"That does NOT look good!" said Dr. Gaba...

So, on Tuesday, we started with our physicals, which ended up really being more of just a little chat with the doctor, because the forms that we needed to have filled out required very little input from the doctor. Good news...he declared us healthy and happily signed our forms. And now we have a doctor should we get sick because we both really liked the guy. (Thanks for the referral, Dwayne!) Bad news...My finger is infected from a freak laundry accident. I'm probably about the only person in the world to have an accident doing laundry and end up on antibiotics with an infected finger! (I slammed my finger in the dryer door.....don't ask!)

Then we met our adoption social worker at a local pizza place where she proceeded to ask us every possible question about our childhood all the way up to the present. We described how we grew up, our families, where we went to school, what we did for fun, our jobs, our house, how we met, etc. We feel like it went really well and we are excited to finish up the actual home study process. We will do the 2nd half of our home study on July 22nd, where she will actually come to our house. In the mean time, we will basically be "kid-proofing" the house before she comes, per her request. My friend Dara did home studies as part of her internship for her Master's and she told me people always had just made cookies or baked a cake right before she showed up to make the house smell great and seem homely and kid- friendly...I'm already trying to decide...chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin? Any suggestions, Dara?

We also have our appointment scheduled with USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to submit our I-600a and get fingerprinted on July 15th. The I-600a is the "Application for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition" and "is how the government identifies prospective parents as qualified to continue in the adoption process". In a nutshell...more paperwork. :)

Two specifics you can pray for: This may seem trivial, but could potentially cause us some delays...First, we have had to apply for a copy of our 2005 Alabama State tax refund. Somehow, we have either misplaced it or didn't make a copy of it way back when. It could potentially take 8-10 weeks for them to get it to us. It's been about 4 weeks, so I'm hoping to see it sooner, rather than later! And second, when my background check was run for the state of Alabama, another chap's name showed up on MY background check. Which means, this guy is using my social security number, either on purpose or by accident. Regardless, the government may not be too keen on this and may think it is an alias of mine or something weird like that. And it concerns me just because of all the identity theft that goes on these days and I have reported it to the social security office. We aren't sure right now how this will be handled or if it will cause a problem, but I'm praying that it is remedied easily!!

We march on, filling out this and that, praying for our little one(s), who is out there somewhere...