

Well, there is a little insanity in all this, and definitely mental instability. The 5150 on the blog title signifies the journey, the distance, but it also conveys the difficulty and the emotional journey. We came to adoption after some tough experiences, and those are things that will always be with us. Adopting our child will be the best thing that ever happens to us. 5150 is the journey that takes us from one of the worst things that we have gone through to the very best. This necessarily implicates some sort of insanity in the meantime.