Homestudy Paperwork FINISHED!!!

I am so excited to be blogging to say that today Jason and I went and got our TB tests read and picked up the results, and I also picked up the letter from our accountant.  Those were the last 2 things that I needed to go in my last pack that I was sending to Bethany!!!!  So I am officially done with the paperwork for the homestudy and am waiting to set up our home visits!!!  I still have to do our packet but from what I understand, a big majority of what goes into that are the same things in the home study except I have to get them state sealed and consulate approved so that will be the challenge during that period.  So as of now I am excited to have this part of the process finished!!!  I am hoping to hear from Bethany in the next 2 weeks to see when our visits will start!!!

HOLY SMOKES!!!!

So I am sitting down to write this blog FULL of excitement.  For all of you who message me after my blogs about how you just cried and cried...this will NOT be one of those!!!!  I just got off the phone with the adoption agency and confirmed that the things that I will be sending at the end of the week will complete our paperwork.  Since this blog is intended to chronicle adoption among other things let me give you a list of what the first set of paperwork included:

1. Financial statement - individual (one for each of us to show what we are each worth)
2. financial statement - monthly (showing where every penny we make is spent
3. verification of financials - bank statements
4. special placement needs questionnaire (detailed form showing different needs)
5. adoptive family information sheet
6. family history (one for each - asks about our childhood and parents)
7. SAFE questionnaire (one for each - again about how our childhood was)
8. Employer reference (ours was from our accountant...that's fun this time of year)
9. family member reference
10. 5 personal references (each have to fill out a form and send back)
11. Letter for Grady from babysitter
12. Letter for Connor from sunday school teacher
13. Jason's fingerprints for FBI, STATE, and CANTS
14. Courtneys fingerprints for FBI, STATE, and CANTS
15. fingerprint receipts
16. ORI form
17. Medical Exam (one for all 4 of us)
18. Adoption release and consent
19. TB test for Jason
20. TB test for Courtney
21. Drug test for Jason
22. Drug test for Courtney
23. Authorization of release of information
24. Guardianship statement (what happens if Jason and I die on flight...had to have someone for our boys lined up)
25. affidavit of health insurance coverage
26. Permission/consent form
27. unforeseen additional fees form
28. change in family status form
29. parental discipline policy
30. notice of privacy practices
31. recipient rights procedure
32. full day of training sheet
33. consumer grievance procedure
34. prospective adoptive parent training requirement
35. CPR card for Jason
36. CPR card for Courtney
37. 2 years previous tax returns
38. copy of marriage license
39. Copy of birth certificates ( one for all 4 of us)
40. copy of pet vaccination records
41. picture of family
42. duty of disclosure I-800
43. Also had to do 10+ hours of online hague training for each of us
44. also had to read 5 books and each of us had to do a book report on it

Now please don't mistake this for complaining...this is just why I feel such accomplishment that I will be finished after this week!!!!  We will then get to move on to home visits this summer and then get to finally put together our dossier (packet of paperwork that is sent to China) after the homestudy is complete.  I feel so accomplished that I will be finished....I am super excited to get this BIG checklist complete!!!! 

Also today was the day we picked up Connor's report card...all As and he is finished for the summer.  I am excited to have both boys home and get to slow down our pace a bit this summer!!!  Glad to have all the paperwork done so that I can enjoy them and just want for the 3 home visits.  The dossier probably won't be starting until school resumes....so that gives us this summer to chill a bit!!! 

I want to end by saying that I really appreciate EVERYONE that had to help with this process....everyone that wrote a letter for my kids, or filled out the personal reference form and sent it back...I know that no one even complained but I am thrilled to call you all friends and am so thankful that you were so willing to step up and help us thru this process!!  I cannot wait to get MeiMei home and get to share her with all of you!!!!  Ending this paperwork just makes me feel like we have taken a HUGE step to getting her finally!!!!  I will blog again at the end of the week when the packet is in the mail!!!!  Have a great and blessed day!!!  Enjoy those kiddos!!!!

Time Marches on.....

