Phase 2

Well all our initial paperwork was turned in and we got the call today - we've been assigned a social worker, Gail, who will be visiting our house on May 11 for our homestudy interview. It's all very exciting and nerve racking at the same time.

I pulled out the list of documents we need for our dossier again and will start to tackle that the first week in May. It's going to be a lot of running around and a lot of phone calls but hopefully we'll have those papers and our homestudy done by the middle of June. We are right on schedule from what we were originally thinking. Getting all the stuff wrapped up by the summer and then the waiting begins.

We've taught Ian how to say Bangkok. He thinks you can take a train to Hong Kong but insists that only airplanes go to Bangkok. He's so super fun - and I'm so greatful we have him around to distract us through this process. It would be very different experience if we were in the opposite situation of adopting our first child.

We had another support group meeting and got to meet another adopted baby. She was so super cute and at only 5 weeks old makes me thing about those newborn days, but I don't regret us going the international route and skipping that. Maybe number 3 will be a domestic adoption and we'll start from scratch again :)

I'm in a much better place mentally than I was at my last posting. Things are once again looking good and I'm more ready to go with the flow and now understand that things are not a strict checklist and schedule - I'm going to have to be flexible. That's a little hard for me, I like knowing what to do and knowing the end result with timetables and schedules and deadlines - but that's not how this is going to work.

Anyone want to come over and help us clean the weekend before the 11th :)

Ups and Downs

And so it begings. Every story I've heard has been full of ups and downs - the good times and the bad times....I just didn't expect them to begin this early in the process and I never expected to be this emotionally attached already. Although emotions shouldn't surprise me, I've always had a fiery personality, but it wasn't until going through treatment that I realized there are a lot of emotions that go along with being fiery. I also believe that going through treatments added to my emotional levels and left me feeling a lot more than I had allowed myself to feel prior. I find I have more extremes in my personality than I did before, and they are more easily triggered. Maybe I'm wrong and people reading this are rolling their eyes saying WAKEUP dear, but either way I'm far more aware - which is not necessarily a good thing.

Anyway - back on track.... the good times - we've been running around completing a packet of paperwork that is required before we are assigned a case worker. In Illinois it is law that while going through the adoption process a couple get a foster care liscense. We will not be part of DCFS master list for actual foster kids, but this allows us to care for our baby in our home before the adoption is finalized (domestic adoptions take about 6 months for finalization and because the Thai government does not finalize adoptions in Thailand technically we will be fostering the baby for a while.) I got fingerprinted in a converted school bus (did you know they don't use ink anymore, and it's all computertized?). We are waiting on the results of our TB tests, which we'll get tomorrow and that is the last piece of information we'll need. Once that packet of papers is submitted we'll be assigned a caseworker and set up our actually homestudy appointment. All good news. Now that we are under way with that I will be able to tackle the collection of papers for our dossier.

The downs - we received a newsletter from WACAP giving updates on their programs - it appears like it'll be something we'll receive monthly or bi-monthly. I was a little discouraged by what I read about the Thai program. Only 2 children came home last month and they were both older (like 4 and 6). There also seemed to be an extra waiting period described that was on average 9-15 months (don't ask me where they get these averages from because they seem so wide spread). I felt mislead, betrayed, and discouraged. These additional months make our journey that much longer before our baby arrives home with us. I wanted to cry and I did yell a little but not once did I ever think about joining another program or taking another route. Thailand is in my heart - I've grown very attached to not only the country, it's ideals, but my child - the idea of my child - and that child is Thai. Is that weird? Do I have too many expectations to get a fair answer and a timeline I can wrap my head around? I need to realize this is a process that is going to change at any moment and although at the extreme it could take 2 years for us to bring home our child, it could also take a year. I knew going into the International thing that it was unpredictable but I never expected my emotions to take hold this early in the game.