Wednesday, June 29, 2011

We are diving in!

We received emails from both our family coordinator AND our AWAA social worker (in Texas AWAA does the home study) and WOW I'm overwhelmed!! There is soooo much paperwork! To give you an idea, we received 10 attachments from our social worker and 16 from our FC! Ive always heard that the paper chase for the dossier was long and hard but so far I think its much worse for the home study!! And we need to get this stuff in ASAP because it could take 3-4 months to finish the home study AFTER we submit all the paperwork! We've only been at this for 2 days and I'm already tired and stressed...how do people do this??? OK sorry had to vent a little! One of our biggest issues right now is that Chris and I are not very organized. We have a habit of leaving important documents in random places instead of in the fire safe at home. For example I can not seem to find my birth certificate or Chris' social security card...wtheck?? It make no sense that they would be missing but they are! Ive already had 2 panic attacks about it but I have to keep reminding myself its no biggie and an easy fix (um I'm kind of dramatic!). So today I went ahead and ordered the certified copies of our birth certs which we will need for the dossier anyway and Chris is going to deal with the social security card tomorrow. Tonight after group we are going to organize every piece of paper we can find in our house!

Ok sorry I got a little side tracked but hey I'm a little less stressed now that I got that off my chest. Eventually I will write a blog with all the items we have to have for the home study and dossier but right now I will just tell you that there are 27 items on the checklist for the home study and so far we have finished 6 of them. Thankfully half of the items are in the HUGE packet that we received via email and really only require us to fill them out and sign. The items left that we actually have to go and get are copies of social security cards, medical exams,copies of all 3 birth certs (oh yeah did I mention I can't seem to find Jacob's either!!), financial statement, floor plan sketch (Chris is actually pretty excited about this), pics of our house/yard areas and employment verification. Most of that list is actually pretty easy I just have to get to work!

I can already tell that I am going to love our social worker. In the attachments she gave us there is a tip sheet with tips about some of the items on the list of documents and in the last tip she reminds that "If God brings me to it, He will bring me through it!" and I couldn't agree more! In the last 24 hours I have let the stress get to me and I forgot that this is not about us, its about HIM. He WILL help us with all this. I just have to keep remembering that this is ALL in His timing not mine. Now if we can just get through the medical exam next week without Chris fainting :)!

~Abbey

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” -Luke 12:22-24

1 comment:

  1. Abbey,
    One of the best tips I've received recently while paper chasing is to do one thing a day toward your paperwork. It makes it much less overwhelming especially when you have other little ones to keep up with.
    Also, don't sweat the birth certificate. The dossier will need an original copy that is less than 5 years old any way. We just ordered all new ones from www.vitalchek.com.
    Press on!
    Melissa
    www.thecorkums.com
    paper chasing for a sibling group from ET.

    ReplyDelete