4 months! I’m almost a week late for posting our 4-month update, but I will blame it on the adoption preparations keeping us busy!

I am so happy to be in this stage of the adoption. The past couple years have felt like waiting… for more waiting. I’ve been itching to just do something tangible. And now things are really starting to happen – we are completing real steps that will bring us closer to a son or daughter of our own.

Our focus right now is our homestudy paperwork: a giant to-do list with things on it to complete and compile like references from our friends, past W-2 forms, medical history, notes from our doctors, employment verification letters, driving records, FBI fingerprints… etc. None of it is hard. It’s just a lot of little things. Once we have about 75% of our paperwork turned in, we will begin meeting with Kim, our social worker, which I am really looking forward to.

In the next month, we are anticipating finishing up our paperwork, meeting with Kim, taking some online classes to complete our training requirement, going to an Infant Care & CPR class with some other adoptive families and having an inspection done on our home by the local fire department.

It’s hard to believe that our nursery is almost finished (I will post pictures once we add a few finishing touches).  And at the end of the month, Funnel and I have a really fun date night planned: registering at Babies R Us for our first shower at the beginning of March. All of this feels very surreal to me!

I wish I could say that I am not at all stressed or worried and that I always feel at peace about what the future holds – but I would be lying. There are times when I feel so safe and secure about what’s to come and I have days when I am frightened by the money or the timing of everything. There are nights when I have dreams about a family of three and nights when the worst-case-scenarios and “what ifs” keep me awake. I am learning to cling to what I know to be true about God, rather than feelings and emotions that can be deceiving. I am so thankful that He loves us and loves our baby and has a perfect plan!

We have so much to be thankful for… for the privilege of getting to build our family through adoption. For the best family, friends and church that anyone could wish for – people that truly halve our burdens and double our joy. For a God who has been faithfully answering our prayers and supplying our needs, even when our faith seems no bigger than a mustard seed.

Thanks for your love and prayers, friends!

Until Month 5!
- Jen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 at 5:20 pm and is filed under adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.