Polli and her buddy Jack

I wanted to give Polli some props. For the most part, the only reason she pays any attention at all to our fish is because she LOVES their food pellets. Every night when she hears the bag crinkle, she comes running and sits politely waiting for her obligatory pellet before bedtime.

I caught this picture of her one night while she was saying hello to our Jack Demsey, Jack (yes, very original I know). He is one of two fish in our 200+ gallon tank right now after we tragically lost close to 30 fish during our week without power in December. It was really emotional to see Shawn pulling fish out of the freezing tank that had been with us for years. Two troopers survived it. Jack and the big boy, our shy African Frontosa.

Finally...Our Marriage Certificate is on the Way!

Well, it’s not really on the way, but I finally got through to someone in St. Thomas who was able to help me. This was a huge feat and was one of my final hurdles in the paper chase. For those who care, here’s the back story:

Shawn and I were married in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands on a beautiful morning in February, 1996. It was 8:30am on a weekday and we were the only people on the beach. White sand, azure blue water, and eucalyptus trees surrounded us as we pledged our lives to each other. Nothing seemed more perfect or more romantic. We felt like we really worked the system and won big time…No big church wedding, no wedding planner headaches (we had one, but on the island. Whether I wanted the Island Dreams package #1 or Perfect Paradise package #2, was the extent of my wedding day stress). For 11 years now, we’ve felt like we came out way ahead of most of our friends who went to town with the whole church thing… Until we needed a copy of our marriage certificate.

Shortly after the New Year, I wrote a letter to an address I found online for ordering marriage certificates from the Virgin Islands. Unfortunately, there was no phone number, and no details on how much it cost, whether we needed to provide I.D., proof that we are who we say we are, etc. My letter pleaded endlessly that they expedite any forms necessary as we needed the certificate to meet a deadline for submitting paperwork to adopt a foreign orphan. I even went so far as to say that this child needs medical care that is awaiting him in the U.S., and that we had a deadline of March 1^st. Apparently, none of my lies struck a compassionate chord with anyone there, because here we are 2 days before March 1^st, and not so much as a whisper from the islands. The clerks must be out back, feet dangling in the surf, sipping something with lots of rum, laaaugghhhinng...all the while fanning themselves with my letter.

Today, as I addressed an envelope to our agency, sending off the last of our documents and pictures until our USCIS paperwork to comes back, I realized that I HAD to do something to try to get our marriage certificate. I did a search for any court or city hall sounding contact on the island and took down about 5 phone numbers. On my lunch, I started calling numbers, and on the 3^rd one, I got a gal who put me on hold and then transferred me to the Superior Court. I was then transferred two more times and put on hold for about 15 minutes. Because I had no idea of where I was in the system at this point, I couldn’t hang up. I was calling long distance on my cell phone, so who knows how much it was costing me, but I was hanging on for dear life!

Finally, Phyllis (or Big Phil as I’ve decided to call her) came on the line and said that she never got my letter and ALL letters go through her. All? OK, whatever you say, Phyllis. I was picturing a big Caribbean gal with a scarf wrapped high on her head…arms crossed and lips pursed. NO letter came to her…no way, no how. "Child, you’d better think again! Snap snap snap…" OK, I’m done with the euphemisms.

So, Big Phil went on to say that I was supposed to send my request with $2 to the Court House and not Vital Records (although the CDC website lists Vital Records in about 4 places). I said my apologies and asked her for an address. She gave it to me and asked that a self addressed stamped envelope accompany it. She said she makes one trip a week to “the warehouse” to gather documents, only one (strong emphasis on one…her bright red painted fingernail pointing skyward at the phone to make her point)

After gathering a few facts about who we are and when we were married, she changed from all business and became all smiles. “Thank you for visiting our islands, dear.” “Was your wedding lovely, honey?”. “I’m so glad you’re adopting a child, my dear. I’m sure he or she will be very lucky. Be sure to bring him in to visit next time you’re in St. Thomas”. It was all good times now. Big Phil and I are buddies.

So, now I just have to run to the bank for a whopping $2 money order and get this thing sent to Big Phil. Maybe I’ll throw a Starbucks card in there for her. They have to have a beach side kiosk somewhere on the island by now.

