One Step Closer

We are hoping to receive an information packet from the local adoption agency today so we can continue working with our social worker on our home study. This adoption process is such a racket. Once we are through it and we have our daughter I am seriously contemplating getting more involved somehow. My husband and I have already joined a local group specializing is families with children adopted from China. There is another group my social worker is involved with that she encouraged us to check out. They aren’t solely involved in Chinese adoptions but all adoptions per se. There is also a conference next year that we plan on attending in Maryland. This conference is hosted by our “official” adoption agency. I am registered to start school again next spring to work on another master’s degree. This degree will be specializing in adolescence education. My goal is to become an English teacher so I can get away from corporate America once we have our daughter. (I also plan on writing a book about this whole experience.) Hopefully I will be able to take classes in Mandarin for my foreign language pre-requisite. Life is just speeding by while we patiently wait for a child. I guess it’s best to keep busy especially during this process.

As of today we still need to be fingerprinted and have our adoption statement signed and notarized. My husband is crazy busy at work with the holiday season so these two tasks most likely will have to wait until after Christmas. I mean, I can run over to police headquarters on my lunch hour but he’ll have to wait for a day off. Once these tasks are completed we can fill out the local adoption agency’s application and send them yet another large fee because even though we are not using them for our adoption they must be paid to process the background checks and file our fingerprint cards. That whole background check, fingerprint process thing takes between 6-8 weeks. In the meantime we have to mail all of our already notarized documents to our social worker (employment letters, doctor’s statements, all financial statements (bank accounts, investments, mortgage, car lease, and credit cards), good citizen letters from the police and adoption statement and recommendation letters from non-relatives. I am sure there is more; I just don’t have “the list” in front of me. I am still not sure how we are going to pay for everything. We will find away. We always do. Thankfully we both still have good jobs when many folks are really struggling.

I think the coolest thing about the whole aspect of waiting to become a parent is the perspective. I sort of had it before but it’s so much clearer now. A wise woman once explained to me there is never a ‘right’ time to have a child. You never have enough money or enough time but some you manage. You make it work. I totally get it now.