Moving right along!

I did not mean for there to be a 23 day gap between posts! As I look back though, we have definitely made more progress than I expected by this point. We have completed the mounds of paperwork, applications, etc. I sent in our fingerprints and background check on January 18th. We heard it takes anywhere from 4-12 weeks to get all of that back. I believe the way it works is first the fingerprints are processed in Virginia. I think thats the FBI check. Then they are sent to the ABI (Alabama Bureau of Investigation) and then a letter is sent to us and our social worker announcing our results. Also, our DHR background was sent to Montgomery. Our social worker (Suzanne) talked to someone at DHR and they told her that they are running 2 months behind on the background checks. But, the lady did say that she would email Suzanne with the results so that would give her a head start on completing that part of our home study. Suzanne also gave me a number to call to check on the fingerprints progress. I bet those people just waited on my call everyday. They probably had notes in their system that a crazy girl from Alabama was going to call everyday to find out the progress on her and her husbands fingerprints. I am not good at waiting, what can I say.
I felt like if I at least knew what was going on each day then I had a little control of the situation. Am i a control freak? Some may say yes. I'd agree. I'm trying to work on that.
So, that's what had to happen with the fingerprints and background check. Those results along with all of the other info we had to give, paperwork we had to fill out goes into the home study. Suzanne will write the home study. It is a document containing basically a story about us. It contains info on our childhoods, relationships, education, financials, how we feel about discipline, lay-out of our house and much more. When Suzanne gets all of the info she will write the home study. The home study is a requirement in every state to be approved to adopt. It is also required by the agency. So, that was the part I should have written back a few weeks ago.
The next thing i should have already told you about is our meeting with the agency. We went on Feb 11 to Thomasville, GA. I could write for hours about how the meetings went, but to make it short, it went awesome. We love the directors. They are good Christian people and their desire and goal is to work for the Lord. We were picked to be in the program based on our statement of faith (we had to each answer about 10 questions on our faith with our application). That gave us a peace knowing that. I thought that they just looked at our application, saw we were normal people, and accepted us. The first meeting that morning was an informational meeting about the program. We had an hour lunch break and then if we wanted to commit to the agency we went back with our checkbook, paid a down payment, and then went through a parental training course for adoptive parents. They have these meeting usually 3 times a year. We were blessed that they were having a February meeting- you have to go through the training before you can officially be in the program. There were 11 other couple there. We were surprised to see that they were not just from the southeast. There were couples from New Jersey, Missouri, Ohio, and Louisiana. Anyway, the day was confirmation that we were doing the right thing with the right agency.
This post has probably been very scattered- I hope it atleast halfway made sense. Jarrod and Rickey came in while I was writing and I can't think and write when i'm not alone. I'm gonna quit my post here, but very soon I will be posting again. I'm trying to do more frequent shorter updates. Thanks for all of the support and prayers!!