decisions decisions

the time that's passed since the last blog has passed quickly and busily. i had a test and a final...marsha's fiance' graduated from ac...i finally had time to clean the house (eek!)...josh has been busy busy workin the lake...and we've even squeezed in a fishin trip or two ourselves. oh - and we made a decision about an agency...just by the way :)

we've decided to go through the agency in lubbock -- www.adoptioncovenant.org

so much has happened in light of our decision....lots of tangible stuff...and unexpected waves of emotion.

the tangible stuff is a lot of what has been so overwhelming to look at from a distance...the application itself is over 40 pages. what is it that they want to know that requires 40 pages? everything! financial stuff....health history...marriage history...and a slew of personal questions...most of which many of us never intentionally think about. each of us has to individually answer several pages of questions about our lives up to now -- our childhoods, pleasant memories, unpleasant memories, discipline philosophies, our perspective re: adoption, conflict growin up, our relationships w/parents and sisters, dating ideas, etc etc etc... so it's a pretty intense evaluation of who we are now in light of where we've been.

then there's the list of things to do/documents to gather -- copies of everything under the sun...birth certificates, marriage certificates, transcripts, bills, bank statements, tax returns, proof of every kind of insurance you can think of, fingerprints, and a sketch of the floor plan of our house. we both had to get physicals, which we wrapped up monday. the doctor was great and really encouraging...which is always a nice surprise.

we also had to choose three references and get them the paperwork to fill out. each of them was wonderful when asked....and said things you hope real "references" would be able to say....encouraging and hopeful and honest and grateful to be able to help.

a funny story....one of the things we're supposed to turn in is a rent receipt. josh and i laughed when we saw this. a rent receipt? oh yeah - folks who live in apt complexes or live in cities probably get these.... not here :). i generally give our rent check to betty when i meet w/this group of older women for lunch every month...and then the next time i see robert, he goes on and on about how he wants to take us out to dinner b/c he just got another rent check...and then he gives me a hug. but we talked to them about it anyway....so robert - who has multiple rent houses in seymour and has been a landlord for 30 years - goes down to the newspaper office and asks for a receipt book. he then makes a special trip all the way out here...pulls out this brand new receipt book and tries to fill it out correctly. our names are on the line where the money amt is supposed to go, and you can barely read our names b/c his 80 year old hand doesn't write too well anymore...but he was pleased as punch to help us out. i thanked him...over and over again...and then a few hours later, realized we needed 2 months' worth of rent receipts. oh well...we'll just explain the situation in the interview :)

so our plan....the rushin around and various phone calls the last couple weeks have paid off...all we have left to do is copy a few more bills, organize all our stuff, and i need to answer my part of the questions...then the application will be complete. we'll go to lubbock sunday evenin sometime...and we have an appt w/the agency at 2:00 monday afternoon.

generally, adoptive parents complete the application and deliver it to the agency one day, and then several days later have an interview. however, since a single trip to lubbock would be so much easier, they're lettin us turn in the application and interview the same day. we're grateful for that.

so that's where we are....a trip to lubbock, a completed adoption application, a fat check for the application fee and homestudy, and an interview.... here we go . . .

oh - i mentioned the unexpected waves of emotion earlier...i'll have to write about those later.