Sometimes, maintaining the status quo makes you smile. No new worries, everyone is traveling along and the bumps in the road disappear. When you are working on bringing home a child from another country, however, status quo begins comfortably enough but quickly earns the label "for the birds."
We are waiting on final approval of our home study. It's been a week now since it has been submitted, but who is counting?! I know these things take time and such. I just wish I had time.
Tomorrow, my husband and I will go to our bank to secure a letter regarding our accounts there. This letter will go in our dossier. I also have to go over my magic red binder with a fine tooth comb so we can visit our notary tomorrow and have every single stitch of paper in that binder finalized. My husband heads off this weekend and although sending mail to another state will be infinitely easier than sending it to another country, I'd like to have things done before he leaves--at least what we have control over, that is.
I landed a contract position for the summer and it will help our bottom line quite a bit. The schedule will be nice and flexible and I will love the work, so that's great. Now all I have to do is figure out what this means to my adoption paperwork, if anything. It's always interesting trying to figure out what's what. Luckily, our caseworker at the adoption agency is efficient and top-notch. I figure I'll produce a version of the form with the additional information and one without it. We will use whichever we are directed to, but have the comfort of knowing bases are covered.
We won't have a chance to see the official referral before my husband leaves and we're okay with that. We didn't anticipate it being an option, but when it seemed like it might be, we did get ourselves a little excited. It's hard to think about experiencing all the ups and downs alone, but I remind myself that lots of military wives have biological and adopted children come into their lives while their husbands are deployed. I hate that he has to miss things or hear about them second hand, but thank goodness for the technology that will help me record every little bit of every little thing to share with him later.
Please keep us in your thoughts as we prepare to take on some big challenges. We are trying to treat this as an adventure in teamwork and so far, it's working. When I think about what this deployment would be without the impending joy of bringing M3 home, it is a pretty dismal thought. She has already brought so much joy and anticipation into our lives. We have been blessed so much and she isn't even here yet!
I hope I have a reason to blog again before the week is finished!