One of the best days ever

OK, no, we didn't have any amazing news about our future family member today. But I will say, I just had one of the best days ever. I don't know if the stars were aligned or something (and I don't even believe in the stars being aligned), but everything went my way today.

I really don't know where to start. I guess I will just list the amazing things that happened today:

1. I prepared and filed an awesome brief at work today.
2. I had a great lunch with people at work.
3. We got news at work that raises are likely coming (and I got paid today).
4. WE GOT OUR HOMESTUDY!!! It is IN HAND, and we will mail it to immigration tomorrow.
5. I got 2 items for our dossier notarized.
6. I picked up another item for our dossier from our homestudy agency.
7. I brought my secretary a beverage at 4:30 p.m. and it made her happy.
8. I got news that I had an awesome victory in a case that I knew was a close one, and it had tough constitutional first amendment issues involved.
9. I got a new laptop bag that is the cutest and most lightweight bag ever. I put it on my shoulder at I just felt confident and happy - it is awesome.
10. I got a notice that I am getting $25 from a class action suit in the mail.
11. I used my new "Prada" purse that my Dad got me from China. It rocks.
12. I got 6 Express Jet bucks in the mail today, just for signing up for the frequent flier club, that is the equivalent to 2 glasses of wine, or 6 beers on our flights to California for Christmas.
13. My husband and I had a great date at the best steak place ever in Omaha (the Drover), it was incredible. I told the host that I had a great day. And when we left, he said he hoped my awesome day continued into tomorrow.
14. We saw my in-laws tonight after our date, and I had this wonderful white russian drink, and my father-in-law paid for the tab to make sure my perfect day stayed perfect (it did).
15. We got the forecast for a rainy, snowy, icy day tomorrow, and I have NO WORK that I have to do, so I can bundle up, put wood in the fire, watch The Office dvds, and do nothing for 2 whole days.

What more could one want in a day?

I will just say, that I am very blessed, lucky, happy, and fortunate to be where I am.

Roller Coaster...

It is inevitable that we will have ups and downs in this process. We just need to learn to accept that! There is no major "up" or "down" this week, although the relative inertia has been a general downer. Things are moving along a little better now, so here were are on an upswing again.

Earlier this week I was feeling very frustrated at this all. What is supposed to be a joyous period of excitement and anticipation was feeling very much like studying for the bar exam (ok, it isn't that bad.) But I vented a bit, and began to feel better. I think I just need designated venting time, and I need to admit that it is OK to be frustrated. It also helped that I found the right people to talk to. I really do need to make more friends that are adopting or have adopted.

I have gotten some wonderful suggestions this week. I should start learning a little Polish. I do have a great CD set my mom gave me. I also can start thinking about planning "the room." Of course we will need to know age/sex to determine some things, but I can certainly start to plot out the options. We can also work on the rest of the house, like where are we going to put all of that luggage and extra "stuff" that is just being stored in "the room?" We also need to take a few adoption classes, in addition to the one we completed a few months ago. This is a good time to do that.

Unstuck!

OK! Homestudy report complete! We are officially unstuck! (insert applause here).

As of today, our homestudy agency in Nebraska has officially completed, finalized and printed out our homestudy and sent it to our main agency. That agency will attach its certification (they've already reviewed the report) and send it to us so that we may send it to Citizenship and Immigration (CIS) for processing.

Right now it appears that CIS is taking about 3 months to process these petitions. Ours could take more or less time, who knows. With the holidays in there, I imagine it could take longer. Somewhere in this processing time, they will schedule us to come in for fingerprints. We have had fingerprints done for our background checks and homestudy report, but these will be for the federal government, and they have a special requirement and set an appointment for it.

After CIS is done, then we can finalize our paperwork (dossier) and have it sent to Poland.

At this point, it feels like we are moving again. We can get going with those last few loose ends for our dossier while immigration is processing. I also will have a new answer for people when they ask "how is the adoption going." My new answer will be, "immigration is processing our petition." I can deal with that one for a few months!

I'll be sure to check in more on the Blog though. I know how you rely on me as a source of information (and as a distraction from work, etc.).

