it's all coming back to me now

Since the secret is out, we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to share, vent about, ask for help, and record the journey to our second child here on guzo. This blog became such an important aspect of our adoption of Simon - it enabled us to meet so many other adoptive families, provided an outlet for channeling some of the frustrations and sadness we encountered along the way, and, most importantly, captures the best record of our journey to meet Simon and the first year+ of our lives together. So I am excited to be writing again for our guzo - part 2.

To catch everyone up... pretty much since bringing Simon home in 2008, we had said we would not even talk about starting adoption #2 until 2010. Of course, that didn't hold true at all. When we would adopt again and whether it would be one child or two, an infant or an older child, etc. was a pretty common topic of conversation for a lot of the last year and a half. But we didn't get serious until late last year, and we agreed that if all was well, we would start the process again this year. And so it began.

We called Gladney shortly after the start of the year for our re-orientation and to get a feel for where things were with the Ethiopian adoption program, etc., and then we slowly started getting things in order. By mid-February we delivered to Gladney our application and most of the supporting documents, filed our CIS I600-A, and scheduled doctor appointments, requested employer letters, etc. Since we had copies of all our paperwork from Simon's adoption, the Gladney application process has generally been easier and quicker.

Today we started our day with a fingerprinting appointment for our state criminal and child abuse clearances, moved on to another fingerprinting stop for our FBI clearances, and then ended with a good lunch and some serious shopping (okay the last part has nothing to do with the adoption, but hey, it was really fun and worth a mention!). So we are moving along pretty well.

But here's the thing: I cannot bring myself to go into my bank and ask for the all important bank letter. I just can't deal with it. If you recall, the bank letter turned out to be one of the hardest documents for us to get last time around (check here and here if you need to refresh your memory). I know it's kind of silly, but I'm just dreading it. I don't even think I was this thrown by taking the bar exam!

I know I need to get over my dread pretty quickly. We'll have our homestudy next week and our doctors' appointments later this month. And we only need to get a couple of more documents together for our dossier, so we are on track to complete our paperwork in the next month or so. If I actually can get myself to a bank, that is ;)

Of course, there are still lots of things that are not in our control - i.e. processing of our criminal clearances and CIS fingerprinting and approval - that can mean we are still months away from being on the waitlist for a referral (and we are hearing that both of those things have been taking longer for families in our area these days). And even then, our waits for a referral and court date are expected to be far longer than they were for Simon's adoption... so we still have a very long haul ahead of us.

I will get a timeline up on the blog soon and will do my best to keep you updated on the process. For now, I can say that we are moving steadily along and trying to be optimistic, to remain pretty laid back and most importantly to maintain a sense of humor about the insanity that inevitably lies ahead.