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!