Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Updating from under the snow...

Ok, so we aren't UNDER the snow, but it sure feels like it! We have around 12 inches on the ground. We usually get missed by storms, but this year, it seems like we've been hit a lot! Mostly just the light stuff, but it still needs shoveled. :(

As for the adoption...we've got the social worker scheduled to come out on 1/31 at 3:00pm. She'll be able to changing our international homestudy into a domestic one. I spoke to the agency in Texas today, and they're so nice! Rosalind (the social worker in TX) was really helpful! :) We have our application in and it was received...I forgot to add photos of our house & our floorplan so I am sending those out tomorrow. Besides that, we're just filling out more paperwork. We have lots of filling out still to do, but it's easy stuff. We're praying that this goes fast!

I'll update again soon! :)

Friday, January 9, 2009

An update after a hiatus...

Ok, so I've been told by several people that I haven't been very good at keeping my blog current...I know...but when I type things out, it makes them seem real. Sometimes, I don't want to deal with reality. We'll start with something that has very little to do with me, but it's a happy note just the same! I'm an Aunt again! Yeah! My sister had a baby girl on December 8 (could it have been any closer to MY birthday???) 7lbs 2oz, 4 weeks early...Olivia Joan (pronounced Joanne). She spent some time in the NICU because the little stinker would hold her breath, but she's home now and thriving...and working on the sleeping thru the night...

On the adoption front...are you ready for more indecisiveness from the Stephen family? We'll here it goes...We found an agency in Texas (San Antonio) that has an immediate need for families willing to adopt full Hispanic babies. Since, originally, we were going to go with Guatemala, we were planning on adopting a full Hispanic baby...we're going to change agencies. We're awaiting the paperwork and information from them. I spoke to the Director on Wednesday, and she was SO nice and really willing to talk to me about my questions and their procedures. I know you may thing, "Of course she's going to be nice...she wants to be chosen..." But trust me, I've talked to more than one agency that hasn't been friendly AT ALL! I immediately rule them out, because I'll be dealing with them for a LONG time, even after the baby is home...we'll be in contact with them about certain things. So...right now we have an email in to our Social Worker, and we are hoping she can come visit us again to change our homestudy from International to Domestic. I hear it's not that difficult, but they still want $600 for it...which is annoying. Oh well.

I know at the beginning of this journey I was so against domestic adoption for fear they wouldn't pick us because we have Luke, our biological son...but I've been told otherwise by so many people. I'm excited about domestic now because I'll know that this baby (boy or girl) will be loved from the minute it is born, and I'll know what it is being fed, the attention it'll get, etc. With adopting a child from an orphanage, you never know how they were treated, etc. We're excited to be able to give a baby the same things we were able to give Luke, right from the start, and that's important to us.

So there you have it...I promise I'll update more often, now that we have a really exciting plan ahead of us...:)