So, thanks to Big Phil and her ONE trip per week to “the warehouse”, hopefully she’ll find our marriage certificate and we’ll have it in the next couple of weeks. Let’s just hope we’re not in one of those boxes lost in their last round of hurricanes or water damaged by the latest monsoon. When we were there to be married, they were still cleaning up from Andrew and it wasn't pretty.

Next step: Pray hard for a smooth processing of our background check and I-600A at immigration. The arrival of that final HUGE piece, the I-171H really can’t come soon enough. Without it, our dossier won’t be complete. We have almost exactly 2 months left before the May 1 deadline!

Virtual Moving Day

Welcome! I am slowly moving my blog over from MSN Spaces. (I loved this picture. Who hasn't tried this at least once?) Being a Microsoft house, moving to the competition was a tough decision for me (they are directly funding our adoption through the adoption subsidy they offer and the paychecks that keep a roof over our heads) but I was becoming really limited in what I could do on that platform. Before long, I'll probably start developing my own independent site. My ultimate goal is to be able to drop in video and picture collages while we're in China and beyond.

If anyone has any WYSIWYG tips on doing that in Blogger, leave a comment! I'm still a little CSS and HTML stupid, so go easy. I'm also wondering how hard it is to create a custom theme. I want to design a backdrop similar to how our son's room will look, but again... ignorance is my strong point right now.

Stay tuned as I add in more widgets and goodies. Hopefully we'll even have progress on our adoption process to report before long. In the meantime, Polli will be the star of the show, as she probably thinks she will be forever...if only she knew about the slobber, snot, screaming that will converge upon her in the coming months. Poor thing. Sleep now, lovely puppy dog. You'll be getting a workout running from a sticky babbling giant before long! :-)

Happy New Year! Year of the Pig!

I often wonder what year our son will have been born in. Based on the age range we are aiming for, he'll most likely be a Rooseter or a Monkey, but who knows? This time next year, we will have already celebrated CNY Rat!

New Year Zodiac Calendar:

This chart was taken from Wikipedia. Click Here to view the entire article about CNY.

Will We Make it Out Alive?

We had our long awaited fingerprint appointment today. It couldn't come too soon, but OH MY GOSH are we glad it's over!

The day started out a little different than the average Tuesday. For the first time ever, I woke up at some point in the middle of the night and shut off both alarms. I must have thought it was the weekend for some reason, who knows. I do know that it threw off our day when I rolled over and looked at the alarm...2 hours late! I rarely even snooze, so this was really odd and must have been an omen of things to come.

I picked Shawn up at his office an hour before our scheduled "appointment" in Seattle, giving us plenty of extra time. Our paperwork stated to be there at 11am, but to arrive early to complete paperwork. We had already filled out some forms, so we were pretty sure it would go fast.

When we arrived, we walked right through security, but were quickly ushered into another line. There were 5 lines for different appointment types and ONE man behind a desk to help about 30 or 40 people. After about 20 minutes, we were called. He looked over our paperwork, stapled a numbered ticket to the top sheet, and told to sit in the next waiting room....which contained about 200 other people, many who... how can I say this nicely... should have spent a little more time in the deodorant aisle at the grocery store.

Eyes watering as we adjusted to the state of the room's lack of ventilation, we quickly realized that we were about 30 numbers back. It became evident that they were calling about 5 numbers at a time, every 20 minutes or so. After about 2 hours, our numbers finally came up. We then stood in another line to get to ONE woman who was running the entire show for all these people. 20,000 more troops can be deployed to Iraq without a blink of an eye, yet Homeland Security for Seattle is being run by one woman. Nice. I'm glad my tax dollars are getting used appropriately.

She looked over everything AGAIN and asked if we know the orphan we are adopting. Of course the answer was no. She scribbled something on the paper, stamped it, and stapled yet another but different numbered ticket to it. We were then asked to sit back down and wait for that number to be called. Our numbers were 110 and 111...at that time, they had just called 70 and 71. I'm not Jewish, but OY VEY!

Without much of a choice, we sat back down and continued watching the solo TV on Disney toons. It's a good thing I like KimPossible. I may look a little like her, but I don't have her charm or powers against the Seattle INS bad guys! It was now past 1:00pm. And we truly couldn't feel an end in sight. I was beginning to imagine the number of strains of colds and flu converging here from all corners of the world. Hmmm. Is my throat getting scratchy?

