Wow. Another month (and some days) has come and gone since I last updated. This past month seemed even crazier then previous months, if that's possible. I think because we had family in towns staying with us, and that alone brings more busy days, more get-togethers, and us wanting to focus more on our out-of-town family then do paperwork.
This past month we had appointments, but the reading/education stuff is what really consumed a lot of time, I mean, a lot of hours, if I had to give a rough estimate, I'd say that I spent close to 20 hours, maybe more on education classes we had to finish, along with an educational binder and reading through the handbook to get our foster license. I love to read, but this was not "fun" or "relaxing" reading...I thought my head would explode a couple times from all the information I was cramming in there. I am thankful for a lot of the education! Lots of it is very eye-opening and it's good to begin thinking from our adopted daughter's point of view. There's lots more, but that might best be saved for another post at another time. :)
Here's our month in review (plus a couple non-adoption items)...
June 28th- My last appointment with our psychologist. Verbal confirmation that I'm mentally competent to adopt, and I don't have a drug problem (still waiting on the written statement). :)
July 3rd- E and I head 3 hours north to meet with our social worker. 4 hours of talking and being interviewed was exhausting, but we made it through. We also set-up our next meeting with our social worker.
July 9th- Our family staying with us, left to go home.
July 10th- E and I have TB skin tests done.
July 11th- Receive an email from our social worker saying that 3 of the boys and E's medical forms are not good. Their last physicals were more then 6 months ago, so the forms need to be re-done. I set-up Dr. appointments for the 3 oldest boys and E (the earliest they could get them in is a month-and-a-half from now).
This was hard news to receive because this will delay our home study being completed. We must apply for immigration approval and be approved before we can send our dossier to China. We cannot apply for immigration approval until our home study is complete, and once we do apply it can take 2-3 months to get approval. Anyway, this was not the best of days, but I'm so thankful for the Lord's gentle reminders. All throughout the day after receiving this news any time I started to get upset the Lord gently reminded me to trust Him, that He's still in control. He wasn't surprised by this, and part of trusting Him, is believing that He has a reason for this delay.
July 12th- E and I have our TB skin tests read (they were negative, we passed).
July 17th- Last day of summer school. Couple of boys are a little bit thrilled about that. ;)
July 18th- E and I take another 3 hour trip north to visit with our social worker again. 3-ish hours of talking and interviewing...this time was easier, though, thankfully!
In order to prepare for our July 18th visit we had a checklist of things we had to finish, complete, get from others. The biggest part was our education. I pushed hard to get the education finished because aside from needing to for both our home study and dossier, we were leaving for vacation on July 20th and I didn't want to be working on education stuff on vacation. By God's grace and a couple of late nights we got everything finished, and that felt wonderful!! I know as the time to meet our precious daughter draws nearer we'll be reviewing some things (lots of information in a short amount of time, makes for material to be forgotten), and I'm thankful we'll have the resources available to do so.
July 20-28th- Glorious vacation! It was wonderful to get away for a week, to say we needed a vacation is an understatement! :)
July 25th- E and I celebrated our 14th anniversary!!
This was another busy, crazy, hard month, but God has been faithful to bring us through! As I'm writing this my thoughts are turning to school prep wondering where the summer went? The kids start school in a little less then a month. I'm hoping with these few weeks of summer left we'll be able to breathe a little bit, relax a little more and enjoy the last days of summer...after all this could be our last full summer as a family of 7, and that is scary, but, oh, so exciting!! :)
