We're back! We took a very long break from the blog, (and from the adoption process) due to some major life changes for our little family. It probably goes without saying, but the birth mom we wrote about in our last post, did not move forward with her decision to place her baby for adoption. After that we got a few other phone calls, but nothing felt like the right fit for us. Later in the spring Zach accepted a position at a church in Tucson, Arizona, and we moved our family to the Southwest on July 3rd. With the move taking over our life for a season, we put our adoption contract on hold while we transitioned to life in the desert. Now that we've been here over three months, we feel ready to get back in the game.
The process for pursuing adoption looks a bit different (and frankly, a LOT easier) here in Arizona. After spending several weeks updating our profile books to be sent to potential birth mom matches, we got in touch with a social worker to begin our new home study. (Unfortunately, even though we have a current, completed home study in California, it doesn't transfer to a new state, and we need to complete a new study before we can be matched with any more birth moms.) We were relieved to learn that our adoption agency knew a social worker in our area of Arizona that they had worked with before, and we were even more relieved to learn that the home study process here is far simpler, quicker, and less expensive than what we'd come to know in California. With an almost-three-year-old craving our constant attention this time around, we're so glad the home study process will be far less demanding.
Our application is complete, our fees are paid, and now we just need to schedule 2 visits with our social worker and complete a basic physical with our physicians. That's it! We should be done before Christmas and we'd like to have our agency begin sending our profile books out by New Years.
After such a long break from the process and so many major changes taking place in our lives the last few months, it feels very surreal to be back at it. As I was filling out the mountain of paperwork for our home study last weekend I was reminded how much this process demands of us both mentally and emotionally, and I began to feel fearful of opening ourselves up to it all over again. Will we have the energy and emotional stamina to endure it this time? We have a 3 year old that takes priority and we don't have the strong support system of long-term friends and immediate family nearby that we had during the last round. We're still getting our bearings here in Tucson, are we really ready to take on everything that this might entail? I was feeling so uncertain, until I heard P.J start talking about being a big sister. :-)
Over the last month whenever we've sat down to dinner as a family, P.J has talked about having a brother or sister. We hadn't talked to her about pursuing another adoption yet. The timeline for adoption is so unpredictable that we didn't want to broach the subject with her until we knew we were really back in the game. So for P.J to start talking about having a sibling out of the blue, baffled us a bit. In the last couple weeks she's talked in great detail about how much she's going to help with the baby and all the things she'll do with her little brother or sister. Without any encouragement from us she's developed such a beautiful little heart for her future sibling. We are so amazed to see how God is already shaping her and preparing her for the growth of our family.
