I've promised a couple people a blog update for a while now, but haven't really wanted to write for various reasons. Really, there's not much going on except for the collecting of more paperwork. We actually have had plenty of time to get it done, but our agency isn't in any hurry for us to finish it which makes it sound a little depressing, so I just work on it slowly so I feel like I have something to do while we wait. I know we do need to get it done though, so maybe writing a blog post will motivate me to work on it.
Right now we're working on the dossier which is the file of information filled with all kinds of everything about us that is sent to India when we are matched with our child. When I read adoption blogs before we started this process, the dossier always sounded super scary and the pictures of the stacks of paperwork that are sent off are enough to scare anyone who hasn't dreamt of adopting their whole lives running for the hills--or at least to the country of interest to work in orphanages so they won't have to mess with all that junk. But I'm not going to do that to all my lovely friends who read this blog. This is my opinion of course, but it's not nearly as bad as the home study paperwork. Maybe it's just because for me answering all those personal questions and writing out my autobiography is a lot harder than making more copies and scheduling more appointments for another set of fingerprints to be done. It is frustrating having to do everything twice--especially when it involves other people such as our amazing P.A. who has to fill out the medical forms and get them notarized AGAIN. Thankfully, she is that amazing and doesn't mind--or at least acts like she doesn't. ;) And at these times I'm super grateful for our bank that notarizes for free since we have tons to be done and that could cost a fortune. One of the things we need for our dossier is the approval of our I800A--"application for determination of suitability to adopt a child from a convention country." There was a couple pieces of information missing in our home study so our social worker should be working on it, but I'm hoping the time it took for us to get our home study completed is not any indication of how long this will take. There is a time limit on getting it in which is nice, however there's still lots of time left and then we have to wait for it to be approved. So I'm just sending emails and trying to be optimistic. (See how I have high expectations for other people to get their stuff done but I'm letting myself off the hook on all that?)
I could continue on about the dossier, but it's pretty boring...just financial statements and proof of employment, etc. And other than that, not much is going on. My best friend asked me the other day how I'm handling the waiting. And right now I'm equating it to when I was in labor and I kept telling myself "it's hard now, but it's going to get worse so just hold tight and get through this moment," and all of sudden it's not too hard. There might be another painful moment that hits, but I know I haven't hit the max yet, and really, there is an end to it no matter how hard it might get, so it's good now as we're working through our 4th month of waiting. Ask me in our 4th month of waiting after we have a picture of our sweet little one and I'm sure I'll be begging for some kind of epidural!
