Our Home Study is Complete!!!

   Last week on Monday, Kim came out to our house to do our final visit for our home study. In the week leading up to it we had to cancel her initial appointment for that Saturday am because Maylena had just gotten over pink eye in both eyes and a bad sinus infection, Billy had gone to the minute clinic and was thought to have the flu with his symptoms, and our heat had been broke downstairs for a week. I was doing all I could just to keep my head above the water but I still felt like I was sinking.
   Before Kim got to the house there was a lot of cleaning to accomplish, especially since she is allergic to dogs and we have 2 inside dogs that shed a lot. When she got to our house we took the dogs out into the front yard to meet her outside first. They barked as though they were going to attack her, which we warned her would be the case until they get to know you. She wasn't concerned about that thankfully and we put them in our garage for the remainder of the visit. We have already gotten to know Kim really well and she feels like a friend more than a social worker. She came inside and sat at our dining room table and pulled up our document she has prepared as a statement about our family and we went to work adding, making changes, etc. Maylena sat at the table with us and was a part of the whole thing. She was doing great until she started drawing in her notebook to pass some time and then when Kim started asking her questions she said, "I am just busy right now". Kim didn't mind and asked Maylena to show her around the house. We went upstairs to Maylena's room and she began climbing her dollhouse headboard attachment on her bed, it's not very high and she loves to climb on the roof and balance in different ways. I cringed a little and what Kim might think, but she was fine with it. Then when we went into our bedroom and Billy was showing her where the guns were kept, etc, Maylena climbed onto our bed and started jumping on it. Again Kim seemed ok with it, even though I was thinking can this get any worse? We showed her around the rest of the house on a very quick and brief tour...she was impressed that our nursery was already so well set up. She said during the process of adopting her own daughter she had nothing ready to show their social worker when she came out. So I felt a little bit more prepared on that end.
  The rest of the meeting went really smooth and she said our document would be submitted to the agency for review by Christmas Eve. Now we wait to hear from Doris who is the head of the agency for our finalization meeting with her. She is supposed to call in about 10 days but we have 2 holidays in that period of time so it may be a little longer. Once we get finished with that meeting that can take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours we will be a waiting family!!
   Our shutterfly photo album came in the mail and it looks awesome! I put so much time and energy into it and I am really happy with how it came out. We opened the package up to look at them one they were delivered on Christmas Eve. Turns out 2 of the 3 books were damaged around the edge due to the package getting punctured by something in shipment. I contacted shutterfly immediately through email and they already have new books on the way.
   Things continue to fall in place and I have calculated up what we have raised so far through fundraisers and donations of family and friends, plus money Billy and I have contributed. We have raised around $7,000 towards our $30,000 needed. Now that we have most of our adoption application work out of the way and we are going to be in the waiting phase, we will be concentrating on raising as much of our funds as possible in a short amount of time because it could be really soon when we are matched to a birth mother. We need anyone and everyone's help with this. I set up a YouCaring.com account that will allow people to donate to us by credit card through PayPal. We wanted to have that as an option. The Link is http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/help-bring-baby-woods-home/283728. Please check it out and pass it along to as many people as you can.
We appreciate all the support. Over Christmas Billy and I decided to ask for money only to put all of it towards our adoption expenses. We raised quite a bit of funds and just lack around $2,000 to complete our home study. That money is needed when Doris completes this last interview. I will be working on our puzzle soon and adding names of all the Christmas money donations by Tommy and Denise Wofford, Shelia and John Allen, Brandon Allen, Bethany Allen, John L. Allen(brittany's grandad), Ted Woods and Bill and Sue Durham(billy's grandparents), Rachel Matthews(brittany's grandmother), Debbie and Mike Woods, Cheryl and Steve Eckerd, and Margaret & Smokey Bissell. Thank you for your donations. We are going to be able to piece together a good portion of the puzzle and I look forward to showing the photo update.

What a Week!!

