While on vacation last week, we received an email from our agency that said we are good to go and are now eligible to be presented to expectant moms!!!
This seems like such a huge step. We are now approved to adopt. Someone could pick us this month. We could be a family of 4 by Christmas--or sooner!
Again, every agency does things differently, but I will try to recount what one of the agency workers told us in terms of where we go from here. First, we need to get copies of our profile mailed to them, as well as an electronic copy scanned in. We put together our profile book using Shutterfly (I'm working on a post about that!), so our agency worker said that we could just order from the website using them as the shipping address to cut out a shipping step. The only bad thing about Shutterfly is that they don't give you the option of downloading a PDF copy of your book that is high resolution and doesn't have proof markings all over it-- even if you have purchased your book. This means that we need to order an extra copy (thankfully, we ordered a copy to proof, so we already have this) to unbind and scan in. We have access to a scanner at home that is pretty high resolution, so we are just using that, but companies like Kinkos will be able to do this if you don't have one.
Next, we need to scan in copies of our homestudy approval and all of our clearances (background checks, fingerprint clearance, etc) as a PDF packet to send to them. While we are at it, they recommended that we go ahead and get a packet together of all of the documents that we will need should we do a stork drop case. Often times, the stork drop/baby born cases involve a phone call saying "Be on the next plane to _________," so it will save some stress to already have our paperwork scanned in and ready to send electronically with one email rather than scrambling around trying to find all of the tax documents and insurance paperwork and verifications of this and that.
The last thing is that we need to choose a family photo that will be our main profile picture on their website. Since we have already put together our photo book, this is an easy step-- I already spent quite awhile going through every family photo taken in the past 6 months deliberating which was my favorite for our book cover. We will use the same cover for the website as we did for our photobook.
And then we just wait. This waiting feels so much more intense than the last round. With the waiting on the court system, there was an approximate timeline: we know that our state's family court was a bit backed up and our paperwork wouldn't have its turn to be reviewed for about 2 months. There wasn't much stress in that waiting, because we knew that there was absolutely no risk of the court denying our approval. But this is so different. For starters, we have no inkling of a timeline. We could be picked next week by someone who is 8 months pregnant, or we may not be chosen for a year. Even when we are matched, we know that nothing is definite until the paperwork is signed 72 hours after the baby is born.
It's weird that such a big step forward doesn't come with any information that I can write on my calender. I'm just one of those people-- dates get written down and plans get made. After so many years of college and grad school, and then working in an academic environment where at any given point I know what I will be doing several months into the future, this is a hard mindset to break. Each step forward in a process has always brought a new to-do list for me to focus on, but I guess that now I have some time to work on being comfortable with uncertainty and a life written in pencil.
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