Opposites and Marriage

In case anyone thinks that working on adoption paperwork with your spouse is a great way to pass the time, let me just say this...

BAHhhahahaha. 

Sorry, no. It's really not, at least for us. 

Never has it been more clear that we have completely different personalities. 

Before we were married, our pastor required us to take a personality test for couples as part of our premarital counseling. (By the way, I just checked; it's still available. You can take the test with your spouse here. Good luck!) Derek got cautious thinker, because hello, engineer! I got driver, because genetics. I think the point for us taking the tests was for the pastor to note any red flags for us to work through and beware of, but I really don't remember him saying anything other than "Hmmm, interesting. Those two personalities are excellent complements!" And I thought "Well, that's a good thing; opposites attract!" 

You are correct, Pastor Ken. It's interesting. 

Here is what those two personalities essentially have in common: we each need to be right. 

Here is what those two personalities do not have in common: one of us has to arrive at the decision by weighing out every possibility and dismissing the incorrect ones, and do not rush me, and the other sees one answer immediately and it's right, and why don't you believe me!

Honestly, it's really a wonder that things are completed in a timely manner. 

What we've finally learned (but don't always practice) is that those personality differences aren't actually bad. One of us is really, really good at catching minute details that the other overlooks. The other can make an on-the-spot decision when a situation arises. When we trust and have patience with each other, it really is amazing how quickly we can power through some of these processes. 

Tonight, we had an off night. We filled out a form that really should have taken five minutes (both of us agree on this, not just me, the driver) but actually took almost two hours...and that's okay. We live and learn, and move on to the next. Instead of letting these personality quirks get to us, we just need to remember that this is why we married the other. We're opposites. 

And that keeps it interesting. 

Keeping It Real

(not the rock star picture)

It is so easy to share the good stuff, the funny, the shallow. We can share the rock star picture from last weekend or the best lunch spot ever or the moat surrounding our tent when our went camping. And there's nothing wrong with sharing those things, plus it's fun to share them. But...when push comes to shove, it's hard to be all authentic all of the time. It's hard to say what's really going on. It's hard to admit when you're down or struggling...or maybe it's just me.

Let me ask you this. If you were to ask us how the adoption is going, what answer are you expecting? I realized recently my answer is typically either "Great! Thanks for asking! We're starting this or that and then doing this or that" or "nothing new to report; same old, same old."

But, some days, this is really more like it:

"The house smells like dog but I don't want to vacuum because I lost my good earrings and the social worker is coming in a half hour. We submitted our MCC a couple weeks ago, and now we're wondering if we made the right call on some of the conditions. We also submitted one of our first major payments last week and found out another is coming this week, sooner than we thought. We have twelve hours of training each and the last thing I want to do is sit through yet another webinar PowerPoint presentation. Plus, this morning we found out that the one file we both agreed on and inquired about is no longer available to us. And I am so, so tired of not knowing what in the world I am doing."

That will probably never be my Facebook status and I'm sure there's a hashtag character limit somewhere in Instagram. But just know that some days, we feel crabby and tired and overwhelmed like anyone else and it's not in our nature to admit that freely. (In fact, it's taken me four days to type this.) Forgive us when we seem like everything's perfect all the time or when it appears we aren't taking this seriously. We know in our hearts that we're doing the right thing, but some days our heads aren't quite there. Both of us work best with a detailed and outlined plan, preferably in spreadsheet form, and living in a constant state of uncertainty gets the best of us sometimes.

We're so appreciative and thankful for our friends, family, and especially our church family who let us share things on our own timeline and never push. The calls, the texts, the surprise candy bar deliveries to the house and coffee deliveries to work, the no judgement on our tumbleweeds of dog fur or the bottle cap your son found and tried to eat when you dropped by for the afternoon...we appreciate it more than you know. We are struggling for balance between this, family illness, and the normal stuff like late meetings and deciding whose turn it is to cook dinner. I'd like to say someday we will get it right, but more than likely not. Bear with us as we try to discern what's best for our family-both present and future. Ask questions so we know you care, yet be patient when it seems like sometimes we're unwilling to share. Understand why sometimes we say no, we aren't able to do something. Most of all, continue to pray for us whether you know what to pray for or not.

Surely, I cannot be the only one who ever feels this way. Hands up for the overwhelmed! I'm not a "I challenge you this week..." type of person, but I'll leave you with this reassurance tonight:

...my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 
Philippians 4:19

Onward and Upward

Forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. 

Shortly before eating this most awesome cake, (shout out to Trefzger's) we submitted our application to CCAI on 7/10/15! And, just so everyone is aware, we had help eating it. It wasn't just us, I promise! I will admit to having a piece for breakfast though.

Pretty much everything the past seven or so months hinged on submitting this application. Now that that's done, it's like we've hit the ground running. Funny how you go from doing nothing to doing everything! This is going to be a not too fun post and mostly informative for those of you who are curious about where we go from here.

Our second meeting with our social worker for our home study was last night, which went really well. Note to self, never assume they will tell you when they'll check the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Hey, at least one of them was working and installed! We have a few more things to do for the home study and then that will be done! Hooray! We are stretching that out a little so that we won't have to update our files in case we don't have our placement yet at this time next year. Any way to save a little money sounds all right with me!

We received our approval for our application for adoption from CCAI today too--and now we're really rolling! They gave a fancy-shmancy flow chart of our things to do to prepare our dossier and when to do them, which is probably my favorite thing ever! I do love a good check list. Here's a breakdown of how long each step should take (more or less):
     1) 5 days: Application approval--done!
     2) 1-2 weeks: Begin home study, begin to get forms and paperwork ready (this will be a theme...).
     3) 2-5 weeks: Create your Adoption Petition and Financial Statement, doctors' visits, police clearance reports, gather photographs, and a few other things.
     4) 5-10 weeks: Complete home study process, go through the checklist for your documents, get dossier information from USCIS.
     5) 10-20 weeks: Begin notarization, certification, and authentication (Did you know authentification is not a word? Just learned that!) for dossier documents. (Ah, paperwork.)
     6) Submit allllll of the above to CCAI for them to submit to the CCCWA.
     7) Celebrate!

There it is folks, dossier submission in just seven--that's right, seven--easy steps. You're welcome. (Yes, I can hear some of you laughing. There's definitely a reason it will take six months to complete!) If you are unfamiliar with any terminology from here on out, I did pick a few major terms and stuck their definitions here under our Resources page.

If you have any questions for us, we'd be happy to answer them! We may not know the (right) answer, but we will do our best. Thank you everyone for your prayers this past week; we all appreciated and felt every one of them!

Lots of points to the first person to get the quote. And not google it.

As always, stay tuned!