The Process

My brother Jeff let me know that my blogging skills leave a lot to be desired - as in "where are all your posts?". For those that are wondering about the November 15th post and subsequent silence, the story is thus:

• Darci begins the online adoption application process about Nov. 1. She gets all excited about getting things set up and considering what needs to be done, how to tell people, etc and more, so she steals Jeff's blog idea and creates the most creative "vhoeksadopt" blog. (check out Jeff & Kristie's adoption blog here: www.noltasadopt.blogspot.com).
• Darci then starts to consider the time of year, the fact that no adoption agency may want us (and how would we back track THEN!), and many other factors about telling the world we are going to adopt. She and Kirk then decide to wait and tell the world after Christmas.
• Darci doesn't blog any more. Thought: If you blog and no one reads it, is it a blog?
• Following a post-Christmas newsletter, a small portion of the world is now aware of our intentions, and our agency hasn't turned us down yet, so the blog is now official and ready for all our noteworthy thoughts!
• Jeff must now retract his inflammatory remarks in light of this most logical of explanations. Stay tuned for flying pigs.

This will be a busy year and no doubt one full of waiting as well. Here's where we are at in the process:

We are sending off our lengthy application tomorrow after answering a multitude of questions about ourselves and our kids, completing medical testing (not quite to the lab rat extent, but you kinda feel that way), gathering notarized everything and finding referrals we hope at least like us. This is the official application that will be approved before our homestudy. We have training to attend next month and then a homestudy following that, sometime in the spring we expect. Sometime after that it gets exciting as Holt begins looking for children for us.

You can expect a couple months of waiting through this administrative part of the process. We will use this time to work on the possibility of moving and preparing for adding two more kids to our family! We don't know yet if moving will be a need or simply still a want, but could definitely use some prayer that if we need to move (to have two kids placed with us) that the right house in the right place will come to us. We have a specific list of "must haves" in a new house if anyone enjoys and is inclined to help us search.

We appreciate everyone's excitement with us as we continue walking through open doors, even Jeff, in case anyone is wondering! :) Love ya, bro!