We had been there since 10:30 and were starting to tire of the process (understatement). Shawn said a few things he may not have with something in his stomach, like "you didn't research this very well" and "in another 30 minutes we're rethinking this adoption"... He took it back later in the day after he realized how much I also had sacrificed to do this, too. Needless to say, we were both getting cranky. To make matters worse, I used my last 2 dollars to buy junk I wouldn't normally eat from the vending machines. Shawn's chips came out OK, but my Twix got stuck in the machine. I had to scrounge for enough change to buy what was behind it. Luckily, it gave me both, but wouldn't you know it, Shawn didn't want chips and ate both candy bars. Doesn't he understand the need for chocolate during trying times like these? Men!

Moving forward, at about 2:30, our numbers were finally called...again. Don't get your hopes up. We were simply ushered into a smaller room where we had to sit again and wait. Like the last room, there was one person running this show, too. I truly don't understand the government. We were tired, eyes and nasal passages strained from various smells (none good), and we were both dwelling on what we were missing at work...sure that we'd never actually make it out alive. Have we updated our will recently? When was the last time I told my mom 'I love you'? Is Shawn wearing clean underwear? Who will take care of the dog? Luckily, we didn't have to wait too long to find answers to these questions. Our names were called within 30 minutes. Four hours previous, it would have seemed like a moderate amount of time. Now, it seemed like a beautiful beam of light at the end of this horrific immigration tunnel.

Once called to the fingerprint station, the tech had to actually hand type our forms into the computer before we could continue! With the amount of technology at their fingertips (pardon the pun), I couldn't believe it. Had no one heard of bar coding? Scanning? Even a hammer and chisel would be more logical at this point. FINALLY, he started with the fingerprinting. This part is pretty high tech, much like an ultrasound machine. A laser type tool scans across the fingertip, showing the print on the screen. A red light indicates that it isn't good enough. A green light indicates that it's a good print. I only needed 2 done over and I was out of there. Overall, the printing process took less than 5 minutes. After 5 hours, it took less than 5 minutes!!

Upon walking out (more like a dead sprint), the line just to get through security was out the door and around the building. Unbelievable! They should have suicide counselors on staff to ensure that those people make it to the end. Ironically, we chose not to drive over to Eastern Washington and walk into the smaller office, thinking we couldn't afford the time off work for the trip. As it turns out, we could have driven over and gotten back in less time than this wait in the Seattle office. For anyone reading this in the Seattle area still waiting for USCIS appointments, take the time and drive to Yakima! At least you'll have access to Starbucks, ventilation, and you're Ipod along the way.

Child 2? Maybe you'll be 4-Legged, unless breeders start requiring fingerprints!

Our agency reported that some paperwork (I-171-H) is coming back in as few as 4 weeks. Seattle is known for long waits, as long as 3 months, which we can't afford right now. If 4 weeks holds true, we should have no problem getting our dossier off to China by April 30th.

Let's just hope they don't ask us to come back to the INS office for some reason. We never want to see the inside of that building again if we can help it!

Next steps: Wait for the arrival of the I-171H (what today's circus was about); send with pictures and final few documents to our agency...and then we wait for a batch of dossiers to be sent to China!

What's the Hold Up?

Many people have been asking why no news...Well, we're at the mercy of immigration at this point, unfortunately. A document called the I-600A is without question one of the most important forms to be submitted. It is the form that requests the advanced processing of an orphan from China.

In Washington, it requires a completed homestudy, which was officially done on January 8th...the form was fedexed to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service office on the 9th.

Next, they send us an appointment for getting our fingerprints taken, of which the results (criminal background checks) could take days or weeks. As you can imagine, I'm on pins and needles waiting for that appointment. Once we get that piece of paper, we will most likely barge into the office and try to get our prints done ASAP. There is an office in Yakima that simply can't be that busy except for apple picking season...and we have a little time before that happens.

So...once we have the I-600A processed and the fingerprints done, we'll get a document from INS called the I-171H, which is the "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Adoption of an Orphan". Once we have this document, we can combine it with the last of our dossier items (final notarized documents, pictures, birth/marriage certs) for our agency.

