Reposted from my Facebook status around 1am Sunday night:

I really should be asleep instead of catching up on the last 3 days of his friends' lives. All of the family are gone, and the wife's in bed. The clutter factor is a little high considering we spent the whole weekend cleaning, but we REALLY... couldn't have done it without all of them, even our little vacuum cleaner nephew, Clayton, who insisted on chewing holes in random paper bags. The garage is now gray instead of dog-poop brown. The deck is now brown instead of green. And every baseboard, doorframe, and cabinet has been wiped down with whatever cleaning product worked best. After a couple more evenings of picking up and doing laundry, I guess we'll be ready for the social worker. Yay.

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So I thought that might be something worth chronicling here instead of letting it drift in cyberspace on Facebook. Other than that, both of us recently finished reading "The Third Choice" by Leslie Foge and Gail Mosconi as assigned reading. According to Brenda, this is one of the few good books aimed at answering questions for potential birthmothers. I enjoyed the book because it opened my eyes to the fears and thought processes some birthmothers may experience, but it also attempts to point out to birthmothers that for every fear they have, there is a potential adoptive family with many of the same fears.

I'm now getting started on "Raising Adopted Children" by Lois Ruskai Melina. This is more assigned reading, and was originally published back in the 90's. In the first chapter, it brought up a question for Carrie and me to talk about. The book talks about what a miracle it is to form a family of people who are not related by blood, and says that adoptive parents often experience a role handicap. In other words, they don't experience parenthood the way they've always expected to - so they're already a little behind the curve - but they also don't have the same support that society gives to families formed through biological birth. After talking about it last night, I think we're perfectly ready to form a family based on relationships instead of blood, and the "role handicap" will be the least of our worries.

Carrie and I are already both familiar with families being built on relationships instead of blood. Carrie has two fathers - one by blood, one by marriage - that both love her, and who have both been a part of her life. In my case, I'm an only child, but I've got a handful of close friends - mostly fraternity brothers - who I think of as my family. I can truly say they would do anything for me, and me for them, despite the physical distance between us. If the two of us - two people who have grown up in completely different environments - can come together to form the strong family that we already are, there's no doubt in my mind we welcome a third (or maybe even a fourth or a fifth) and love them as our own.

Our home visit is Thursday (two days from now). I'm sure Carrie will be super-nervous until then. We'll know more after it's done.

-Ted

Progression...

We received amazing news this week. We won't know all of the details for several more weeks and I don't want to jinx it. But if it works out it will help with a large portion of the financial burden that comes with this process.

We had our second meeting yesterday with our Adoption consultant. Her name is Brenda and she has been wonderful with answering our questions and explaining everything. She will be writing our home study since it is required to be someone licensed in your state. She was very pleased with our organization and complimented our self-studies. Yesterday Brenda described the waiting period as "excruciating." So while we are still working on tangible milestones I feel like we are making progress but as the waiting looms in the near future I worry about how hard it is going to be.

Our next meeting is scheduled for next Thursday and it will be at our home with a home inspection. She has reassured me that this is not a "white glove" inspection but I tend to be manic when it comes to having company so I have mustered the troops. Dad, Bev, Tiffany, Mike, Bethany, and Clayton will be making the journey to Kentucky to help dust and shine every corner. While Clayton won't be much help, he is being summoned as the source of entertainment! I have promised Ted that his non-manic wife would return on Thursday afternoon after our visit!