And the journey begins not with little steps, but paperwork...

We've meet with our social worker. That statement alone brings me to happy tears. How much of a mess am I going to be when I get the phone call about a possible placement? Getting back on topic - we've meet with our social worker (important statements deserve to be repeated). In talking with her we've discovered that we seem to have the right mind set, we're united in our thoughts and, well, we are moving forward. Quickly. Did I mention the part about orientation is next week? No, well, a combination of hubby's lucky horse shoe and my perfect timing gave us not a whole lot of time to dwell. Which is ok, since we had talked long and hard about this prior to even calling the agency. The agency holds orientation and training during the 1st and 2nd quarter of the year. So, of course, the one this quarter starts the 25th! Which is next Monday! And in true gFam fashion - let's just move this along...

Our social worker gave us a run down on what to expect from this process. The situation we are looking at is adoption a waiting child. These are children who are older than 5 years of age, and DCFS has determined that they are available for permanent placement. Some of these children are legally free (parental rights have already been terminated) and some are going through the process (on our end, this would be called a legal risk - a risk we have to determine if we are willing to accept). She also handed us a two inch stack of paperwork with a cherry "There's more after this!"

Things that we should be prepared for:

• opening up our lives to the organization
  
• understanding what we, as parents, can be expected to deal with
  
• coming to the table not with a laundry list of options (this isn't a car we're picking out!), but with knowledge of what we know we can deal with and the courage to say we think we cannot.

Kinda vague so far. But it feels right. Yeah, so far, this feels right.