Wondering what I can do

In the midst of all the excitement with finally (almost) getting to the point of waiting, we have gotten some bad news about a family member. My stepdad is sick and we are still waiting for more details, but I just feel so helpless. While I have known my stepdad all of my life, he and my mom got married only two years before I did. It is only recently I have started calling him my stepdad because "my mom's husband" gets long-winded. So right now I'm hurting for my mom, and it is so hard to see a parent in pain. We are helping out by keeping my step-niece while my mom is at the hospital, and my sister and her kids serve as entertainment during the day. Since my mom and her husband raise this grandchild, I know we are helping out a lot. It just doesn't seem like enough. We should know more tomorrow after they are able to talk to the appropriate doctors. In the meantime, we put on a happy face and take the girl to see some holiday lights. And we try to make it through the night thinking about my mom sleeping in a chair by a hospital bed.

I will continue to hug my loved ones and tell them how much they mean to me. Tomorrow we will face whatever needs to be faced, together.

File approval! - Updated

We got word yesterday that our agency has approved our file. Yea!

Of course, there is always a "but."

There are two minor changes recommended for our letter. I called to speak with our coordinator to see how necessary the changes are and to explain that we would have to go through another round of proofing to make these changes. Because I had to do a few extra steps to convert our file for printing, I would want to make sure it stays true to color. Grammatically, the changes are not necessary. One would be to add the word "that" into a sentence. The sentence in question: Our hope is to develop a lasting relationship with you to the extent (that) you are comfortable. I confirmed with a friend, who teaches writing at the law school, that it is okay to leave the word "that" out of a sentence if the sentence is clear without it. I think it is. The other change is to the compound sentence structure in Mike's section. Again, I like it the way it is.

Our coordinator is going to have to check with her boss (who made the suggestions) tomorrow and get back to me. Keep your fingers crossed I don't need to make the changes and can get started on the printing!

Once our letters are received in CA, they will turn on our website and start sending out our letters. I am going to assume this won't happen until after Jan. 4th when they return from holiday break. If it happens sooner, so much the better!

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Edited to add:

I'm having to change the letter. The boss REALLY didn't like the sentences in Mike's section and said they HAVE to be changed. I am not a happy girl right now. I don't like the suggested alternative so I am trying to rewrite those couple of sentences. I'm hoping to load the letter to the printer tomorrow and get the proof the next day. If we can make that happen, we aren't adding more than a couple of days to this deal.

So, I will add the word "that" to the first page. (Thanks, Bobby, for the laugh!) I'm also going to change our fourteen-year marriage into a fifteen-year marriage. Our anniversary is in May so I figure that will be a true statement by the time we are getting some responses.

Cross your fingers on a quick turnaround!

And we're waiting to wait

Any day now we should hear back from the agency that we can get our letters printed. I would love to be official before the holidays, but I don't know if we can get the letters to CA by the 22nd when they close for the rest of the year.

There was something missing from the home study, but after writing her a very nice email (and stressing the importance of communicating with me) our social worker took care of getting our child abuse registry information to the agency the next day!

I did have an interesting dream last night. We went to pick up our new son from the hospital only to discover he was a toddler when we got home. I remember remarking on how he had a mouth full of teeth! I kept telling everybody that we would have to give Tim back (not sure where that name came from) because he was over a year old and we couldn't afford to take 6 months off work, as recommend/required by our agency. That marks my first adoption dream. I'm worried where they will go from there!

Due to the craziness of our school schedule leading up to the holidays and the fact that I was sick over Thanksgiving, we are still working on our personal webpage. We will be able to start working on it again this weekend. It should be up and running by the time we get the official nod from the agency.

So, not much new!

Finally!

Our adoption coordinator at our agency called today to tell me she had finally received the home study.

Yea!!!

She is putting our packet together to send to the person who will complete our final review to make sure everything is in order. I'm told this can take up to two weeks. Assuming everything is good (not sure if I want to get my hopes up too high just yet!) we can get our letters printed and be listed as officially in the books.

I'm really hoping we can wrap this up before our holiday break!