Random I know, but one of Connor's favorite songs is "Time Marches On" by Tracy Lawrence.  I know that anyone that knows me very well is laughing and thinking, he is just like his mom!!  Anyway, the song talks about how life changes and time moves on.  I know that I have spoke about this before but yesterday I was struck twice with different emotions.  First when I got home and saw the mail sitting on the island there was a card for me from Mercy HeartPrints.  I knew exactly what it was.  St John's Mercy has a program called HeartPrints.  I will say that if anyone lives by a hospital and there isn't a program like this I challenge you to get involved and help start one!!!  This program is headed by a nurse who delivered a still born child years ago.  It is full of moms like me that have delivered a still born child and want to help others like us.  So the day that I was admitted to the hospital I met the leader of this group and she visited me every day until we left the hospital.  At first I was annoyed by her....I didn't want my friends there, so why would I want this stranger to keep coming in and asking me about my feelings and how I am doing.  Little did I know how much this lady would do for me in the coming days!!!  She had explained to me that she would be there when Chesney was born and after I was done holding her and ready to hand her over that she would take Chesney for a little while.  At that point I was focused on the labor and didn't really pay attention to what she was saying.  So the day came....I know it's hard to believe because she was so small but Chesney's delivery was VERY painful and of course VERY long.  She was delivered without anyone in the room as once it happens it goes quick.  So Jason was the one that told me that she was here and then he ran out to get the nurse.  She then called the "HeartPrints lady".  So they took her to the side table and wiped her off for a minute and then handed her to me.  Jason and I held her for quite awhile and then the doctors needed to work on me some more so the "HeartPrints lady" took her and told me to call her when I wanted her to bring her back.

I really had no idea what was happening during that time but seriously let me tell you how amazing this lady is!!!  She took Chesney and gave her a bath and then did pictures for me.  She took some of the same pictures that we did of her but the one that she took that we never would have thought of is the picture that you have seen if I have showed you any picture.  It was a picture of the bottom of her little feet.  The other thing that she did is hand prints and foot prints.  What a cherished memory of mine!!!!  I have it framed as well as the foot picture.  It's amazing how small the footprints are but how in the picture the feet look so big.  Anyway, when they brought her back she also brought me things like the blanket that she was wrapped in, and a little homemade beaded ring made of beads and then the letter beads spelled out ANGEL.  They had used it in the pictures of her so that you can see a size reference as it looks huge by her but it is a ring.  She gave me ALL those memories of my sweet Chesney.  How amazing is that!!!!!  So anyway I opened what I knew would be a mothers day card because they sent me a homemade ornament at christmas and other cards along the way.  What I didn't expect to find in the mothers day card was a matching ring to the ANGEL ring I received at the hospital but his time with MOM on it.  Oh how I will cherish it!!!  I smiled when I got it...I didn't cry....that is progress!!!!

Also yesterday we had an all day training at work...it was long and not really all that fun.  At the end of the training after most of the girls had gone home the trainer was asking about grady who had just left.  She asked if this was our only child and I said no that we had an older boy that was at school.  She said "awe no beautiful blonde haired little girl?"  Now not too long ago this would have been a huge trigger to my emotions but I was able to respond...."no, but we are in the process of adopting a little black haired girl from China".  Not that I want to forget about Chesney because we talk about her all the time here....but I don't feel the need to put strangers in that awkward position of listening to what I know they don't need to hear.  Now it's strange how time marches on....but it sure does.

Catching up....

WOWWY....I have wanted to blog so many times in the last 3 weeks but have been soooo busy and haven't had time to sit down and give it the justice that it deserves.  First of all Chesney's due date has come and gone and I want to thank all those of you that sent me your thoughts that day, cards and especially the prayers.  Boy did I feel the prayers!!!  I was prepared for the emotions of that day and to be honest, the sadness was there but no more so then every other minute that I think about it.  Maybe that day I spent a lot more time thinking about her but I made it thru and was fine.  I did make a trip out to the cemetery while Grady was sleeping in the car and it was amazing to see that there is no longer a big lump of dirt, it was as though the burial was years ago not just 4 short months ago.  I guess it is with everything else, time keeps going.  I often go back "home" to St Peter and see someone that when I left was just a little kid, now they are graduating high school or already in college.  It's amazing how I feel like I haven't aged that many years but to see them all grown up is a tough reminder that time is moving quickly.  I guess that is how I felt at the grave that day, time is moving on whether I like it or not so I need to just keep up cause my boys need me to.  So I guess April 19 was a great day where I felt Chesney and God really giving me permission to start focusing on MeiMei and not spending so much energy being sad.  I know that Chesney is in God's hands and she is looking down at me and I want to make her proud and be a good example for her, just like I would want to do if she were here with me. 