Stuck

I think we are stuck. I think this homestudy report will never be complete.

If I have to answer the question "how are things with the adoption going?" with the response "fine, still waiting for our homestudy report to be finalized" I think I will spontaneously burst into tears right in front of the innocent unsuspecting questioner. It doesn't matter if that person is a friend, co-worker, boss, family member, whatever...that person is going to get more than they bargained for.

That being said, I am hoping that the fact that I am admitting frustration will somehow align the stars so that things will move along. It is akin to this: when you lose your keys, and you finally give up and go get new ones made, then you find your old ones. I can hear a voice in my head saying "ok already! I understand this is a tedious and frustrating process, I've learned enough from this part of the process, lesson learned, OK, let's move on now!" So, I completely expect to have an email later today saying it is all done and that we can send it to immigration now. (See crossing fingers picture below).

I would love to place blame somewhere, but I am afraid it is inherent in the process and in the country we chose. We didn't pick China, Guatemala, or Russia and there aren't thousands of adoptions from Poland every year. There are 67. Yes, 67 children were adopted from Poland into the U.S. last year. That reason alone probably explains why our homestudy report isn't an easy form that has been done billions of times before. Right now, I would love to blame our homestudy agency for not moving things along faster. But they could point to us taking 2 months to get our doctor visits and reports completed, or to our agency for not giving explicit instructions from the start. So we are all to blame, or there is simply no "blame" at all.

So, we feel stuck, but we somehow have faith that things will move along. They have to. Other families have gotten through this and adopted from Poland, so we know it is possible. If nothing else, our agencies won't get paid until things move along! We at least have faith that we are working with businesses that are motivated by completing services and receiving payment (among other more human motivations, I am sure).

Final Review of Homestudy

Yesterday, our agency sent us the draft of our homestudy report so that we could review it and suggest changes where necessary. The report is a solid 16 pages single spaced with 20 documents attached. We went through it last night, made a few changes and sent it back for finalization. They couldn't possibly want anything further from us, we have nothing left to give!

The report looks good. It makes us look like perfect, moral, financially stable, healthy, clean people who will be better parents than anyone in the universe. Now...a couple of those propositions are admittedly true, but not all of them! But I suppose a Polish court would rather hear that than hear "they will probably be OK parents, but I am sure they have no idea what they are doing."

One of my personal favorate parts of the report has to do with Ryan's family. Bascially, we had written a paragraph on each of his parents and his brother and sister. Well, they have added the following language: "[family member] is supportive regarding the adoption and accepts being a [grandfather/gradmother/aunt/uncle] to children not born to Ryan's wife." Funny. I can't imagine it being anything different.

So, now the report is back in our Agency's hands. Hopefully we will have the signed and finalized copies soon.

Crossing Fingers!

Crossing fingers! We just got word that our homestudy report is complete (again), and that it is off to our agency for approval. I think it should be good to go because it was modeled after a sample that was recently sent to the person writing the report. Hopefully we will have approval in-hand in the next couple of days!

To make a (slightly) long story short...we spent quite a bit of time in the past week or two gathering info. We had to put together some descriptions of each family member; compile a multitude of documents (proof of life insurance, health insurance, employment letters, mortgage deed, car insurance, birth certificates, credit card statements, retirement account info, etc.)and; answer a few questions. Much of it was already compiled before, so it wasn't difficult, just a wee bit time consuming.

We are getting closer! I'll report back soon.

Autumn

Changing seasons - I love it!! Isn't autumn the best? And perhaps this is our last autumn as an adult only household? One can hope!

Good headway on our homestudy report. We had a few changes to make and things have been rewritten, but I beleive that is coming along now. Hopefully our dossier requirements have not changed in the meantime - I should probably check on that!

I have had several comments about the last post. I thank you for your support and comments. I imagine some of you are surprised that I would be so open about such an intense subject. I suppose that I am just in a good place about it all. I also want people to know that they can talk about it - either to me, or someone else.

People who deal with infertility share a huge and powerful secret. But we don't need to suffer in silence.

OK - I'm going to lay off the fertility subject for awhile. Let's start talking about fun stuff - about kid stuff! More to come...