One of the downs of the adoption process...

I received a rather unexpected email this morning from the director of our homestudy agency.

Hi Billie and Shana,

Effective immediately, K*** is no longer working with our agency. Im sorry that this has happened during your homestudy process, but I think in the end it will be in your best interest anyway. We will do what we can to expedite the remainder of this for you.

Once I have your paperwork from K***, we will wrap up your homestudy as quickly as possible.

I will let you know when I see the financial information if I have any concerns, but again, our goal is to help you get approved. Please don’t hesitate to call or email me with any questions or concerns.

S****

This is just one of "downs" of the process. I'm trying to accept this with grace and dignity. But what I want to do is rant and rave! God isn't taken by surprise by any of this...He has this all under control. So as soon as I know what's going on, I'll update again.

Just pray that this gets taken care of as soon as possible!

Small Poll...

Okay...I know that I'm a little OCD. I can admit it. Billie and I were talking about our 4th daughter's name. How should we spell it?

1. EllaGrace (capital 'g')
2. Ellagrace (lowercase 'g')

Here's why I'm trying to decide:

1. All of the girls have 9 letters in their names.
2. All of their first names are broken down into 2 syllables then 1 syllable (Jen-nah Kay, Lor-ah beth, Au-drey Ann)
3. JennahKay and AudreyAnn have an additional capital letter and Lorahbeth doesn't (it didn't look right to me to have the 'b' capitalized in her name)

So here's what I'm thinking:

1. If I capitalize the 'g' then Lorahbeth will be the only one without an additional capitalized letter in her name.
2. If I leave the 'g' lowercase then every other girl will have the second part of their first names capitalized (JennahKay, Lorahbeth, AudreyAnn, Ellagrace) and that would really keep my OCD happy!

I know that I'm WAY overthinking this. I know that in the scheme of eternity, it really doesn't matter...but right now, it really matters to me.

I really started something when we gave Lorahbeth a double first name! Then when we found out that AudreyAnn was a girl, I couldn't very well give her a "normal" first name (then she would have been left out)!

So if all 3 viewers of this blog will kindly leave a comment about how you think our 4th daughter's name should be spelled, I would appreciate it.

And to add to my OCD...since we probably won't know the exact date of her birth, we may get to choose. This may be daunting to some...not me! She will have an August birthday. Then we'll have the last 6 months of the year covered! AudreyAnn really threw me off when she came on July 31st. I think that was God's way of reminding me that I'm not in charge of everything!

Here are our family's birthdays:

July - AudreyAnn
August - Daughter #4
September - Lorahbeth
October - Shana
November - Billie
December - JennahKay

So anyway...I know that this was a slightly pointless post, but it was fun all the same...and now you have a little glimpse into my mind (crazy though it is)!

Not much to report...

Not much to report now. Just waiting on our homestudy report to be finalized. In the meantime, I've been running around gathering up stuff for our dossier. The stuff that is highlighted is what we have gathered already.

We will be ready to send in our dossier to AAI at the end of August. Just waiting for the funds to be there for the first part of the international fee.

The next step after the homestudy report is finished is to apply for our I600A, then be fingerprinted, then wait for our 171H...we need the 171H in order to bring EllaGrace into the country.

I found this website the other day that sells adoption t-shirts. I found some really cute ones.

1. Our Family
2. I'm Expecting
3. My Sister
4. The Stork
5. I'm in Love (My personal fave!)

Please continue to be in prayer for us as we patiently wait and trust in God's timing for us and our child. It's hard to keep from being frustrated because things aren't moving as fast as I want them too. I just have to remember that God has ordained a very specific little brown eyed girl for our family, and He is moving in such a way that will allow us to receive her at the appointed time.

We truly covet your prayers!

Homestudy #3...

DONE!! I really can't believe that our homestudy process is over already. We still have a few more things to get: letter from Billie's employer, my medical form, Billie's medical form, and our TB tests.

My medical form is in the process of being completed...hopefully by the end of the week. Billie's form is proving to be a bit more difficult. You see, he doesn't ever get sick, so he's not an established patient anywhere. Which means that he can't get in to see a doctor until sometime in July...which is a month too long. We have a friend at church that's a ER doctor, so he's going to see if he can pull a few strings with her so that we can get this show on the road.

So that's all we lack until our homestudy is "officially" done. Our caseworker is on the ball and will probably have our report done lickety-split.

We were fingerprinted yesterday...electronically...which was pretty dern cool.

Stay tuned...

Homestudy #2...

DONE! Kim came this morning and did our individual interviews. We gave her some more of our paperwork and we've got some more to work on today.

We have to get our background check fingerprints done today as well. Warner Robins, here we come!

Our first homestudy!

We had our first homestudy yesterday! Our caseworker's name is Kim and she is the sweetest thing. She took a tour of the house and gave us a rundown of what the next 2 visits will be like. We were given a couple more things to sign before her next visit, which is tomorrow. She said that she'll probably have our report written up by this weekend. Unbelievable, seeing as though these things can take from 6-8m weeks to finish.

I have to order copies of the girls' birth certificates, which I didn't know until yesterday that I needed to have. But after those are here and we get our reference letters in and get our background check done, we'll be good to go.

Like I've said before, this is a huge leap of faith for us. I'm starting to stress about the money part of this. We are waiting for our dossier packet to arrive from AAI, so after that's finished and turned in, we owe 1/2 of the big chunk, then when we get our referral, we owe the other 1/2...then there's still travel to take care of. I know that God is bigger than all of this, and I'm trying my hardest not to stress...but those $$$ signs are HUGE. But my Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills! And THAT my friends, is very exciting to know!

Update more later...

You've gotta love Priority Mail!

I dropped our first bit of paperwork to send to AAI, which is located in WA, at 4:30 afternoon on Friday. It's already in Federal Way, WA, which is only 2 hrs from it's destination, in Port Angeles. So that means that AAI should have our stuff in their hands by tomorrow afternoon. We'll see! I promise that I'm not going to track everything like this on the blog, but I just love being able to track important info!

I'm sure to be a total nut-case one our dossier is completed and UPS has a hold of it!