It Has Been Awhile

Hey Gang,

So, it has been awhile. As adoptions go, there is a lot of wait time. I wish I could blame my blogging absence purely on that fact. Sadly, I cannot. There has been new news, but life got ahead of us. It is now time to catch you all up.

Last when we left you, Chris and I had just finished the second half of our paperwork and turned it in one day shy of our thirty day deadline. Peggy, our case worker, was having knee surgery around the same time so we didn't expect to hear anything right away.

About a month later, we received an email saying that Catholic Charities was hiring a new social worker to conduct home studies. We were informed that the new case worker was assigned to us and that once her contract with the agency was finished, we would be contacted. At first, we had very mixed feelings. On one hand, we really liked Peggy and were worried about her. (She is doing well by the way.) On the other hand, we were excited because the next step of our process was right around the corner.

(At this time we suggest you refer back to our first blog and reread the section entitled "Our Next Step" to get the full picture of what was about to happen next.)

As you may have guessed, Catholic Charities hired Nikki. Nikki still works for the international company, but now she works for Catholic Charities, too. Needless to say, Chris and I were very excited by this news. God is good!

A few weeks later, we still hadn't heard anything. At this point it had been forty days since we submitted our paperwork. We were told in the beginning that we had 120 days to complete the home study process and we were at day 73. I was starting to get really nervous because I was hoping to get the home studies completed before I had to go back to work on August 9th.

Well, late last Thursday evening...the phone rang. Of course, Chris and I missed the call, but as we listened to the voice mail, we were instantly overcome with emotion (excitement, relief, excitement, and so on). We immediately called her back and she was just as happy as we were about being connected once more. We all three ended up talking on the phone for forty minutes. We all wanted the same things, and we were ready to get moving. All four of the home studies were scheduled over the next two weeks. They consist of two individual home studies, and then we have two home studies together.

My individual is tomorrow. It should only take about an hour. I am very excited and not really nervous. I don't know if it just hasn't hit me yet, but I am ready. I want to move forward, and I know we have the best advocate. Within the next couple of weeks our home studies will be wrapped up, and in a few more weeks our profile/report will be written and we will officially be on the waiting list.

I will do a better job of keeping you all posted. Thanks for your ongoing support. Stay Tuned.

Blessings,
Chris and Sara