Next steps to "Xan"

Finally an update from us!!! Truth be told: Spring and summer flew by and our adoption paperwork sat on my desk. But now fall has arrived (AKA school has started), and we're running as quickly as we can with our adoption process.

So here's the latest . . . we had our first meeting with our social worker on Friday night to begin our home study. It was so nice to finally meet her face-to-face and she really put us at ease about the whole process. We met for 3 hours and had our orientation to the whole home study process. We reviewed the ins/out, ups/downs, tears & joys that come with this journey. After this meeting the ball's back in our court. We still have two more meetings with her before our home study can be complete, but basically need to complete about 99% of our paperwork before meeting with her again. It was such a positive experience to open our meeting with Bible verses and prayers! We love that we're working with a Christian adoption agency and ultimately know that God will see us through this and keep our baby safe in the meantime.

The good news is that I have 3 full days a week now that I can concentrate whole-heartedly on the paperwork/process. Our 5 year old daughter started kindergarten this week/3 full days a week which frees up much of my time. She is thrilled to be in Kindergarten and I've realized that my "little baby" is now a school girl!! Which really makes me even more motivated to bring another sweet baby into our lives, and she keeps asking "Mommy, when is my brother Xan getting here?" Thus, more pressure from her too -- I'm happy to report that she's simply thrilled with the idea of adopting. When we initially started our adoption process last November, we felt she was a bit too young to discuss it at that point. But now, she totally gets it and says "Mommy, we need to hurry because Xan needs a new family and clean water too." So sweet! BTW, the story on "Xan". We've already named our baby-to-be Alexander AKA Xan. This has made life a lot easier when we refer to our baby-to-be with a name rather than the little baby from Rwanda who'll soon join our family. We're not sure if this name will "stick" once we meet him, but for now that's what we call him. :)

This week, Jim & I are writing our autobiographies for our home study. Step-by-step, and little-by-little, we're one day closer to our little baby boy. We love you Xan & pray for you every day!!!