Almost September

We've past the halfway mark toward September and I think Anil and I are both feeling a little behind the 8-ball with the adoption quest. His parents have been in town for most of the month and since they are staying with his sister in Pasadena, the weekends are the only chance we have to spend time with them and we love spending time with them. Hence, our inability to get much done and move forward with our paperchase.

Today though, Anil is taking them down to Bellflower to visit with some other family members. I was going to go along but we decided it was better if I stay here and get started on the organizing (as I sit here writing in my blog instead). Since they will spend the night there with them, we will spend the afternoon locked up in his office trying to play catch up with all of the many papers and forms we need to fill out, track down and mail off. I'm looking forward to feeling in control of all of this again. I'm excited to make nice, neat little files with all of the papers neatly tucked away inside. It's going to be so liberating! I never thought I'd be this exciting about filing in my life!

I took our little man, Georgie, to the vet this morning to get a shot he was due for...what a treat that was. He absolutely hates the vet. It doesn't matter which vet or where vet or when vet, he can sense them a mile away and he can't stand it. Our new vet just happens to be directly across the street from our house, which is very convenient. And since George loves to go for walks, I thought I'd just stroll him over casually and get done what we needed. We got across the street and as we entered the parking lot of Pet Medical Center, he froze. He would not move an inch. I tried to prod him forward, beg him to come along, but ended up having to scoop him up and carry him in the door. He shook like a leaf the entire time we were inside and luckily, the nice vet tech came out and had the shot right there with him, didn't even force G to go back to one of the dreaded exam rooms, and quickly slipped the needle inside and voila - done! I was impressed - no yelping, even with all the shaking, G took it like a man...and proceeded to shake all the way through paying the bill and waiting for printouts of his vaccination records (which we needed for the adoption)...poor lil guy.

Let's hope our baby doesn't hate the pediatrician as much as Georgie hates the vet...

Almost Applied

Oops...it's been a while since I wrote in...I guess the ball is officially rolling now. We have now begun the paper chase. It's sort of unreal to me, that even though we are still very early on in our process, that we have already come this far, this fast. It's been a whirlwind of emotions, work, research, talking it out, and fun.

After we sent in our information sheet, Gladney set up a phone orientation with us and also sent us a "Request for Application"...once we finished with the phone orientation, we sent in our request to apply for our adoption with another check - so get it, here it is - info sheet, request for application, application. 3 steps just to apply! That gives you a basic idea of what the process of adoption is like. And truthfully, we don't mind one bit! Of course, it's time-consuming and a little stressful and it can seem silly at times, but it's just the way it is, not just for us, but for everyone wishing to adopt, so we will not be the ones to complain! After all, it's a labor of love, the best kind.

Today we also mailed off our application to our homestudy agency, Partners for Adoption, who we will be using as our state-licensed agency to complete the homestudy and post-placement visits (Ethiopia requires 3 in the first year)...We are very happy with our choice in the end. We did a lot of research and narrowed it down to 2 great agencies, and in the end, this one just felt right. So that is an exciting step!

In our spare time (haha), we are tracking down birth certificates, marriage certificates, police clearance letters, and all kinds of nutty things you never thought you'd need, til now. We are just trying to keep the momentum going and stay on pace so that we can try to actualize the wait time between now and when we would travel to pick up our baby. According to Gladney, in 7-8 months we will have a baby, but for now we have almost applied!

Almost Begun

Anil and I mailed off our info sheet today to Gladney, our choice for an adoption agency that will 'place' a baby with our family, hopefully within the next year. This info sheet is I've learned separate from the actual application, which is a much larger document that we will fill out in the next step, once our info sheet is received and reviewed. Let the fun begin!

We are getting very excited. I have met some really great people who have already adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, most of them over email at this point. But I am constantly amazed and humbled and thrilled that I have found such terrific people through the Yahoo groups I joined - all of them so willing to share their experiences, advice, opinions, and support. It is truly a blessing. Thanks to all of you who have responded to my numerous emails, you are an invaluable part of our process.

As we look forward to really getting this ball rolling, we envision a long and winding road and at the end, we will be sitting here in our living room, holding a beautiful little bundle of joy - that will be the bright light at the end of our tunnel and push us through all the paperwork, the ups&downs, the stress, the waiting. We will enjoy the journey that we have almost begun.