TX approval

First, I would like for all of you that are reading this that are parents to think to yourself "did I have pre-approval from my state to become a parent"? Now I know a few of you adopted and in that case you mostly likely said yes. Accept maybe in Frig's case. My in-laws were probably begged to take him off of the hands of whomever took care of him for the first 10 days. (OK I jest)

Well Frig was finally approved by the Lone Star state to become a father. I received a phone call some time yesterday afternoon. I bet the lady at the HS agency was glad to finally get to call me with good news. Normally when she calls it is to tell me all of the additional hoops they need Frig and I to jump through. Well mostly Frig has to do the jumping. I am the one standing on the side lines yelling "You can do it!"

The next step is USCIS approval. I have no idea how long we will be waiting for that to happen. The HS lady said something vague about getting something off to USCIS now that we were officially TX approved.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to the other avenue I mentioned in my last entry. Well as of right now nothing has happened. I guess you can say that I have lost momentum. It has been almost a year since we started this journey and we are still not on a waiting list. I do finally have what should be a good working number and I guess I will get up the energy one day this coming week to make a call.

On a "what you do as a kid can come back to bite you later" vein, since Frig and I have learned so much about that as of late, I had a funny conversation while in Ohio seeing my little sis. One of her friends, who is 21 so not really a kid but young enough to maybe not realize how little things can have big consequences later, was lamenting the minor current consequences of having stole a ace bandage. I told him he might not be able to adopt when he got older to which he gave me a very quizzical look and little sis kindly explained. On the bight side I was able to tell him that he also would never had too serve jury duty as Frig had just gotten out of jury duty himself for his minor theft. Now I have to have little sis tell her friend that the ace bandage incident will most likely not be an adoption stopper after all.

A new avenue perhaps

My mother informed me today that one of her long time friends is very close with a woman that runs an adoption agency in a new by town. Apparently she had said something to me before but not as forcefully as today. So with the greater number of details she perked my interests.

So my mom called her friend, the mother of a child my mom once taught and whom I have known my whole life, to get the contact information. Mom's friend proceeded to call her friend and lay down some ground work. It was later in the day when this happened, and the lady was at the doctor with one of her children, so I will be calling on Monday.

I have no idea what the cost is, and that will of course be a big factor in making any determinations, but I can tell you that I will be anxiously awaiting Monday morning when I can call and get more information.

I will undoubtedly be doing an update once I find out more details. They always say it isn't what you know, but who you know so hopefully that will be very true for us.

Texas paperwork complete?

I think that Frig and I have managed to get everything in the mail that we needed to complete the Texas paper work. I am getting less and less willing to say that I definitively know we are done. I feel like that might have jinxed us the first time.

We are waiting for some paper work to arrive from New Jersey, one of the location where Frig worked doing the Gun Fight Show, and then we will have to send that off with a letter as well. This is necessary to complete the paperwork with the US government. I hope that it will come in this week and that he will get it mailed while I am gone. We shall see if that is how it happens. :)

I have included a picture of Frig's gunfighting days. For those of you that won't be able to pick him out, he is bottom center. He is sitting because he is so much taller than the rest.

I do love being able to see how everyone checks in here. It confirms that this endeavor is not a waste of my time. Hopefully everything will work out and I'll be able to continue updating.

Phone call from agency yesterday

Well they called me yesterday about 15 minutes before I got out of a training. I checked the message and returned the call. I know one of the ladies got off from work an hour later and the other one was there for almost 3 more hours. I left messages for both and got no call back.

I am going to try and given them some credit. Maybe they went to a meeting. Maybe they had some major drama to take care of. Why would you leave such an alarming message and then not call back even if you had to do so after the time when you would normally have left the office already?

The message said something about new information and talking about options. Frig is going to try and get in touch with one of them today as I have the last day of my training.

The sad thing is the Frig had actually made some progress on the stuff he needs to do. Not as much progress as I would like. Not progress to the point where it is all done, but progress none the less.

If worst comes to worst I'll just could on the very lucky conception date I was given from good old reliable FaceBook-----Dec 13, 2013

Update 11 am

Frig actually called them first thing when he woke up, like he said he would, and I just got off the phone with him. It looks like this was just the kick in the pants that he needed to get his butt in gear. It was a good thing he was the one that called and got to talk to the woman at the HS agency rather than me having to relay the message.

Basically she was calling to say "What the heck is taking you so long and would you please get your act together? Do you really want to adopt or not? It has taken so long now I need to try and get you a 1 week extension and you need to FedEx everything to us tomorrow!"

So Frig is supposed to finish up his last thing and get in touch with the second reference letter person to tell him it needs to be written yesterday and we will come to you and pick it up tomorrow.

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No new news

I didn't want anyone to think that I was neglecting updates for any reason other than there really aren't any updates to provide. It appears we have hit a very tall wall and I am not sure either of us have the strength to climb it. I didn't know boot camp should be a suggested prerequisite for the adoption process. So many hill and mountains to traverse and so little time/energy/motivation.

We have only 13 days left of class and maybe when that is over it will be easier on us to get some work done on the adoption. Or maybe I am just using school as an excuse.

Part of the deal is we need to 2 letters of recommendation from people that are not related and it can be hard to pester people about this. Especially when they already filled out the initial forms for us. Also, at least one of the shared that they were equally upset about the whole thing as Frig and so when she started to write it was coming out all angry and snippy. This has been Frig's big obstacle.

On a positive note my sister gave me a shirt that says "Adoption is the new black". I wore it to mother's day today. It is super comfy!