Home study is done dude!

Well, our Home Study is now done!

Yesterday we visited with Amy one-on-one ... first me and then JB. For the sake of my mother-in-law :) I can tell you that she asked us about:

• our childhood
• our marriage
• infertility
• the decision to adopt
• how we resolve conflict
• how we would describe ourselves
• how we would describe our spouse
• how we would describe our parents
• our experience parenting
• etc.

It was a pretty detailed interview. Right after we were done, we took off to puppy class with Scrubs so I didn't have a chance to update my blog.

Then this morning, Amy met with us as a couple one last time before JB took off for work, and I finished things up with her. During this interview I learned a few things!

• I learned that we are actually moving very quickly through this paper chase! I thought we were taking forever, but she said we were very quick paper-returners!
• I learned that, as best she could guess, we could expect a "log-in date" of somewhere in January or February with China. This is when the official "wait time" begins. It is currently estimated at 22 months from "log-in date". So it will be nice to have an official start to our waiting. At this point, I will be very pleased if our daughter gets to join us in this home.
• I learned that our physician dated our physicals on a different date than when it was notarized. This means that we have to get the physician to redo the sheet and have it re-notarized.
• I learned that JB's employment letter needs some wording added to its notarization. The notary's stamp wasn't detailed enough.
• I learned that we do need to get police clearance "certificates" saying we have not committed a crime in this county. (This is funny because it is only for one county! We could have committed a crime somewhere else.) Okay, not really, but still -- what good is a clearance for a county?
• I learned that it is okay if these clearances are not letters (since I can't find a county willing to provide a letter.)
• I learned (okay I already knew this) that I still need to get a new copy of our birth and marriage certificates. (I've been putting this off.)
• I learned that we have to get a $500 home study "update" yearly while we wait for our daughter to join us.
• I learned that we have to re-adopt our daughter in the US so that she has a US birth certificate. We can skip this, but it could end up making her life difficult as she gets older.

Otherwise, we are progressing nicely. Unfortunately, we did end up having to pay quite a bit for Amy's travel to the Home Study.

I am doing my best to continue to just handle one thing at a time and not look to closely at the big picture. If I look at all the things, I get overwhelmed especially when you add to that my own jobs and other responsibilities. We are excited to be a bit closer to the day our daughter joins us.