Step by Step

This past weekend I was in Dallas visiting my family and friends and so I wasn't able to look at all the attachments that were sent to us when we were accepted. But now I've been home for 24 hours and I am stoked. I'm sure this excitement will wear off soon enough but I'm going to ride this wave while it is here. I have printed about 50 pages of agency documents. I have signed my name and/or initials probably 75 times and I am ready to send it all back. The next steps are to return all of this paperwork to the agency which is basically legal sign offs and payment agreements. But, we've got to come up with a chunk of money first to send in with our paperwork.
The next step after submitting the paperwork is getting a homestudy. Most of you probably know what a homestudy is, but for those of you who are new to this, here is a definition I found online:

The adoption homestudy is a detailed written report of your family compiled and prepared by a social worker. This can take three to six months to finish. The adoption homestudy requires the prospective adoptive family to gather different documents, answer several questions, and explore their reasons for adopting. Through a series of visits and interviews the social worker can get a complete picture of who you are and what life is like in your family.

So last night, I also chose the agency who will conduct our homestudy. NM doesn't have an office for our agency so we have select another company to do this for us. I am taking the advice of some friends who adopted from Rwanda with our agency 2 years ago. They used Adoptions Plus in Albuquerque. I checked out their website and felt an instant peace about using them. I printed off another 25 pages of paperwork and we signed our names some more. Tomorrow we have to make a trip to Las Vegas and request Local Criminal Record Checks for both of us. We need our DL, our SS# and $1 cash...each. I think we can handle this one. After we get the record checks back (I have no idea if we will walk away with it or if there will be a wait) we will be able to turn in our home study application and paperwork. Then, I think the REAL paperwork will begin.
I just realized that I still haven't named our agency! I didn't want to name them until we were accepted. So, we are going with AWAA, American World Adoption Agency. They are based in Virgina and have been great so far.
Another big step that we are about to make is announcing our intentions to our family and friends. I finished our Christmas letter today and will send out the majority of them tomorrow.
This thing is really rolling. I love it.