Finishing touches….

 

In between summer break, three boys having birthdays, working 50+ hours a week and preparing a house for adoption, my last few months have been a blur.  We were on a bit of a stand still with several Caseworkers and adoption specialists on vacation, all of who needed to approve a few “improvements” for our home and of course, since we do not have a disposable income, (and promising not to use one credit card for anything adoption related) we have moved as quickly as our paychecks would allow.  Don’t worry about the fact that we are on a deadline……..STRESS.  (oh and did I mention my husband is starting a side business and all summer I spent job hunting?)

In our state, our adoption license must be approved by the court.  This is the last step to becoming homestudy approved.  Our court date needs to be completed by October 15th.  Our CW, can submit our license at anytime before that date.

For those that are still unclear of our timeline, we contacted our agency in October of 2011.  Completed paperwork by November 2011 (780 pieces of paper so far) and took our first PSMAPP class (training) in January 2012.  So we are moving a little on pace, maybe slightly longer due to the fact that we moved mid way through this process and had to redo a few things.

I found a new job, that should free up a few hours of my week and from what we are being told, the average wait time for us getting matched is around a year.  ANOTHER YEAR…..ugh, more on that later.

Today, I moved the twins into a room together, giving them a new full over full-sized bunk bed.  (I still think twins are fascinating and will probably never understand that connection even if I tried for the next 100 years.)  The other bedroom will be getting two twin beds….I have a crib on stand by and my house is now looking like a small day care or summer camp with all these beds.

Why so many beds you ask?  Well during my one on one interview with my adoption specialist, she asked if I would consider 3 children.  Not one, not the “maybe two if the situation is perfect” like we originally said at the beginning of this process, but 3.  THREE!!!  gasp

Scariest part, I said yes.  I didn’t flinch, I slightly panicked, I quietly uttered the word “yes”.  I then had to go home and tell my husband, gasp.  He said “we are nuts!”  or maybe he said I was, that’s really not the point.  Even my 12-year-old said, “that’s perfect!  One little kid for every big kid.”

Nothing is definite.  I think she just asked this to see how open we would be to the idea of more than one child. And since then, she has thrown several “hypothetical children” our way.  She also asked if we would care if it were all boys, a much easier transition to add more boys, than to throw girls into the mix I’m sure.  We are not gender specific and girls would be a blessing.  We didn’t get to choose the sex of our other children, why would we choose now?

So now, we prepare for our final walk through, which should happen over the next three weeks.  We need to have a fence put in around our pool before that can happen.  Easier said than done, first we needed to have our agency arrange for a state inspector to come out and tell us what would be approved for our adoption, then we needed to bring the plans to our agency before getting a green light.  Now we wait for the installation.  It’s a fence people, nothing special and yet, so many needed to have a say into how it would be installed.  

The joys of adoption, you cannot make a single decision without input from the state and your agency. It’s a fence, imagine when we have a child.

Our final paperwork is completed, our preferences have been noted, the check list has all of its required checks, our finishing touches on our home is wrapping up.  It seems like a long process, scary that this is only the pre-portion of the adoption process.  We are hopeful.

WE ARE READY!!!!