We are paying them to compile our documents, have the certified, and send them off to China. They have to make a few stops along the way for official stamps of approval, but at that point we'll be free and clear (hopefully). If a letter, signature, or smudge of ink is out of place, they'll ask for a "do-over", but we're hoping everything skates through without incident. By the time that I-171H comes, we won't have much time to waste. Again, April 30th is our deadline!

Half The Sky

I wanted to take a minute and talk about a great charity called Half The Sky.

It is a non-profit organization with one goal: to make sure every child feels the love and security of a loving adult even before they find their permanent home. Through donations, hundreds of representatives in China develop programs that directly benefit institutionalized children by providing physical and cognitive interaction and supplies that they may never normally receive otherwise. They provide medical and nutritional resources, and most importantly the interaction and stimuli that only one-on-one attention can provide.

Because orphanage workers in China are often asked to care for a dozen or more children, the most they can do is feed, potty, change, nap...feed, potty, change, nap... Depending on capacity and work load, kids are often in a crib or play pen for hours on end with one or two toys, and sometimes none. Orphanages are typically kept very cold and children are often bundled to a point where they can barely move their arms and legs. So many kids come home with little muscle tone, under developed motor skills, and without the capacity to understand simple play.

Half the Sky sponsors Social Welfare Institutions (orphanages) and provides them with the above mentioned supplies and resources as well as training for caretakers (aunties), preschool programs, learning programs for older children, and foster homes for children with special needs. It provides these kids with one-on-one attention that they so desperately need at that stage in their lives.

In many cases, kids from HTS sponsored SWIs come home close to or on target developmentally. That's a big deal.

A 10-year old girl mentioned on their website has sponsored 40 kids simply by asking for donations instead of gifts on her birthday since age 4. How cool is that?

The above picture is from their website. I think it is not only beautiful, but communicates the red thread proverb. I've mentioned it in the past, but here it is again...

An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break.
-- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Hurry Up and Wait...Then Hurry Up Again

If you've ever been to Rome, you'll understand the comparison of this process we're going through to the wait to get into the Sistine Chapel. The anticipation is so great and you would do just about anything to see it, but you have no choice but to wait for hours...only to be ushered through in 15 minutes with few photo opps.

Needless to say, we traveled half way around the world for this once in a lifetime landmark, and then skipped it!

I haven't had anything exciting to post for a while, but the past few weeks have brought a lot of stress and excitement in the China adoption world.

For those unfamiliar with the process of adoption, it is very nit-picky. Even one toe over the line...one misspelled word...one signature in blue ink...can be deal breakers. If people had to go through all of this for biological children, we would have a lot fewer unwanted and abused children in the world...although a lot of deserving parents would also be left out in the cold over technicalities...as is very true in adoption.

So is now the case with China now more than ever before, to great extremes. The CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) is the government sector that mandates the rules and regulations surrounding adoptions of Chinese children. They have recently released new requirements for adopting a child from China which will directly impact us and many others waiting or considering the China program.

One of the reasons we decided to go through China was because the program is exacting and never varies... 1+1=2 every time regardless of agency. Wait times never fluctuate, regardless of the advocating agency. While researching Russia, we found that this is not always the case there, and we really wanted the peace of mind that a consistent country program had to offer.

In April, when we attended our first orientation, the presenter announced that the wait times (from the time paperwork is in China) had risen to 9-12 months. There were many gasps and mumblings among the crowd. At the time, we were there focused on Russia, so we didn't think anything of it. That was an average wait in Russia, so I couldn't imagine why the fuss.

Fast forward to our switch to China and our agency seminar weekend 5 months later, and the wait was up to 20-24 months and rising steadily. Although the wait times alone seem like they would easily scare people away, everyone but two couples in our 20 couple class were there for the China program. If that trend is the same for their monthly class, that means only about 24 couples out of 240 per year go through other programs...90% going through China. Wow. It's obvious even to the casual observer that change had to happen to remedy this huge demand for children from one country.

Since we are going through the Special Needs/Waiting Child program, our wait times don't really follow that traditional timeline, which did 2 things...1) It caused us to ignore the hullabaloo over wait times and 2) It caused us to purposely drag our feet on our homestudy and dossier paperwork (we don't want to travel until fall and through the Special Needs program, we could wind up needing to travel sooner if we hurried through our paperwork).

