We are "Pregnant"!

Shannon and I drove to Sarasota to meet with FHSA and review some final documentation before making a final commitment to the agency and adoption. After meeting with them for almost 3 hours, we gave them the application. They accepted it on the spot, and we immediately executed the contract (after making a clarification or two). They were very surprisingly laid back (especially when modifying their contract). Since we were expecting them to have to look over the application and check some things, we were surprised when they gave the go-ahead right away. Therefore, we had to mail in the agency fee required with the contract when we got home since we didn't have the right checkbook and it was easier than shuffling money around later.

I started with the busy work of setting up a method of payment and process tracking so that we have a prayer of staying organized throughout the process. Using a spreadsheet to keep track of costs and payments, and set up the bookkeeping in our checkbook to try to make sure that it's easy to figure out the taxes when the time comes. Shannon and I started looking at the required paperwork at almost 11PM and quickly got cross-eyed. We already messed up the I-600A form that needs to be filed with USCIS to really get started, but today I found interactive PDFs on the USCIS website that should make it a lot easier (assuming they will accept the form on white paper – original and instructions both state the application is on orange paper).

A lot of the agencies and literature we have seen regarding adoption refers to the time leading up to the process as a "Paper Pregnancy." Hopefully we won't have too much "Paper Morning Sickness."