Adopting Z- To the congo and back

Bonjour!


So, I have a confession...this is actually my third adoption blog...how embarrassing! Third time is the charm though, right?

My first adoption blog began about 2 years ago, when i was considering adopting from Ethiopia. However, that did not happen....so I began a new, second adoption blog about 2 months ago since the old Ethiopia one felt slightly dated. Anyhoo....i forgot the email my second blog, and also the password and have tried to recover it for a week. I had to wipe and recover my entire computer last week so all my saved emails were lost in the struggle, there was nowhere to even begin searching for my old email, so sadly i had to move on to blog number 3.

Owell, life moves on. I am kind of liking the wild Zebra glam on this new blog! It fits my personality much better then the old shabby chic blog that I had last.
Enough about blogs, and more about what this blog is about! Adoption!- My husband and I are adopting, from the CONGO!- The DRC. We are over the moon with joy over our impending arrival! We started this joyous journey about 2 months back, and we are very close to getting to finally begin our HOMESTUDY, Ahh! I can't wait to begin.

The homestudy is usually enough to strike fear into the hearts of every adopting mommy out there, however it only strikes excitement into mine! The sooner we do our home study, the sooner we are approved, and the sooner we are approved the sooner we become a family! I am a wee bit nervous about getting approved, but besides our finances- (which are not the best)- we make pretty amazing candidates for adoption if I do say so myself. We have no children- oodles of time, love and patience, we are educated in the ways of adoption ( I mean I have been studying for it for about 2 years now- yikes! ) we have a nice home, food on the table, the babies closet is already stocked full of clothes- gah! I know I am so bad, baby clothes are just so SO cute! So besides that one teeny tiny teeny thing regarding finances, i am sure we will be A'ok. Of course today i am feeling VERY positive for some reason...tomorrow i may be on here whining about my fears. I am not emotionally unstable, i am just....'pregnant on paper'- these are what i like to call my 'pregnancy' hormones raging.


Anyway a little bit more about our adoption.

We are seeking boy. Why? We just want a boy. Personal preference. We are not sexist, we just see ourselves with a son and always have. Since we will probably only be able to afford this once and once alone, we are being a little particular with what we want.
We are seeking baby under 12 mo. Why? Because we can probably only afford this journey once, we want to experience all that parenthood has to offer, so we are asking for as young as we can get.


Well that about sums it up for what we are seeking...well almost. We had to fill out a huge sheet of paper about what we would and would not accept in a baby for our application- it was very odd- and kind of heartbreaking to check 'no' on so many things- which sadly, we did. I am not a horrible or fussy person, but if you could pick a reasonably healthy baby wouldn't you? Who would sign up for a lifetime of heartache as you tend to a sickly baby? I think we have had our fair share of heartache already. We ended up selecting that we would consider a baby with a correctable illness and poor eyesight and a couple of other very minor things including malnourished-which probably all the babies in the congo are anyway.

A little info about where we currently are in this journey, we have completed our application for our first and second agency ( I just have to MAIL the application to the second agency and to do that i need to send a photo of my husband and myself...which is proving...quite difficult. One of us always seems to look a little strange ) and we have been gathering all of the necessary documents to begin our home study, medical forms, criminal checks, family tree, autobiography, questionnaire forms, harassing my reference writers, you name it!
We have gathered everything except for my blood work and a prior contact check <--- whatever that is. Hopefully we will be officially done and ready to send it off come Wed or Thursday! Once they get that in I believe only then may we start our home study! We also have classes to attend starting in November, every single Wednesday night. I don't know if we have to finish the class before we can begin our home study or if we can start it before. In the meantime we have to read a whole ton of stuff before our class begins.

Life is intense right now- I have begun to question if I will ever experience that chill waiting period all the adopting moms go through, It would be nice to have more time to plan and dream and blog. Between school, work, adoption, husband, friends and family I don't know how i even have time to do this blog. The only reason I am doing it, is to both bring awareness to adoptions, and the congo, to keep my family updated, and to have something for myself, to look back on when this crazy journey is over....and when the even crazier journey of mother hood finally begins.