The new rules include many that won't affect us involving anti-depressant usage, criminal background, weight or age restrictions, or marital/divorce status, but the change that is a big deal is that both parents have to be in "perfect" health. As of now, we don't really know what "perfect" means (coming from a country with 3/4 of it's population smoking like there's no tomorrow), but we can't really wait around for specifics either. Those who don't get paperwork in to China by April 30th will have to adhere to the new rules. My genetic condition, Tuberous Sclerosis, as treated leaves me in completely normal health and fully capable to parent a child, except for the fact that it makes me susceptible to seizures if I were to stop taking my medication for a month or more. Although I have a very mild form of the condition, it could be viewed by the Chinese government as within the "epilepsy" definition, which is not allowed. Tuberous Sclerosis also causes skin pigment differences, which I also have, also to a minor degree. Thank goodness they just look like red freckles, because facial or physical differences are also being scrutinized (such as scars,deformities, skin malformations, wheel chair bound, deformed or missing digits/limbs).

While these things (along with obesity, prior incidence of cancer, single parentage, and lack of high school diploma)seem to be discrimination to many and have zero impact on a person's ability to parent, it is simply China requesting that people who adopt their children be held to the same cultural standards that they apply to themselves. Most everyone I've met online disagrees with this whole heartedly...I do too, however I can also see their side. There's no reason, just as with any other cultural or political topic, that the US standards or opinions need to be #1. They do in fact have the right to require anything they want of the international adoptive families. This will greatly reduce the number of people who qualify for the China program, thus lowering wait times.

With the background checks taking up to 3 months to process, we are racing against the clock right now to get everything in in time...That's as long as everything is perfect without anything coming up on background checks (anything is possible I guess). We're just keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that everything falls in place. If not, we will consider going through Thailand, India, or Vietnam. In those countries, the waits, even for waiting kids, seem to be a little longer, but at this point, whatever happens will happen for a reason.

The Bulldog, The Social Worker, and the 4 Hour Job Interview

I've decided that the best way to control population would be to require a homestudy for prospective parents. Combine a self induced cleaning obsession, a crazy french bulldog, and a 36 year old 6 year old with no off switch.... a social worker's nightmare.

The doorbell rang promptly at 9:00 and Polli went from half asleep to deranged maniac dog in .25 seconds. I know now what parents mean when they say "she's never like this, I swear!" I was saying that, like a broken record, for the first half hour while Polli used our social worker as a trampoline. How embarassing!

Our SW Becky is a petite, quiet lady in her 50's who has "I've seen everything" written all over her face. I guess that's a good thing considering my dog had that crazy look in her eyes (while the devil parrot squaked endlessly from the other room). My only hope was that this was all completely normal. Lord give me strength!

She quietly observed as we set out coffee and settled Polli down. She made notes the whole time and I was praying that they were regarding my beautiful faux finished walls or thoroughly vacuumed carpet. Chances are, it was about the candles lit precariously close to magazines or tangled appliance wires strug across the room. I guess there's no hiding that we live in a childless home.

We did do a lot of bragging about how great Polli is with not chewing wires and not eating our shoes. Right on cue, Polli trotted into the room proudly clutching a shoe in her mouth. Again, how embarassing! Come on dog, don't you want a brother?

We gave her a quick tour of the house, all 1600 square feet, which doesn't take long. Upon showing her our backyard, she commented on our Buddha sculpture and screen of bamboo. It seemed to be with a lighter pen and a smile (finally) that she made notes at this point. Whew! Buddha is bringing us good luck already!

It didn't seem to bother her that the room for the child is currently inhabited by Gonzo, our parrot. Whose parrot has her own room AND DVD player? Ours does! She glanced briefly at our bedroom, but didn't see how well scrubbed the toilet was or how nicely folded the towels were. Darn it, that grout didn't scrub itself! I remember reading about people who cleaned behind the dryer or polished their mailbox... How ridiculous..... Now, where should I put this new fire extinguisher? Yes, I'm a perfectionist AND a hypocrite!

