I must admit that we were caught a bit off guard receiving BOTH things we were waiting for last week . . . which then meant we had a BUNCH of paperwork to fill out. I was thinking that we’d start on it after we got one of the two things we needed, and when they came in within 24 hours of each other, panic set in!

Fortunately, last Saturday was one of the few Saturdays that Ken has off this spring, so we could work on paperwork together. One of the things we needed was to do our 2011 taxes. Since we itemize deductions, got new windows, have a new HSA account, and Ken’s a pastor, our taxes are a little complicated. Ken’s MBA definitely helps! But wanting to have a fair division of labor, I asked him if he would do taxes while did the immigration forms for our adoption.

Three hours later, Ken was done with our taxes, and I was still on the first of 5 forms. Delegating is clearly not my strength.

So with a hefty dose of sleep deprivation, panicked posts on our discussion board, and not-so-nice thoughts about what we put immigrants through in this country, Ken and I finished a few hundred pages of documents to send off to our agency on Monday. We actually had to send them in a box because they don’t make envelopes big enough!

And  thus the waiting begins . . . again. It seems like that’s the story of international adoption. Brief bursts of flurried activity, followed by months of nothing. We are thankful that we are now in a part of the process where the “nothings” should be fewer and shorter. The process is now back in the hands of the Americans who are much more predictable in their processing. In the last few months, cases have been processed faster than usual, and we hope that trend continues with us.

We’re praying that whoever the officer is who reviews our case would find joy in putting a forever family together! And quickly! 😉