Approved.

Yes! The title of this post does mean that our homestudy has been approved!

Yesterday we had a small snafu with the map we drew of our house because we didn't include a "family meeting place" which shows where the fam would meet up if there was a fire or something. So our social worker called, told me she was sending it back to us via email, and we were to fix it and send it back to her....but that other than that our homestudy was pretty much approved.

Considering this is Friday of a holiday weekend, and our social worker doesn't have the most amazing track record of, well, being in her office, I figured we would hear back at the end of next week. BUT....I got the email today. She said our home study had been approved, and she has signed the final signature page. She then mails it to the main office, the administrator signs it, and bam...we're in child search.

I got off the phone, and ..... shocking, I balled my eyes out. I felt so much relief, and excitement. I mean, they are really going to find us our child, and we are going to be parents! It's going to happen. The excitement was similar to the day I found out I was pregnant. And, in a round about way I am. My heart is pregnant with the idea of our first child, and my love for them will grow there.

I called my closest friends and told them, texted a few more friends, and then took a sunny day walk. What an amazing Friday.

Tomorrow we take our water rescue class. It's required if we are going to let our kiddo swim, which we likely are since it gets more than 100 degrees here in the summer. Even if they're little, we'll wade around with them, and technically if we do that we have to have this class.

Other than that, we wait. But hopefully not for long!

Full Heart, Empty Wine Glass

I just got home from spending the weekend with some of my favorite people. And our time together was too short, but amazing. We laughed, drank wine, sangria, bloody marys...ate fried food, slurpees, beef jerky, drove around listening to our high-school radio station, and even got in some much needed dance, dance revolution. We reminisced about the past and dreamt about the future. My heart is full now. And I am so grateful.

I would like to start out by saying a big THANK YOU to the girls in my life who have held my heart in their hands during some tough times.

There are people in our lives that literally reach down, and pull us up when we're on the ground, at our lowest point, trying to dig a hole and lay in it. One of the speakers at my nursing school graduation quoted one of her favorite professors when she stated: "The greatest exercise of the human heart is to reach down and lift another up." Isn't that the truth? And I am so lucky, because I have a handful of friends who have lifted me up through the years.

To the most amazing friends in the world:

Thank you for warming my heart.
Thank you for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself.
Thank you for refocusing me on what's really important in life, and reprimanding me when I perseverate on things that don't matter so much.
Thank you for listening, even when I was being childish, selfish and outright irrational and negative.
Thank you for asking questions about our adoption, and really listening to the answers.
Thank you for crying with me.
Thank you for laughing with me.
Thank you for making the most amazing book of support when my sister died.
Thank you for all the little gifts and trinkets you've already given to your future "niece" or "nephew."

I never forget any of these things, and how precious each of you are to me. I'm sorry that I don't say THANK YOU more.

Love,
Me

Update!

Finally....I have something to share with all of you. Last Tuesday (over a week ago) I left our SW a message to make sure she received our birth mom profiles. I didn't hear back all last week. So, naturally....I called back this past Monday, while a friend of mine literally sat next to me ready to hold my hand if I didn't get any answer.

But I did.

Our SW told me that we are "live" for birth mom situations, our profiles have been mailed on to the different agency offices in the state. Again, these situations are rare, but at least we are out there.

As for the infamous homestudy. It is in the final stage of being approved. Our SW is waiting for the "approval email" that tells her to go ahead and sign the homestudy and send the hard copy in. When she gets this, she will call us to tell us everything is a "go" for the fos-adopt program.

Then she said something that made me really happy. She said, "but don't worry, because if I learned of a child that was a match for you tomorrow, I'd present you without the document."

So pretty much, we are active right now. Though, we aren't officially in "Child Search" for the fos-adopt program. Of course, her date for the approval to come through was "by the end of the month." Because she said that she's already keeping her eyes and ears open for our child I refrained from reminding her that it was supposed to be the middle of the month. I am always on time, so when people miss deadlines it makes me crazy. Oh well, not a lot I can do about it except whine.

Every night we pray for our child.
Every morning I pray for peace, patience, and positivity while we wait.

C'mon little one, we're here, and we're ready for you to come home.

Inspiration.

Every once in a while I stumble upon something about adoption and I fall a little more in love with it....