The Mother of all To-Do Lists

So, when we started this adoption, met and "clicked" with our birth mom and her family, I thought the hard part was over. Someone choose us. Someone agreed to give us her baby, and so therefore the rest should be easy. Yeah freaking right. If there is anything I've learned about becoming a parent, it's that nothing, and let me emphasis: NOTHING is easy.

So, in the next 6 months, 1 week, and 5 days (as of today, not that I'm counting) I have a TON of stuff to do to be able to bring this baby home when he/she is born. Here goes:

The Mother of all To-Do Lists
Hire a Lawyer
Find a homestudy agency
Get funds to afford the adoption
-Complete a Homestudy which encompasses:

1. Attending 12 hours of classes (that occur 1.5 hours away, on weeknights in 4 hour increments)
2. Filling out a very large and specific application and turning it in with pictures of us
3. My husband and I each filling out several pages of personal questions encompassing our entire life. Our home growing up, our parents, our religion, our habits, our views on parenting...and on, and on
4. A social worker interviewing us together in his office
5. Providing certified copies of birth certificates, and our marriage license
6. Each of us having a physical
7. Getting fingerprinted
8. Having above social worker come into and inspect our home (which involves having all chemicals, cleaning agents, and medications in a locked space)
9. Being individually interviewed for 2 hours a piece by said social worker
10. Making sure all our animals (4 dogs and 2 cats) have their vaccines up-to-date and documented

-Finding a lawyer in my our birthmoms home state
-Fulfilling the ICPC requirements (a process required when the adopive child is coming from another state). Something I'm sure I'll blog about later.
-Helping our lawyer facilitate getting the birthparents rights terminated

Sadly, I'm sure I'm missing something. But, this list will be my guide through this process. I will probably refer to it again as I can cross things out, more just to show myself that I'm making progress. I will go through this humbly, and not complain because I realize that these processes are put in place to keep children safe, and I cannot argue that. But, I will say, that there are plenty of parents out there that would not "pass" this process, and it's simply...as I've said before: not fair.

Happy trails to us.....