Yesterday

The meeting with the SW was super easy. She and Frig have really hit it off and most of the time they talked about movies, TV, music and her son. There was a short check list that she did have to fill out, but she didn't leave her seat on the floor of the Great room to verify anything that we said. Some of the questions were extremely inane for a city dweller (Does the family burn their garbage in an area away from kids?) and others expected us to be ready for our child to arrive tomorrow (Are the electrical sockets covered?). I really do like our SW. When she got to the electrical socket question she answered it her self with "Of course they will be when the child comes." She informed us that she will also do our post placement meetings, we have to do 2 of them, and the way she said it led us to believe it was at her request. She even offered to help get the documents from Austin, when she is there for a training in a few days, if we needed her to.

There was a list that Frig and I were supposed to fill out since the last time we had met. This was a rather long check list detailing all of the special needs we would be willing to consider. When she asked me for the form I got very nervous. It was so long ago. Would I be able to find the form? Did we "do our homework" and fill the form out? I went into the office to collect my adoption folder and brought it back into the Great room. Karen, the SW, says "I didn't bring an extra. I said to myself 'I don't need to bring an extra these people are with it'." Thankfully she was right. Frig said he had no doubt I would be able to produce it.

We also received the news that Korea is moving quickly. This came from Karen's lunch time conversation with the HS agency. Now if only we can get everything we need together so it can be sent to Korea.

Karen left, went home, and brought a movie back that she thought Frig would enjoy. Did I mention how lucky we got when we were assigned our SW?

Final HS visit

Yesterday evening the SW from the HS agency called to see if we had today off from work and if we wanted to get together to finalize the HS paperwork. Of course we do have today off and we wanted to get together. We have taken this as an opportunity to do some chores. It was just the motivator we needed. We aren't going hog wild and making everything spotless; just cleaning the kitchen and straitening up the Great Room. She is supposed to here at 1 PM. I wouldn't suspect that it will take very long. She sent us her write up via email awhile back and we already went over the whole thing, filled in all of the blanks, and sent it back to her.

There's more, Frig is currently at the doctor's trying to get a second TB test. He left over an hour ago so I am glad he took a book with him. Before he left he emptied the dish washer, filled it, and washed of the stuff that has to be done by hand. This is one of his regular chores. He is better at the day to day stuff, but ask him to do the kitchen floor or stove and you probably would be unhappy with the results.

I sure hope he gets back in time for us to have lunch before the SW gets here. I am in the mood for Tacos de Lengua...yum!

Looks Like Austin Success

It appears that we finally found a helpful soul in Austin. I sent an email last Friday via the "contact us" feature on the Austin City website. Friday afternoon my email was forwarded to someone at the municipal courts. Today we heard back from a very kind woman telling us exactly what she needed to know from us, how long it would take to process our request, and the cost. I am beyond happy.

Now if only the TB test would get taken care of...................

.......................a woman can dream can't she?

Baby Steps

I finally got a call from the social worker on Monday evening while I was cooking dinner. She was calling to get our email address so that she could send of the rough draft of our homestudy. She had some blanks that still needed to be filled in and a few things that she found to be unclear. Apparently what she does it takes a bunch of the different paperwork we gave the agency, autobiographies, finance forms, etc and puts them all into one document.

She complimented us by saying "y'all are both writers" which made me sad to think the quality of work the poor lady most normally have to read. Then she went on to say that it needed to stay as redundant as it is with our names repeated over, and over, and over (you get the picture). She also said that if we did revise anything to keep in mind that it would be translated by someone that may not speak English which I took to mean "don't use such complex sentences and use such big words".

I also emailed one of the very kind women at the HS agency yesterday to let her know how much difficulty Frig has had trying to get his disposition or certified letter from Austin. She is in Austin so she gave me some guidance but sadly for privacy reason Frig has to be the one to get the document. She seemed genuine sympathetic and asked that I keep her up to date. I didn't want her to think we weren't even trying. And was happy for some help.

Finally, I decided to do some research into leave time for adoptions and found out that the Family Medical Leave act actually provides the same 12 weeks maximum for adopted children as it does for birth children. Since Frig and I both work for the district they will not give us both 12 weeks, but we can get 12 weeks combined. When we went to the International Adoption training they said the mom should be the sole care giver for the first 6 weeks minimum, he will be able to hold the baby but not provide any other needs (food, diapers, etc) so we know I have to take at least that much time off. We will have to decide how we want to split this up. It is pretty exciting.