Home Visit #2 & Other Exciting Tidbits

Our home study social worker, Cindy.

Jeff and Cindy over coffee, cake, and paperwork.

Baby stuff washed and ready for her arrival!

Well, it's been awhile. I bet you all wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth! Between the cold/flu, the very busy Philadelphia Auto Show, AND getting ready for our second home study, it's been an EXHAUSTING week! HOWEVER, it's been a very good week. Especially, after I started feeling better! Not usually one to take a lot of medicine, but I highly recommend the Z-pack. Think I will try to get one to take along with us to Bangkok...just in case!

Today Cindy from Adoption Horizons came for our second home visit. It was really nice morning and we had great long chats about everything from the first week home, to tips for Thailand and things to help her sleep at home - like having white noise, NOT rocking after awhile so she remembers being put in her crib and where she is, etc. Jeff cleaned the house yesterday while I was working (God bless him!) so all I had to do is get up, shower, do some dishes, and bake some yummy gingerbread cake - both to eat and to smell up the house. :-)  I couldn't have timed it better and when she got there the cake just came out of the oven, coffee made, the table was cleared and all of Ruby's baby dishes and bottles were washed and drying by the sink. Been meaning to wash them for weeks now as they have just been piled up on the counter. (So great to be washing her bottles!) I told her to take a good look around at how the place looks now because the NEXT time she visits it will probably be total chaos and she'll be tripping over toys! LOL! 

The whole meeting went great and the home study just about done! She will write up the report on her end and we'll call our local USCIS office to give them a head's up it is coming. Then we just wait for that referral, correct or update things with Cindy if needed, then she'll send to the USCIS office. It takes a few weeks to process, but since it also takes a good few weeks to get travel dates after referral, I think we will be good to go. Perfect timing for all of it!

Now speaking of that referral...Kate from Wacap finally got an email back from Thailand. They are submitting their next group of families for referrals at this week's board meeting (on the 11th). Yay! We HAVE to be in that group! Our dossier has been in, officially, since June.Our agency really feels like we will be getting it soon. Sometimes the social workers will give Wacap a head's up that the referrals are coming and for whom, but they also may just mail them and we won't know for a couple weeks. Like everything else, we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we have other great news...

Another family is going to Nakhon Si Thammarat! Thanks to my dear friend, Sharon, that found her on another adoption group, I "met" this wonderful mom and have been corresponding with her. She is going to try to get a pic of our daughter for us and look in on her! We are SOOOO excited! To think that in a week from now we could be staring at an updated photo of our baby! The last photo we have is from September. In it she's 18 months and she will be 22 months on Wed. - the day of the board meeting. This mom is going to try to find out how she's doing and what size she is and all that good stuff. What a gift to find this person! We are going to meet in Thailand in a few months when it's our turn and will be able to thank her in person. Such a small world. Such an amazing, wonderful, small world.

So a lot has been going on around here lately. Jeff & I have both been working non-stop. Getting closer to Thailand and our little girl every day. I am tired, but I am happy. Perhaps a lot like our state of existence when Ruby first gets here, right? Everything we do lately seems like good practice for the days to come. Perhaps it's just because there isn't a minute that goes by that we aren't thinking of her. Talking about her coming home with Cindy today was really exciting. The next time we see her will be with our baby in our arms!

Thanks, everyone, for the well wishes when I was sick!!