She started in with questions for Shawn. Basically, she was just asking for expanded answers to questions from our autobiographies. His answers were so long winded and she went into so much detail... I was starting to think that she would never get to me. Although our agency is not a religion based agency, as some are, she spent a good hour or more asking about how we will raise our child. Shawn, with a soured family experience with the Catholic church, did not sugar coat a thing. At one point, he even said "I'm just waiting for the day the Martians land". I wanted to crawl under the table. I wanted so badly to butt in and emphasis that we are not athiests! We both believe in God, we just don't go to church on Sunday. We believe in an inner faith rather than that religion is about guilt. To each his own, I say, but it really was coming across that we live in anarchy. Shawn, why don't you just shortcut this thing and show her your tattoos for goodness sake? Lady, go on to the next question already!

After about 2 1/2 hours of questions to Shawn (who frankly grew up with a Mayberry kind of life) she finally came to me. As she posed her first question, she looked at her watch and said "look at the time, let's wrap this up in the next 15 minutes". Almost 3 hours to Shawn and 15 minutes to me. Since my family put the "fun" in dysfunctional, I was relieved. It's not that everything was bad growing up, but I knew (and was right) that she would zero right in on my relationships with my siblings. Lets just say that if they had to do a criminal check on our whole family, we would be denied in a hurry. I don't have the best relationship with my sister and there's no glossing over our bad blood. I was so glad when those 15 minutes were up.

All in all, it went well. She was at the house for about 4 hours and still seemed interested in working with us when she left.

We were excited to hear that she was leaving the next day for China for 2 weeks. I can't wait to hear about her experience there. Before her car had disappeared in the distance, we were walking to the nearby Taco Del Mar for the highest calorie buritto money can buy. I needed cheese and I needed it now.

So, with that behind us, now we can begin looking toward the final pieces of our homestudy, which are the fingerprinting/background checks.

Once that's done, we can actually start compiling our dossier documents! With luck, we'll have the dossier to China shortly after the new year. Come on, buddha, don't fail us now!

Who's the Crazy Lady at the Mall Stalking Asian Kids?

I was at the mall the other day and saw an Asian little girl with a Caucasian couple. I practically followed them through the entire store before they got on the escalator and floated away. I wonder if they were trying to get away from the crazy lady staring at them from across the shoe department?

Was she adopted? Potentially. Was she Chinese? Possibly. Am I a lunatic? By the time this is all over, probably!

The mind is an incredible thing. When I bought my Honda Element, it was a brand new, crazy looking invention. People would practically drive off the road staring at me as I drove by, as though it were the Model T in 1909. Strangers would chase me down in parking lots or at the gas station just to ask questions about my car. I was an automobile rockstar....Albeit a rockstar sick of rattling off facts about gas mileage and why I chose Galapagos Green. Now, almost 4 years later, every other car on the road is an Element and no one looks twice, except to cut in front at the onramp meter.

I imagine international adoption the same way to some extent. The way I react to Asian children with non-Asian parents is similar to how people reacted to my car. I'm sure that couple in the mall whispered to themselves as I peered from behind a display of perfume, "Here we go again...another adoption newbie".

Just like the novelty wore off with my Element, I'm sure in time the same will happen with our "different from the norm" family...Until another lunatic comes along.

This all got me wondering how I would answer questions when people stop staring and actually come up to us. Everyone talks about how rude and naive some people are and how your child becomes something of a sideshow attraction, but I'm hoping that Shawn and I are right that we live in a more diverse than normal area. Drive by 1 Microsoft Way and it's not hard to figure out that a vast cultural revolution has converged upon western Washington. The blending of technology and culture has done great things to the diversity of our area and I'm praying this means that we're a more tolerant area for it.

So, getting back to my obsession with the Asian little girl, she's not the only one. God help me if a parent or sharp eyed security guard catches me staring at an Asian toddler boy wondering if he's Chinese? Korean? Japanese? Is he 2? 3? Will my little boy look like him? We he act like him? Will he be that hyper? That shy? If you're wondering if 30 minutes of staring has gone by, no. This all happens in about 30 seconds... but at the big boat in our mall, this could happen a hundred times over!

On the same note, recently a friend pointed out a cute little boy in Starbucks and I honestly said "what little boy" when he was right in front of us. I was looking for black hair and almond shaped eyes... this little guy had blonde hair and it was like I saw right through him. Poor guy. I'm sure his Asian parents love him just the same. ;-D

For those visiting this blog to find out where we are in the process, the answer is...read the last entry. There's your answer!

We actually have an appointment for next Friday with our Social Worker for our home visit. Now, if I can keep myself from overcleaning we'll do just fine!