Friday, August 3, 2012

and we're off! again.

Holy 7-month-long-blog-hiatus, Batman.

Yes, we are still working on the adoption, and sadly, no, there hasn't been anything at all to report for the last 6 months…

The only blog updates I could have possibly written since January would have been sad and pathetic lamentations about how there was nothing new to say. And no one wants to read that. So, here we are…it's now August and I finally have something to say.

In January, Brandon made the very wise decision to get out of the teaching field and move on to something a little less stressful/emotionally draining/tiring/etc. He was offered a job with a local, family-owned company and happily accepted it. It's not the kind of job that you stay with for years and years, but it was a blessing to have when we needed it. The only problem (adoption-wise) was that the time between the "hire date" and the "health insurance start date" was very lengthy, so that put our home study on hold.

We had been just about ready to go ahead with the home study when we made the career-switch, so we have mostly just been sitting around and waiting for most of the last 6 months. And let me tell you something, it is tough to sit.and.wait. when you are trying to get your baby home.

At long last, insurance started up again, and we were all ready to have our home study done when, out of the blue, Brandon interviewed for and was offered a fantastic new job. While we were thrilled about the opportunities this job presented, all I could think was, "Oh no, we can't do the whole 'insurance waiting period' thing again!"


There hasn't been much about this adoption that's gone too smoothly and quickly, so I was prepared for the worst. Really. Even this week we had a "Why can't this just happen the way it's supposed to happen?!" moment that called for me to do a little Lamaze breathing before reacting. Basically, a lot of the adoption process is gathering notarized letters and signatures from doctors, federal people, police departments, employers, friends, family, etc., and it's tough to get those things from people who don't know you and don't really care that you're trying to move quickly so you can adopt a child from an impoverished nation that is suffering through famine, drought, disease, and pestilence.
So.
I was expecting to find out that we were in for another long, emotional wait.

And whilst I was in the middle of my very pitiful pity party, Brandon called me and announced, "Babe, guess what? Our Blue Cross insurance ends July 31st and our Aetna insurance begins August 1st! There's no waiting period!"

Ohhh, hallelujah! 


I cried out of sheer relief.


So, guess what we did next? We had ourselves a home study visit, y'all! This last Monday we had a social worker come into our home and visit with us for 2.5 hours. Marci had to talk to us as a family and to Brandon and me both individually. The best part, however, was when she had to interview Brylie.

Marci said, "I should only need about 10 minutes…unless she's a talker."

"See you in 30 minutes," I joked as we headed toward the bedroom with Josiah.

We listened silently as Brylie gabbed on and on about every thought that popped into her head. Her audience was captive, and she knew it. One of the most momentous moments was when she exclaimed dramatically, "…and my favorite favorite thing to do is to lay on a blanket... (pause for effect) ...in the sunshine," and she tilted her smiling face toward the ceiling, closed her eyes, and imagined she was actually doing just that.

I turned toward Brandon with a confused look on my face and he stared back at me with the same look of confusion. We've never laid on a blanket in the sunshine before, have we?


A few moments later Marci asked, "So, Brylie, what happens when you get in trouble?"

I'll be honest, I was a little nervous at this point. That child could say anything.

And she didn't even hesitate. "They make me sit in time-out for 20,000 HOURS!"

"Really?! That's a long time!" exclaimed the social worker.

Brylie thought. "Well…sometimes it's only about 3 minutes."

We were working pretty hard to stifle our laughter at this point. Marci was, too.

But everything went well! As long as Marci doesn't include the whole "20,000 hours" thing in her report I'm hoping we'll be good to go very soon. We're working on gathering our dossier paperwork right now so that as soon as our home study is approved we can get that enormous stack of painstakingly-gathered paperwork sent off to MOWA in Ethiopia.

I'm hesitant to get too excited, but…

I think we're possibly-maybe-finally moving forward!






this t-shirt is so on-the-money!

1 comment:

  1. Love that t-shirt! ;)
    I read this blog post earlier today and thought of your family. Thought you might like to give it a read, although it's a little lengthy, but worth it. Praying for your sweet family! Your WHOLE family! :)
    http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2012/08/21/the-truth-about-adoption-one-year-later

    ReplyDelete