Our life as of late has been a happy and stressful dichotomy. We have successfully completed online profile for our agency. I feel like we have conquered a mountain from the completion of this piece alone. I’ve touched on this before but profiles are challenging.  It’s a struggle as we pour over each word to make it count but are limited to 80—100 words per section. Portraying ourselves accurately on paper is not as easy as you’d think. Our agency offered corrective actions a couple times before we were finally approved and published. This, seemingly, small victory brings great joy and yet our to-do list continues to grow.

Adoption as of late has become like a second job. While working on our online profile we have simultaneously been juggling the packet of paperwork sent to us from our Home Study Provider. I thought our adoption facilitator asked a lot of questions but these forms are more intense. In addition to all the usual questions; name, date of birth, social security number, references, family history etc. they also have some items with additional leg work. Things like physicals for both of us, FBI fingerprinting, a note from the vet giving Aurora a clean bill of health, and reviews from the fire marshal and health department. We have been trying to knock these out in a timely fashion as we have pressure to start the home study process within 45 days.

Fingerprinting at the BCA

Our profile and home study are cumbersome but we are, at the same time, prepping our video introduction and pictures for our paper profile book. This means we spend evenings and weekends compiling pictures and videos to highlight the usual places we like to visit and capture our hobbies and pastimes. We are grateful to our friends and family who have assisted in this process by being in-front of or behind the camera and taking it all in stride.

One of our biggest accomplishments has been in networking. Adam set up our facebook page that we are using to network through targeted paid for advertisements. He has also designed our networking cards that we will use in conjunction with our agency to get in the hands of those who have platforms to potential birth moms. Digital mediums are great but we did not forget the old fashioned form of snail mail. Stamping and licking over 200 envelopes this past weekend reminded us of our wedding days. We are excited to have mailed them this morning to friends and family with over 25 different US states represented. The whirlwind that has engulfed us over the past month is exhausting but we know it will be incredibly rewarding too. It seems like a lot all at once, and it is, but our discipline and commitment are full force. Despite the demands of juggling what feels like two full time jobs, we have talked with other adoptive families who remind us that there will inevitably come a time of painstaking silence and waiting.

For this, and all seasons, we are reminded of Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate,  a time for war and a time for peace…He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; 11-12)

For now we are in the time of embracing the process as it continues to bring Adam and I closer to God, and to each other. The time of paperwork is now, and to that we are content.