Progress? Maybe? Please?

With the start of the new year, hopefully we've started to get back on track when it comes to the adoption process after two months of frustration and bureaucratic delays.

First, we finally received the draft of our home study report about two months after we expected it. Thankfully, upon review, there were only minor factual corrections from our end. Of course, what would the adoption process be without previously unknown paperwork requirements cropping up at the last minute. Well, they weren't really unknown...they were simply requirements that our home study agency assured us in June that they would be taking of on our behalf.

Not so fast, little buckaroo! It turns out that:

1. they hadn't gotten around to submitting the child abuse background checks to two states this summer or fall, and
2. not only did we have to fill out the forms but there were additional administrative charges to go along with them

All this came to light in the days immediately before Christmas leading to a severe case of "bah humbugism" on my behalf when it came to the whole home study effort. Now those (hopefully) final forms have been submitted and barring some additional administrative rabbit hole, our home study final report should be ready to go in the next week or so.

And on the placement agency side of things, the saga of the "we need more than the 60 photos you've already provided to us because they don't match our cookie cutter templates" may also be drawing to a close thanks to a number of recent gatherings with family and friends and a concerted effort to remember to bring our camera. A suitable number of couple photos, entertaining photos, etc., were snapped.

Of course, all were taken without any sign of the many kids in our family because as we all know, photos of adoptive parents having loads of fun with their nieces and friends' children won't actually illustrate that the adoptive parents are good with kids but will instead confuse expectant mothers by making them think that the adoptive parents already have children.

Apparently, in the eyes of our placement agency, expectant mothers won't actually read captions or the multiple letters to the birth mothers that we wrote, all of which say that we don't have kids and can't wait to bring one into our family. Go figure.

But hey, I'm not the adoption professional so what do I know?

Hmmmm...perhaps a bit of that bah humbugism is lingering.

Nevertheless, with the last of the photos sent, the home study report almost final, and the last background checks requested, it's very possible that our adoptive parent profiles could be up and available for consideration by expectant mothers in as little as 10 to 14 days.

I think that's when I'll start to get nervous because then we're really out there. Someone may read our letters, review our stunning array of photos, and decide that, yes, these are the people I want to trust with my child. That's an idea that does freak me out a bit but when it happens, my oh my but that will make for a very happy new year!

And in the meantime, we'll just keep smiling in case we need to take more photos.

Well, if you've got to take some good pictures for an adoption profile, you might as well get into the holiday spirit and strike a heroic pose when you do it