My medical forms are done! The notary (many thanks to Lisa!) met me at the doctor's office yesterday afternoon. After waiting for an hour, the doctor finally came in and signed the new forms I'd completed for her. The notary did her stuff, and I was on my way.

Tom had a successful meeting at the bank this morning, so things are now moving in that area. Oh, and I told Tom that I want to decorate the baby's room in Spongebob Squarepants motif. HAHAHAHA!!

More setbacks. I went to have my medical forms notarized and learned that the notary's commission expires in October. I just know I'm going to have to have the forms redone and find another notary. On top of the that, when she stamped one of the forms, part of the stamp was off the page! I made her redo it, so now there are two stamps. I'm just sure that will never fly in Atlanta. I hate to keep bugging the doctor's office, but I really don't have any choice.
On a brighter note, we had our septic tank inspected this morning, and all went well. If we can just get the tax forms back from the IRS!

A small setback. The instructions had told us that we didn't need to have signatures notarized. We could make a statement at the bottom and have our signatures notarized. Well, guess what? Georgia has changed that rule. They changed it this week. Each signature has to be notarized. UGH! I just called my doctor and I'm going in on Monday to have the forms redone, and fortunately, there is a notary in their office. I'll also have to have my employment letters redone. Human Resources will be so glad to be done with me! The good news is that Tom made the appointment to have our septic tank inspected. The lady at the office was curious to know why we wanted it inspected when we're about to get hooked up to the new sewer system. Bet she thinks we're kooky.

Tom is making an appointment for our septic tank to be inspected on Monday. After that, we only need the bank letter and the paperwork from Tom's physical, which is this Saturday. I need to get my birth certificate and our marriage certificate apostilled in Sacramento, so I'm going to see if my mother can help us out.

The doctor's appointment went great! The doctor was very nice and helpful. I got everything done and also got my DPT and first Hepatitis B shot. I go in on Thursday to have my TB test checked and to pick up my paperwork.
Our home study visits are over! The social worker paid her last visit to our house this evening, and the whole process was positive and pretty painless. The social worker will draft the narrative and send it to our adoption agency for review. When it's finalized, we'll send it to the INS, who can then approve us and issue the I171 form.

Whew! What a relief! I've been agonizing over getting a physical. I called a new doctor today, and I have an appointment for tomorrow! This is the one thing I've been worried about the most, and now it may be taken care of after tomorrow! I'm crossing my fingers, but the rest of the items for both the home study and the dossier should be fairly straight forward and easy to get.

We're driving to Irwinton today after work to have our criminal background checks! One more item to check off on our long list.
We received emails from our adoption agency and our coordinator yesterday telling us they'd received our application. For some reason is seems more real to us. And it also means that we now have someone keeping track of what we're doing and making sure we are doing things in a timely manner. That's reassuring, yet at the same time makes me feel a little more under pressure.

The criminal background check was a piece of cake! Boy, are there advantages to living in a small town. The notary even told us if there were problems she'd do it again for no charge! All done, now on to the next item!

Well, today is our second home study visit and I don't know if I'm ready for it! Yesterday was a doozy. Tom's car wouldn't start, we lost our water pressure, and the phone isn't working! We got Tom's car jump started and it's at the mechanics, the water pressure is back, but we still don't have a phone that works. Work was busy as well, with Orientation and a job fair marketplace that I had to be at. I just pray that the walkthrough is fairly painless.
We made it! We got home from picking up Tom's car to discover that the social worker was waiting for us. She really didn't stay long. She had a couple more questions for us and then we did a tour of the house. After reading that some social workers actually measured room sizes, our inspection seemed like a walk in the park. Onward and upward!

Today was our first home study appointment. The social worker came out to our house at 5:30 p.m. I spent all the previous day cleaning house and making refreshments for the visit. The only room she ended up seeing was the living room. And, she didn't want anything to eat or drink! The appointment seemed to go fairly well. Most of the time was spent talking about our families. We have our second one set up for Wednesday, August 14, and the last appointment will be on Tuesday, August 20.

Well, today we drove up to the "Big City" to get our fingerprints done. We left at about 8:00 a.m. and were at the INS office a little after 10:00 a.m. Our appointment letter stated that they started doing fingerprints at 12:00 p.m., so we were pleasantly surprised when we got right in. We were out at 11:00 a.m.! Tom and I decided to drive on up the road to check out the Mall of Georgia. We had fun window shopping, especially at FAO Schwarz's, imagining the fun things we're going to buy someday for "CJ." All in all, it was a fun day.