we're expecting, but it's not what you think...

it's been a bit under-wraps for the last four months, but we have news!

matt and i are growing our family a bit non-traditionally: we're becoming foster parents. we're not able to have kids biologically, and we have a heart for kids in need. we have a home full of love, and we're eager to add a few kids into the mix.

we're nearing the end of the "home study" process now, which is an in-depth study of our home and family. we started in mid-august, and we've filled out 44 pages of personal information, done our fingerprinting, TB tests, worked through 36 hours of training, baby-proofed (uh, and adult-proofed) our house, which included a whole lot of unusual tasks, like locking up all of our medications, and we've done a whole lot of thumb-twiddling while waiting for our really wonderful, but very over-worked, licensor to work her magic.

so here we are, four months after jumping into the paperwork. we had a really great meeting with our licensor yesterday, which included an inspection of our home and property, and a whole lot of personal questions. (i wonder how many other parents consider how their family of origin will affect their parenting methods before conceiving... my guess is not that many!) we thought this would be the final step and have us licensed within a few days... we were wrong. in our discussion, she told us that there was an option for us to go with a new program called a "unified homestudy" which would save us some trouble down the road, when we're ready to adopt. we opted to go this route. the good news is that it won't take any longer to complete the license; the bad news is that we have some more paperwork to do. and also, we were wrong about anticipating our license within a few days - it'll be more like another month.

oh well! we have a busy month ahead of us anyway, so i'm sure the time will go quickly...