Oh Hail the Mighty State

Since we have a week off (again!), I have been semi-hard at work with adoption stuff. Since yesterday, that is. Turns out that our agency can order all of our documents, which is nice, since some places, like Missouri, only accept money orders. I do not understand why government agencies cannot get their forms put online, allow scanning, and accept credit card payments. I seriously do not know how we would send in a money order from China. Any ideas?

I also ordered our criminal history checks from OSBI (Oklahoma) yesterday, and performed a check on myself from the Great State of Texas. Yes, Texas knows what they're doing. Everything online! And easy! And cheap! And that is why I am still proud to call myself a Texan. It was clean, btw.

Now then. Oklahoma seems to be making progress. I was able to fill out the forms digitally with Adobe, print it, and then fax. Faxing is not so hard, since we have one in the school office. There is not one at the post office, so if I could not use the one here at school, I do not know what I would do. When I went to the post office to inquire about a fax machine, I received strange looks and a definite "no have" after I made myself understood. Oh well.

We also began working on our autobiographies this week. I have made more progress than Shannon, but he assures me not to worry, he'll geterdone. I will not worry...yet. The autobiographies are for the social worker. It begins with reflections on our childhood, parents, siblings, etc. Then we must write about our education and job experiences. Next we discuss how we met each other, why we decided to marry, and then our expectations about parenthood and our kid. That's where I am right now, and I think I need to mull over it for awhile.

Otherwise, we're waiting on our references letters (hint, hint) to arrive at our agency so that we "get" to pay our agency fee and then be OFFICIAL. I can't wait!

New Mantra

Today I went on a field trip to Guangzhou with our potential IB students for next year. Since I'll be teaching TOK (Theory of Knowledge) next year, I met with the current TOK teacher at AISG and got all kinds of great advice. She has been teaching for 30 years (dude!), so of course, she is a wealth of information. She made me promise a few things: to not make my class a "blowoff class" (as if!), to show The Matrix and The Truman Show after teaching Plato's allegory of the cave, and to buy simulation games...I wish she had been my teacher!

Anyway, this does relate to adoption. After our interview I had a few hours to myself, so I headed to the library. J lent me a must read for PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents for those who are not in the know): Raising Adopted Children by Lois Ruskai Melina. In the beginning she advises to "Have faith. Adoption is so uncertain that it sometimes seems that expecting to happen will certainly doom it to failure." I've definitely felt this already, and we've only just begun (you can hum it if you want). So what do we do? Claim a mantra! I believe I will be a parent someday. I believe I will be a parent someday.

And so, since there's really been no real crossing-off-things-on-a-list this week, I'll take it!

Organization and Heat

So, this is what it's all about in the beginning--getting and staying organized. Everyone who knows me even a little bit knows that this is a big challenge...to my sister's chagrin. When Shannon and I went to Walmart tonight to buy a heater for our house, I picked up an expandable document folder. I've been told I need this to help me. I already think I'm doing pretty well, with 2 file folders: "Application" and "Homestudy." We'll see...

Another great invention I'm into is the scanner. I know it's been around a while, but I really just started using it last year when we were getting all our documents together for our Chinese visa. So I already have a bunch of documents scanned and on the internets. This has already come in handy. Although...I may be a bit too gung-ho. I scanned and sent about 15 documents to our social worker, only to get the reply..."Um, okay, you can give these to me when I see you" (in March). Oh well. Better safe than sorry.

We are super lucky to have good friends who are coming to the end of an adoption (a little boy from China). They're actually hoping to go pick him up in early March! She (J) has been an incredible source of information and help, and we're going to get to see them grow with their new baby.

For now, we're dealing with our adopted kitty, and it's not going so well. He bites. All. The. Time. The water bottle seems to be working a little, so hopefully this is progress. Maybe he was just cold (as we have been freezing our buns off in Seaview Garden #604 and just needed a little warmth. Presently he is mesmerized by our new heater.

I believe our Walmart purchases will serve us well.

Get this party started...

Today we officially began our road to adoption. After so much time researching and thinking about this huge step, it's beginning. This week we: chose an agency, chose a social worker, scheduled a home study, and turned in the first application. Actually, that all really happened today. Progress.

Adoption from Ethiopia is supposed to take around a year, which is pretty fast for an international adoption. That means that our baby is most likely alive already, somewhere. Probably still in the womb, but she's been conceived and she's growing. Although my body doesn't need to know "what to expect when expecting" I'd like to be able to picture her at all stages of her growth.

I've been a lurker on blogs for lots of years now. I thought maybe I would start one when we moved abroad, but just continued stalking. When I found adoption blogs I thought--okay, well if we ever really begin ours, I'll start one up. This one will be worth it.