It's the busy holiday season and we all have A LOT on our plates, Christmas shopping, holiday events, family get together's....all fun but when you add it together it can leave you feeling worn out.
  Last week on Tuesday I began working on our shutterfly profile photo album. The book that the birth mother will select us by. I knew this was going to be no easy task because I have created a shutterfly album for my mom of her and Maylena for a Christmas gift last year...it took me 3 hrs to make and I wasn't trying to impress anyone but myself. This go around our whole lives needed to be packed into just 20 pages, with not too much wording but also enough to tell a story about your family. Starting before marriage until now. It was hard just thinking about how to start. Finding photos spread out over that many years was task number 1. Then last Tuesday after my 10 hour work day I on a whim began the book and as Billy went to bed I shut myself in my closet with the light on and ended up working 3 hrs and didn't go to bed until close to midnight. By the end of that first night it wasn't looking too good. I spent that long and hardly got anywhere. The options are endless as to layouts, backgrounds, etc. Working multiple late nights and some over the weekend I finally accomplished a rough draft about 16 hrs of work later. Next I had to submit it to a lady who works at the agency for review and critique. I held my breath hoping for good news. I really wanted this book done as soon as possible because shutterfly has their photo books on sale this month for 50% off and I really want to get in on that deal since we need it soon anyway. Debbie, from the agency reviewed it and gave minor changes that were quickly fixed and I was so happy! Now that big project is finally off my plate. Just when I completed it and felt the burden lift, we woke up to our downstairs heat broke in Monday morning. Billy immediately contacted the family friend, the only one we trust to work on our units, only to hear he is in the hospital and can't come out until probably later this week. Thankfully we have had milder weather this week and all our bedrooms are upstairs where the heat still works. We have been plugging in a couple of space heaters in the rooms we sit in downstairs and we are making it work. That same day that the heat broke Maylena started getting really sick by the afternoon and we called to make her an appointment but they couldn't see her until today. Turns out she has pink eye in both eyes and a bad sinus infection!! We are going through it right now. I always know we are on the right track when obstacles fill the path. But we will continue to press onward through these attacks. However I would appreciate prayers over our family for our health, safety, and this adoption process.
   We heard from our social worker yesterday and she will come out to our house this saturday at 9am to walk thru our home and meet briefly with Maylena and talk to her. She is hoping to have our home study submitted to the agency for review by Christmas. It's still blowing my mind how fast this has all started to move. I will attach a link to the blog or through Billys Facebook page soon for those of you who are interested in viewing the album I put together.

Brittany ' s Home Study

   After work yesterday and a mad dash out for some Christmas shopping...I headed over for my home study. I wasn't nervous this time because I really liked Kim the first time we met and Billy had reported his individual meeting was smooth and pretty easy.
   However, I didn't end up feeling the same way about it being easy. I guess it should have been easy but my memory has always been really bad and I need stuff written down or I forget, and I definitely need the help of my siblings when it comes to childhood experiences fir them to say remember when we....and it always comes back to mind once someone says it. So these meetings are totally on the spot and I ended up coming home with homework to gather more information and email it to her. She would ask me what are some great childhood memories you have, what were things you liked to do or were involved in as a youth, what types of trips have you been on with Maylena?...and I could tell her about 2 maybe 3 for each category and them I was drawing a blank. She even asked why exactly is your memory so bad...haha...I told her I wish I knew but it's always been that way. They want lots and lots of detail and unfortunately I have to have help recalling that sort of thing. I even keep a journal and have since Maylena was born of her life and milestones, funny things she did or said, that way I remember to tell her one day.
   Kim was going over the time line of when we will finish the home study and she told me she may come out to our house next week instead of the following week for the visit. Then she said it should only take her a couple of days to write everything up and we would hear from the head of CAS, Doris, within 10 days after our write up has been submitted. Doris will have a 3 hour finalization meeting with us then we will actually be a waiting family! This means it will be in January not February when we are ready and waiting to be matched. That blows my mind because we started end of July on the beginnings of it all and here we are 6 months later going to be a waiting family.  Wow! It's amazing how the time flies.
   Keep us in your prayers for God's protection and health of the birth mother we will be matched with, pray for us as we compile our photo album and dear birth mother letter to be selected by, and pray for our readiness as a family for all the changes this will soon bring about. Thank you for your prayers and support.
  Just wanted to attach a photo of soon to be big sister Maylena.....she can't wait!!