Buddy Family & 4th of July Aftermath

Today we met our assigned buddy family. Kathy and Graham Master adopted a little girl from India 8 years ago. A prerequisite to the home study process is to meet with our assigned buddy family and ask them any questions we have.
Our visit included information of what to prepare, adjustment periods and support groups. We both felt the visit made everything a bit more real for us. Kathy has lots of cultural groups she belongs to and I was impressed since I am Indian and had no idea! We are looking forward to keeping in touch with them and asking questions along the way.
Now that we've made our buddy family visit, we are officially done with the prerequisite items. We wait for my fingerprints to clear and then our social worker is assigned! We are anxious and wish there was a way to speed up those fingerprints. But, if there is anything we've learned from the process, other people do not work on our time.

So, since we were so excited to have met our buddy family, it was very disappointing when we came home only to have our neighbor tell us at 6:45 pm that the fence between our two homes had caught on fire at 1 this morning. The tree above it is completely burned. Thank goodness it did not catch the roof which was just seconds away. They decided to put it out themselves and tell us 17 hours later. Did I mention that Mark and I were sleeping down the way of the fire. They did not call the fire department or come knock on our door. Instead, they fought hard to put the fire out and had their area completely cleaned when we went to take pictures. Hmmmm, detective Shana is already on it!

A Visual Reference

This is our adoption process (minus all the wonderful particulars)! Want to guess where we are? Think far left...blue section. The flow chart will help any of you wondering where we've been and where we need to go.

Almost to home study

We are so close....2 items away! Once those come in, we will have our social worker assigned and then do the home study. Once the home study is conducted and passed, we can notify our main adoption agency and then send in the dossier. Then it's in the hands of the Indian courts. Sounds easy and fast, but the work to get to each stage is the tough part.

We have to say big thanks to our friends and families that took the time to write letters or fill our referral forms on our behalf. Thank you Carolyn, Dennis, Sean, Faye, Judy, and Jeremy! Your support and time is very much appreciated!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday marked 5 years for us! Love you B!

20 Questions

I feel overwhelmed by the last few weeks. Time is flying by and I don't feel like I am making any progress!

We are so close to finishing all the steps and paperwork to do the actual homestudy and have our social worker assigned! This has taken way longer than I anticipated. Things like having to redo my fingerprints 3 times is a bit frustrating! Mark has made about 6 trips to the doctor's office to have them redo forms because they are rushing through. It is so difficult relying on others. One thing we have been so grateful for are the friends an family that have taken the time to write letters and fill out reference forms on our behalf. We've been working through out last two big forms, here are a few of the questions...

How would you handle a child who couldn't trust you?
What would you do if this child became disruptive influence on your marriage?
What would you do if your child wanted to see their biological parents?
How do you feel about adopting a child who has been sexually molested?
Will your friends and family accept a child from a different culture?
What do you and your spouse disagree about?
Describe communication with your spouse?
Etc....

All the questions are clearly to know the environment where the child will be going. But, it is difficult to expose your whole life to strangers.

We are looking for support groups of other couples that went or are going through the adoption process. If you know of any, please let us know!

More crafty goodness

I made this scrapbook for my personal trainer (yes, I have one although I know you can't tell). He had a baby girl a month ago. Each page is a holiday in the next coming year and a space for a photo.

I'm back!

Wow, time flies! But, I am back and ready to blog. It has been a very busy few weeks. I finished the semester at UOP and we began our state standardized testing at the school. Also, one of our kindergartners passed away in a drowning accident. He had been at school on a Thursday, went home and drowned in his pool. The next day we had to tell his fellow classmates and our staff. The following week was just as tough with funeral services and continuing to work with the students in his classroom.
On top of this, we've been dealing with the financial struggles of our district and multiple layoffs. I received a pink slip and had it rescinded just this last Thursday. It was many weeks of waiting.
Very emotional last few weeks. Glad to finally have a bit more order.
I have started my first summer session of classes. Statistics for 4.5 hours two nights a week...it's about as intense as you can imagine.
Not much with the adoption...still working on paperwork. Reference forms went out to our list of people we hope will say nothing but nice things about us! :)
Will blog again soon this week...

Tell It Like It Is Shaila!

Yesterday Mark and I spend a 10 hour day in one of our required adoption classes. This one focused on international adoptions. Shaila is the international adoption guru with our home study agency. She took us through a day of things to think about that Mark and I had not honestly even thought about. She held nothing back and definitely told it like it is! By 10 our brains were exhausted, by 1 we were overwhelmed and by 5 we were wondering what we have gotten ourselves into. It didn't change our mind, if anything we felt like a unified team even more ready to commit.

I considered Shaila a sign, more of an angel actually. Shaila is an Indian woman that has two Indian children she adopted over 17 years ago (domestiaclly, which I still can't believe!). She not only knows the legalities of just about every country, but she can relate to how it feels to be an Indian woman going through the adoption process. See...an angel to help me through this.

Shaila spent some time talking about the reactions of adoption from different perspectives. I very much connected with what she was saying. Since telling folks we are adopting, it's not always the same reaction you get as if you say, "I'm pregnant!" You don't get asked about your emotions, physical state, planning for baby, etc.... as you do when you are physically pregnant. It makes you worried about how your child will be treated/viewed when they arrive home. This is such a difficult journey that is very misunderstood. So, yes, we are pregnant! It just may take longer than 9 months to deliver our baby. :)

Hague Accredited

Another snag in this wonderful process called International Adoption. So, we are contracted with one agency for our adoption. They do their international adoptions under another agency name (that is Hague Accredited). In order to get the home study completed, we had to find an agency close to home. Well, we had our intake interview on Thursday and found out that the adoption agency is about the expire with their accredited status. Not a big deal, they can just renew...but the homestudy agency won't know this until the renewal actually happens. Seems like a small snag, of course a much bigger one if there is no renewal....but it's all about positive thoughts right now. The bigger concern is the agency they do the international adoptions with is not accredited to do India adoptions...WHAT?!!! Something must be wrong, right? I emailed the agency on Thursday and have yet to hear back. Yep, a bit worried here. Lots of time and money already invested...not to mention all the emotions invested.

I am hoping to hear good news this week. It's been difficult to want to get more paperwork done until we have an answer. Could use all the prayers out there to get us through this one....

The best thing about Sunday evenings....

The Amazing Race! Mark continues to believe we will be racing one day. Until then, we watch in comfort on our sofas and root on our teams. This season, I absolutely love Tammy and Victor!