A few things...

Just a few things to post about. Our social worker called last Friday. She has set up the first meeting for this coming Friday. It should take about 4 weeks max to do the homestudy if she meets with us once a week. While that is all taking place, hopefully our background clearances will be getting done. Once the homestudy is done, we will go back in EAC's hands to complete the rest of the paperwork for the dossier. This includes all the fun state certification and Chinese Embassy certifications for every piece of paper in the dossier. That takes the longest, along with the I800-A (she told us to go ahead and fill the form out to apply for this now). Then, after our physicals and fingerprints/I800-A approval get back we will be DTC (Dossier To China). Things are rolling along, and it takes me back to 2005, when we had our home study for Hannah's adoption. What novices we were back then. It is nice to know what is around the corner this time, although there are going to be some different steps with the special needs route. Speaking of special needs, we got our "checklist" of needs we will be willing to accept. Having worked in the medical field for almost 15 years, I recognize and have a little knowledge of some of these needs. But, we have made an appointment with our pediatrician to sit down and go over this list in detail, finding one or two we are comfortable with putting as our accepted need. EAC told me to be sure you pick the need you are most comfortable with and KNOW you want, because if they call us at midnight with a referral for a cleft baby, and in the back of our minds we are still thinking about a baby with a heart defect, we don't want to have to deal with that in the back of our minds or be disappointed in any way. So, we need some education about the needs we so far have at the top of our list that we will consider. I just want to know without a shadow of a doubt that our Sarah with have such and such, and not think about any other needs in the back of my mind. Oh, and I finally got things straight with Hannah's school/teacher. They are now going to do the reference letter. It's amazing how rude and uneducated some people can be and are about adoption. The supervisor I talked to was basically yelling at me before I could explain to her exactly what we needed. Finally, once I got a word in and she finally understood, she apologized for any offense it may have caused when they said they initially wouldn't do the letter. An adoption buddy from our first adoption group said on her facebook page the other day about being grateful and so thankful for the adoption community and her friends in the midst of it and without them, she doesn't know where she'd be. I agree wholeheartedly. So, so thankful for my friends we have met through this process, and looking forward to meeting new ones through Sarah's adoption. .