April 20!!!  Wowwy, while we had Grady's bday party on this beautiful day, across the world China felt an earthquake of 7.0.  After hearing about this I spent some time wondering, is MeiMei already born and left at an orphanage?  Is she born and still with her birth mom who is struggling with whether to parent or not?  Will the earthquake be the reason the mom couldn't parent?  Is she even born yet?  It's so crazy the things that go thru your mind.  I mean I love MeiMei and I don't know anything about her.  She may not even be born yet!!!  My mind does wonder if this earthquake in any way will be the reason that MeiMei's birth mom couldn't parent.  Or whether she is already in the orphanage.  I know that even when we have MeiMei the only answer we will have is the day that she entered the orphanage because almost all babies that are in the orphanages in China are abandoned somewhere, it isn't like here where the mom calls an agency and hands the baby over to an agency worker, the child is actually abandoned on a door step.  Now sometimes they may have a note that gives their birthday but more than not the birthday that we are giving in the referral is just the orphanages best guess.  With newborns they go by how fresh the umbilical cord is....with older children I suppose it is the best guess of the drs. 

At Jason's office we just updated to an all digital system.  The medical world as a whole is required to be digital by a certain time so this was something that had to happen.  However, I will say that I knew when we decided to do this how much time it was going to take from me, I would have waited until all of our homestudy and dossier (packet as Jason likes to call it) were finished.  I totally feel like the adoption has been put on the back burner in a way because I am working at least 5 days a week and usually like 10 hours a day and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight yet.  Then I come home and want to spend time with the boys until they have to go to bed.  Then when they are in bed I have things to do like putting deposits in the books, paying the bills, doing payroll, or balancing the work account.  This leaves a very exhausted Courtney and not any time to be working on adoption.  Now I think looking back I understood how much paperwork was going to be involved....but I wasn't prepared.  Now what does that mean...well I knew and expected LOTS of paperwork and there is definitely LOTS of paperwork.  I just wasn't prepared for how much time it was going to take.  I am the type of person that when I get an assignment in school I immediately got it done so that I didn't have it on my mind all the time.  Or I love to make to do lists as to be able to get jobs done to cross off the list.  I love the feeling of being finished!!!  Well with adoption it isn't stuff that you can just get done...it is a lot of going here and getting this, and then going here and getting this.  Not something I can just get all done quickly.  Now on top of that I am working all the time so it drives me nuts that I am not getting things checked off the list like I would like.  On top of the fingerprinting, financial papers, references, letters for our kids, and home study we have to do 30+ hours of continuing education.  Right now Jason and I each are doing 10 hours of online classes for our "hague training".  I'm not complaining because I know that these are things that have to be checked off and the reward is bringing our daughter home...but I'm just saying for all of those that are wondering about the timeline that I am HOPING to be logged in by the end of the year but I think I am going to really have to be working hard to get that done, which I have no problem with. 

Yesterday Jason and I completed our ALL DAY training that is required by Bethany (our agency) in order to continue on with the home study.  This means that we can officially finish our paperwork and move right on to the home visits.  Therefore now I am on a dash to get finished up with the paperwork.  This is going to mean a trip to Belleville at some point this week because I need to get our marriage certificate, and also ALOT of online classes and books to read...but I know that I can do it.  I am ready to get the homestudy under our belt and have smooth sailing from then on.  So if you see me at the office or in passing and I look tired know that I probably am tired but that I am enjoying every piece of this adoption puzzle.  I just wish I hadn't taken on all the other stuff.  The adoption stuff isn't the annoying stuff that has to get done it is the other things that are keeping me from working on the adoption that are the annoying stuff!!!  This journey is interesting and stretching me out of my comfort zone but I am so thankful for that.