Learning Patience

This whole process is really teaching us to be patient. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is not a characteristic that comes easily to me. Matt is much more patient, but also says he struggles in this area. I think much of our problem comes from our type-A personalities. We both feel the need to be in control of things, and we have a pre-set plan for everything. I am sure that I didn't need to tell anyone that...it's pretty obvious. We have definitely had to learn to do whatever is in our control, and then leave the rest up to God.

As soon as I turned in the paperwork, I e-mailed Sharon to see about setting up an appointment for a week later. Matt and I both had a day off, and it would have been perfect to schedule something. I forgot that background checks and fingerprinting do not happen overnight. Sharon probably got a good laugh when reading my e-mail. At some point, she'll probably develop a special folder in her inbox, just for the million e-mails that I send. We were able to set up our first home study meeting for March 30th.

I think this process is really helping our mindset, so that we will be more prepared when we are placed with a child. With kids (from what I've seen), you can make all the plans in the world, but that doesn't mean that they will work out. Things happen at the worst possible times and you just have to deal with it. We have really been able to control much of our lives up until this point, so this has been a good lesson. I have a feeling that the lessons in patience are not over yet, they have only just begun!

One Step Closer

What a feeling! Today, we dropped off all of our adoption paperwork to the agency...all 62 pages of it. We literally worked on that for 2 1/2 months, so it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders. It is just exciting to think that we are one step closer to completing this process. At the same time, it is a little intimidating - for two reasons.

One, it is a little scary to think that we will soon have a child. I'm sure this is the same anxiety that expectant parents experience. Don't get me wrong, we are thrilled about becoming parents, but we are terrified at the same time. :)

Second, now that the paperwork has been submitted, we are stuck with what we wrote. Here comes the second-guessing. Could our answers have been better? What if we sound like complete morons? Should we have written more? In the end, we just need to let it go, and trust that our answers are a good representation of who we are. I am not too worried. We went over our answers twice, and didn't change anything. I think we're good.

Hopefully, we can start the home study process soon. There are four meetings that make up the home study, two at our home and two at the office. Once that is done, then we will get certified by the state. Once we're certified we'll be eligible to apply for adoption grants, so we plan to start working on those documents soon. That way, once we're done, we can start submitting the applications. We'll probably start working on our match letter soon too.

There's lots of work ahead, but we need to celebrate the small steps along the way!