Month In Review

The end of the month is here once again. When I started making notes and kind of reviewing all that we've done this month for our adoption...it was busy, very busy...I knew it was busy, but thinking it all through and writing it down made me tired. :)
Earlier this week I was thinking about how my update for this month is nothing like what I thought this update would look like.
When I wrote September's update we had just seen the rough draft of our home study, I was on cloud 9, thinking that things would really start moving, well, moving as much as any part in adoption moves...slower then you want usually. But in my head the biggest, hardest part of the dossier was going to soon be complete and November's update would be about how we had sent in all of our documents for Immigration Approval, we had all the rest of our dossier papers just sitting and waiting for Immigration Approval to come back, and, well, that didn't happen...at all.
Sitting and typing now, with this month's storm behind me I'm seeing how God is truly causing us to trust Him in ways we've not trusted Him before. And that our trusting Him is also refining us, and the refining we're going through is hard and painful at times, but He's teaching us, growing us, and drawing us closer to Him.
At one point this month, when I was at my lowest (I had a couple very hard, discouraging days), my husband said to me, "It's possible these delays are not just about our daughter, they could be so that God can refine us as parents to the children we already have."

That really hit home.

I remember having another conversation earlier in the month telling my husband how sick I was of paperwork, how ready to be done I was, because adoption related things easily take up so much of my time, that I felt like my kids were just getting "leftovers" from me. And I don't want that.
I know that I have so far to go as a mom, there are days that I feel like a complete failure, and still wonder why God called us to adopt. Feeling inadequate some days to parent the children we have, and then knowing we'll be adding someone new, who at first will likely be harder to parent for a while for a number of reasons...

I come back to the fact that, I have to trust Him, and I have to believe Him.
He is more then able to give us the wisdom and strength to raise our children, and another one...He is able! It's when I'm relying on myself completely that I so easily see my shortcomings, but God is greater then my shortcomings. Hallelujah!

And that was a long rabbit trail, that I'm not sure made sense. :) So let's move on to the update.

October 1st- Pick up fixed psych evaluation letters (there was an issue with the dates).

October 4th- I dropped paperwork off at our local sheriff's department to have local background checks run on us.
E had a couple job related letters for our dossier notarized.
I was working on our financial form for our adoption agency. There was an area that we had to fill out that hadn't been listed on the form for our social worker. This area would change some numbers around and everything. needs. to. match. It was a Friday night, and I was afraid that this would mess some things up because our social worker would have to change numbers around, and I wasn't really able to get a hold of anyone because it was Friday night. Long story short, I had a meltdown...
I know there were a few factors that played a part, but I was in our bedroom sobbing, wondering if we had missed God's timing? How was this all going to work out? Not good. I was a mess.
God is so good though! He met me in that low-tear-filled place.
I was also texting with E during all of this and when I mentioned I was afraid we had missed God's timing, he was encouraging me and texted back, "sometimes God's will isn't convenient." So true.

October 5th-I was doing much better. The fog had cleared, and I realized that what seemed like a huge mountain the night before really wasn't anything to be worried about. Part of my meltdown was stress related. We were pushing and running around trying to get a lot of papers finished and notarized by October 8. E was going to the state capitol for work and we wanted to drop off as much as we could to have things state certified. We had a few documents that needed to be authenticated in Washington D.C. before December or they would expire and would need to have them re-done or re-printed.

October 7th- I go back to the sheriff's department to pick-up our notarized background check letters. I run to UPS to get a pre-paid label so when our documents are state certified they can mail them back to us. E and I met with a friend who is a notary to get the last few documents we wanted to have ready to be state certified notarized.

October 8th- E takes documents (a good chunk of our dossier) to be state certified. Get an email from someone at our social worker's agency saying that there was some paperwork she sent my step-mom-in-law to be filled out. She was wondering where that was at because that paperwork had to be processed in order to finish her FBI background check. And the home study cannot be finalized without it. We get working on that.

October 11th- Our documents arrive from the capitol state certified!!!
Later in the afternoon I stop at E's office to make copies of everything we just had certified so we can mail it to our case worker and she can then send if off to D.C. to be authenticated. While I was making copies I noticed that 2 of the documents we not notarized correctly (there was some info. missing). I really believe it was the Lord that helped me to notice that because we had already looked over the documents and technically they shouldn't have been certified because they weren't notarized properly. Had we not caught the mistake, they would've been sent back from D.C. to be re-done correctly, and that would've cost time and money. I was thanking God for noticing that.

October 12th- E runs the 2 documents to our notary friend so she can fill in the missing information. He made it to her house an hour or 2 before she and her family we're leaving for vacation for 2 weeks, out of the country.

October 15th- Mail all of the dossier paperwork we have done (there's still more) and state certified to our case worker!! Also mail the paperwork my step-mom-in-law needed to fill out so her background check could be finished.

October 16th- Our social worker sends us an email with follow-up questions our adoption agency sent her. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, however, there were a couple of things that kind of made us go, "Really?!" Just an example, my husband's parents adopted and fostered kids when he was growing up. We now needed to have my father-in-law fill out release forms for all of the agencies he worked with. Thankfully there were only 2 agencies, so that made things easy, but getting info. from release forms takes time...another delay.

October 17th- Find out from our social worker that the fingerprinting and release forms we filled out for background checks in May, were set to expire mid-November and we had to re-do those ASAP. More delays...

October 22nd- Bi-weekly phone call with our case worker. Find out I need to get another document from my Dr. Before she explained what it was, she told me, "You're going to think this is crazy."
Because my doctor wrote on my medical form under the "Surgeries/medications" portion of my medical form that I had ear tubes as a child, I now need to get a letter from my Dr., notarized, on clinic letterhead stating that the ear tube surgeries I had as a child will not hinder my parenting abilities when we adopt our daughter.
Let that one sink in...
We did laugh. :) So I'm now waiting on my ear tube letter. :)

October 23rd- E goes to the sheriff's department to be fingerprinted again. And also, he drops off a sample of our well water to be tested, to make sure it's safe to drink. That was one of the things in the follow-up email.

October 25th- I go to the sheriff's department with my father-in-law, step-mom-in-law, and all 5 kids (No school that day) to be fingerprinted again. We may be on a first name basis with the people at the sheriff's department by the time this adoption is complete. :)
I mail the fingerprint cards, new release forms and a few other documents to our social worker on the way home.

October 26th- Our water results come in the mail, and our water is safe to drink. I scan the letter and email it to our social worker right away. The ball is back in her court as far as stuff for the home study, we've gotten her all the new information she needed including answering all the follow-up questions from our adoption agency.

This was a long, busy month. I'm sorry this post got so long, but this is how I'm documenting our adventure for our family, and if I don't put details in now, I'll forget.

I don't know what will happen in November with our adoption process, only God knows that, and as much as I want to be further along in this process, as much as I'm wishing we already knew who our daughter is, we are trusting His timing. Some days it's easier then others, but there is a peace that comes with trusting Him.