Immunize My Dogs??

Ugh. For our Homestudy, I need to provide copies of our two dogs' immunization and rabies vaccine records. The problem is not that our dogs haven't been immunized, because I'm 99% sure they have. The problem is that we don't have the records. For most people, this wouldn't really be a major issue, they'd just go and get their dogs immunized again, which is what we'll be doing this weekend. The real reason I'm hating this part of the Homestudy is because our dogs are 13 and 14 years old!! That's roughly 91 and 98 in dog years! To get my dogs loaded in the car, unloaded at the vet office, shot, loaded again, and unloaded again is a huge, stinky, hairy nightmare. One of my dogs is deaf, unstable on her feet, skittish, incontinent, and just weak. The other one should do fine...unless there's a thunderstorm nearby and if so - there's no way I'm taking her anywhere. So I guess there's really no point to my rant, since this has to be done no matter what, I just needed a minute of frustration before I could continue with my update.

...moving on...

We are almost finished compiling our dossier paperwork. We received that the same day we met with our social worker for the Homestudy. At first, I was completely overwhelmed. I knew that the dossier is a pain in the tush, so I'm not sure why it was so intimidating since I'd been somewhat prepared. I showed it to Ian and he seemed unfazed by it - so opposite of the reaction I'd had. But I'm so glad he's an auditor for a living. He's not scared of a bunch of paperwork! He dove right in, and in the past week and a half has been running all over Phoenix trying to gather the documents. I didn't think we'd be this close to finishing! This weekend we're going to have all of the documents notarized and we're still waiting for a few to come in the mail, but I think that by the end of next week, we should be done!

I'm also meeting with our social worker next week to give her my personal history. When I meet with her I'll need to give her a few papers that we didn't have last time, and also the dogs' shot records(argh!) and a picture of our pool fence. I'm hopeful that she'll not need anything else and that would mean that by the end of next week I can take a bit of a break from paper chasing and focus on reading more about intercultural adoptions, interracial adoptions, RAD, and anything else I can get my hands on! I'll just be glad to have the pressure off me for a while and in someone else's hands!

At this point I'm not really even thinking about the baby we'll be bringing home because I'm so focused on the Homestudy and dossier. I'm not even sure I want to think about the baby because it'll be quite a while before we get a referral and I don't want to start feeling anxious now. That will just make the waiting even worse. But it will be good to have a break so I can focus on learning all that I can...and then the waiting can begin!

Homestudy!

Our social worker, Peggy, came today to begin our home study! Woohooo!! When she left I actually felt like we're on the right track and that things are moving right along. Ian and I still have a few more papers to scrounge up(that we'll be needing for the dossier anyway) and Peggy needs to draw up a more formal draft of our discussions from today. Then she'll come back, I'll give her the paperwork I have, and then we can fill in any gaps from the info she gathered today.

The homestudy visit, itself, was really nothing to be worried about. I'd read other blogs from other pre-adoptive parents who said that they scrubbed their house from top to bottom, cleaned out the closets, bought new blinds/etc and the SW didn't even look in their closets. So, I tried not to worry about it too much, but I also saw it as a good excuse to get my house a little cleaner. She, like the other social worker, did not really look in any closets, except for the one in David's room, and I think she only did that because she was standing right by it. She did a very quick tour of the house while the girls ran ahead of her, gabbing away the whole time. By the time we were done with the tour I think she was a little overwhelmed with all of the activity of the 3 kids running around, yelling and jumping. So we had them stay and play in the loft while Ian and I went down to the table to go over paperwork and talk. The kids were so good the whole time.

She basically just took an extremely comprehensive history of Ian's life(she'll do mine on our next visit), how we were parented, how we met, our marriage, our positive and negative feelings towards each other, our child rearing philosophies, our expectations of adoption, our hopes for our children, how we will handle future racial issues and trials related to adoption(i.e.:Reaction Attachment Disorder/health problems), our disciplinary measures, etc... She was here for 3 hours and seemed very efficient, but still very nice and personable. She also sat down with Emma for a bit to get a better idea of how she feels about adoption, adding siblings, how she is disciplined, etc. She did great.

I needed to order Kenna and David's birth certificates, I still need to take a picture of our pool fence, I need to gather immunization and rabies records for our dogs...which might be a problem as I don't think we have any of those records... And Ian needs to track down a few things as well.

Altogether I thought it went very well and don't feel nervous about anything. It was nice to hear Ian analyze our marriage and say nice things about me...maybe we should have a social worker over more often!

August Update

Things have been kind of crazy around here, so I'll try to be brief with my update - as much has happened since my last post.

On Wednesday, July 23, I was able to change the name on my driver's license, apply for a passport, and get my fingerprinting done and submitted to the courts. It was an insanely busy day, as we had friends from out of town coming to visit that night and left to go camping the following morning. Luckily I was able to have my good friend, Amanda, watch the kids while I ran all over Arizona. I was so glad to be finished with all of that stuff so that we could start working on our Homestudy paperwork.

I emailed the letters of referral to our family and friends last week on Wednesday, July 30. Most of the people were able to have theirs filled out, notified, and sent by the following Friday, two days later. We have one friend who is out of town and hopefully will complete his tomorrow or Monday. We have also scheduled our physicals for tomorrow morning and have our social worker, Peggy, coming on Saturday morning.

I know we don't have to have our house spotless and dust-free when the SW comes, but I think it is a great excuse to clean out all of the nooks and crannies of our house and get a little (late) Spring cleaning done. So each day, in addition to cleaning the usual stuff in our house, I've been trying to tackle small projects like organizing the laundry room and the kids' closets, dusting, wiping baseboards, etc. It's nice to have a sparkling clean house again.

We've also been slowly telling a few more family and friends about our plans to adopt. We had to tell those who we asked to be referrals, and although I still don't want everyone to know, I feel fine having those we are close to knowing. My cute mother-in-law accidentally spilled the beans (in a round-about-way) to my sister-in-law, and to be honest, it was nice to not have to keep the secret with one more person.

So, right now we are trying to finish up any last paperwork and gather any documents that we haven't yet. I'd like to do everything I can to speed this along so that the waiting time won't be so much up to me and my ability to complete things quickly, but more up to the agency for the referral and the courts for processing.

Our oldest daughter began first grade yesterday and our middle child will begin preschool in September. I've begun working out at the YMCA and am looking forward to getting my body healthier. I like that our lives are on more of a schedule now, and feel much more like my normal self, and also much more motivated to do things that need doing(cleaning, homestudy work, exercising, making healthy dinners, keeping up on the laundry), which - to be honest - I wasn't very motivated to do anything for the month of July.

So, here's to a busy and productive August!