Exciting News

First let me update you all on why I’ve been so busy (and not writing) lately.

We’re ALMOST done with the paperwork on our home study. Can I just say that the average adoptive family takes about a month to compile all of their home study paperwork for a private domestic infant adoption? Keep that in mind as I tell you- It has taken us more than THREE MONTHS now to get our paperwork done!

We have hit so many snags, it’s not even remotely comical. The first one involved Molly, our Weimaraner. I asked the agency which boosters they were most concerned with, and they indicated that they were most concerned with Rabies, so that’s what we got. Turns out they wanted all of her boosters. So we had to schedule another appointment.

Then there were the cats.

At this agency, they have a special section dedicated to owners of dogs. Evidently they had a tragic situation in which a family adopted a baby and their dog attacked the baby before the finalization. Horrible. So they require families to get all dogs up to date on shots and they require a letter from a vet or dog trainer saying that the dog has been evaluated for aggressiveness. Of course our dog passed since she tolerates a two year old little boy chasing her around the house screaming, “Come on, Molly!”

But nothing was said about other pets.

So I happened to mention that we had cats, and inadvertently added something else onto our growing list of to-do’s. The cats had to be completely up to date on all boosters as well. Our cats are exclusively indoor, declawed, never ever go outside. So we decided to just do their shots every-other year. Nope. Sigh.

Then there was Travis’s doctor note.

Little and I both have regular doctors that know us well enough to write letters for us without seeing us. Travis is NEVER sick. So he went to the tiny clinic in the tiny dirt town we live in. I sent him up there with the sample (which clearly said “Sample Only: Please Write on Clinic Letterhead”) letter from the agency. He came home an hour later with that same sample form written all over. Someone had just written all over the form and filled in Travis’s information! To make matters worse, the wonder person at the clinic wrote my husband’s name as James.

Of course he went back up there and explained that this would absolutely not work. How lazy can you be? They sent back a typed up letter (on the clinic’s letterhead!) with Travis’s name on it, and I sent it in.

…

And immediately heard back from the agency saying that it had to be signed by a doctor, not a nurse practitioner.

UGH!

So, that delayed us a day or two even more because at this tiny town clinic, a doctor only comes in once a week to look over the files of the patients who were in that week. We had to wait until doc stopped by to sign the letter.

Then there’s the personal reference letters. We’re required to provide three letters of reference from unrelated friends. One letter made it in with no problem. The next letter took four or five tries. They tried faxing it multiple times, but it was never received. They tried emailing it several times, but it never went through. Finally they learned that the file was too large for the agency’s server, so they compressed the file and it went through. With our third friend, he still has had no luck. He’s tried faxing it and emailing it, and they still haven’t received it. He’s been trying to send it for two weeks now. I can’t imagine why this is taking so long, and why we’re having so many technological hiccups along the way, but I’m on the verge of losing my mind.

This absolutely cannot take one more week. Actually, at this point, I cannot take one more week of this.

I promised from the beginning that I would be completely honest about my feelings while writing this blog, and I have remained true to that promise. I had a meltdown last week. Not a small meltdown either. A big meltdown. A crying, yelling, pacing, full-blown freak out. I think the weight of it all just wore on me. I couldn’t help but think, “Seriously, who in the world has THIS much trouble getting their paperwork in?!” I haven’t heard of anyone hitting as many snags in the paperwork phase as we have.

After my crazy woman freak out, I felt renewed clarity, so we sought out another friend to write another letter. If our friend’s fax or email finally makes it through, wonderful. If not, we have another friend writing a letter of reference for us and she’s dropping it by their office today. It WILL be there tomorrow morning. It has to. She’s let us know that it will be. (I keep repeating it, you notice?)

So. That is where I have been. I’ve missed being here. I have activities and fun things to share, new pages to create, new tutorials to describe. But not until this paperwork phase is over. It’s consuming my time, my energy, my thoughts right now. I’m writing as often as I can, but it’s hard when there’s so much stress surrounding our adoption right now.

But it’s not all stress.

****I have exciting news!****

I want a baby girl. Badly. I asked Travis a long time ago if he would consider requesting a specific gender if we happened to sign with an agency that allowed such a thing. He said no. He felt like it would be wrong since you can’t select a gender in pregnancy. So I just let it go.

But it bothered me.

I would bring it up again from time to time, but he never seemed to like the concept. He would always say, “Let me think about it,” but I knew that he wasn’t thrilled.

So I started praying for a girl. I felt 100% certain that our next baby was a girl. There was no doubt in my mind. With that renewed hope, I approached the topic like this: If I pray and feel in my heart a certainty that our next baby is a girl, then why even be shown to women expecting a boy?

This he listened to. So we talked about it even more. When I was down about paperwork taking too long, or vet appointments being the silliness that was holding us up, I told him that I would feel so much more hopeful if I could request a baby girl. I would feel like I had a very clear goal ahead of me. Plus I could start preparing for her arrival and hopefully distract myself along the way.

He finally agreed.

So we will be specifying a little girl!

We recently secured our funding for the adoption, so we can make that initial payment just as soon as our home study is approved. Then we’ll be a waiting family! Waiting for our baby girl!

I’m so excited, and yes, the very afternoon he finally agreed to specifying a gender, we went out and bought some dresses, shoes and adorable onesies.

Sorry for making you wade through the muck to reach the exciting news, but I wanted you to get a taste of my reality. Is that mean of me?

Have a good week!

Kat