Back to reality :(

Well, my head didn't really believe that this would be a big batch of referrals, but my heart sure wanted to. Referrals just came out today - 2 LID's. That's it. 25 more to go until it's our turn. Unless there is some miraculous large batch soon, we will likely run into conflicts with band camp for Erica this summer, school starting, etc. Then we will have very difficult decisions to make, such as, will all four of us still travel? Yuck.

Just so this post is not all doom and gloom, a little bit of good news: we received our medical clearance letters from our latest physicals (we are quite healthy, in case you were wondering! :) )and I got those turned into our social worker this week. She will complete our homestudy update and send it to me, and then I can send our I-600A renewal application to U.S. immigration. This very important piece of paperwork doesn't expire until early April, so I feel good about being on top of this detail.

Maybe next month will bring better news.....

Early rumors

There are faint, early rumors swirling about the next batch of referrals that might come out before Chinese New Year. Those early rumors are saying that the batch might be big! Like 20 LID's or more! I am trying to remain calm and not hop on the emotional roller coaster, but it is kind of exciting at the same time. Those of us who have been waiting this long have heard numerous rumors of speed ups, big batches, etc., etc., so I really won't believe it until I see it, but still....my heart did skip a beat while reading all of this this morning. Might it actually happen sooner rather than later?

The dreams continue...

I had another adoption dream last night. The thrilling part was that China sent referrals for the entire month of March 2006 LID's and we got our referral! That was awesome. The weird part was that our referral was for a high school-aged girl! We met her and she was very nice, but not really what we had in mind. Hmmm....what does all this mean?

I think we passed

We had a meeting with our social worker a couple of days ago to update our homestudy - for the 2nd time. Well, 3rd home study, 2nd update. Our social worker Diane is fantastic and we really enjoy working with her - she's very relaxed and not panic-inducing in any way. We have to have an updated homestudy to renew our I-600A, which is a very important immigration form. Ours expires in April. We can't adopt or travel without it being current, so we thought staying current would be a good thing. Anyway, our meeting was for Diane to check and see that we still have the same jobs (yes), that we are still healthy (yes - we know this because we have to renew our physicals, too!), that our current kids are well-cared for (umm...I think so?) and that we are still interested in adopting and are hanging in there (YES! and YES!)

Mark and I laughed before she came over that the thought of having a social worker visit our house now causes much less stress now than the early days of this process. Back in the early days, we scoured the house prior to a social worker's visit, made sure everyone looked spiffy, coached the kids on what they might want to say or definitely not say, and made sure every paper was absolutely ready to go when she walked in the door. Things have changed this far into the process. :) We picked up a little, the kids were both in sweaty sports uniforms from their games earlier in the day, and we had some of our paperwork ready, and we made sure one table was cleared off so we could sit and talk! That all being said, our conversation was very relaxed, she assured us our updates would be ready on time, and I think we passed. :)