6 Months of Waiting

Another month has passed with absolutely nothing happening with our profile. Our book is still sitting very lonesomely at our agency. We've been waiting exactly six months since our homestudy was approved. It's been two years since we began the journey to be parents (5 months with the fertility center, 2 months of transition, 8 months in foster care, and 10 months with our current agency).

This month has been discouraging in many ways. Our agency has made so few placements this year and has added so many families that it would take 4 years for just the current waiting families to each receive one placement (For comparison, I think around this time last year when we were researching agencies, the wait was about 2 years based on the number of waiting families and average placements they had been doing).

Things weren't totally still this month, though. We did get a homestudy addendum... or partially, anyway. Our agency added some new situations we are open to, but they left out some situations we were originally open to, and they checked off the box that said we are certified for international adoption. So, the hopefully correct addendum part two should be mailed soon.

This month, I applied for two adoption grants. We should know if we receive them by January. We also canceled our gym membership and switched from cable tv to satellite tv (these two changes will save us about $1,500 over the next 12 months). We are trying to do all that's in our power to be completely prepared when a situation does present itself.

On another positive note, even though waiting is hard and making decisions when there are thousands of paths is exhausting, life is still wonderful. This is my favorite time of the year... and I've indulged in two bonfires, a Halloween costume party, and doing some photography for a dear friend in beautiful fall scenery. I still need to get to Dairy Queen before the end of the month for my beloved Pumpkin Pie blizzard!