We met our social worker M. yesterday.

I was a little nervous about meeting the person who would be signing off on our dreams of parenthood, but as she introduced herself, I realized we had nothing to worry about. She has been doing this a long time - 13 years - and she put us at ease immediately.

We talked about why we were pursuing adoption, our history of infertility, and about the adoption situation that we are involved with.

Then, she walked us through each step of the paperwork. There are background checks for various agencies that have to be signed, notarized and mailed off ASAP, personal reference letters, physical assessments to be done by our doctors, fire and sanitation inspections of our house by the county to arrange, marriage and birth certificates to copy, and much more.

We have to take 8 hours of adoption education before our home study can be approved. The agency offers a parenting preparation class which is 5 1/2 hours - the rest we can do online (all for a cost of course - none of this is included in the home study fees).

Everything has to be completed in the next week or two for things to happen on time. We have 107 days until the baby's due date, and the home study takes 90 days from the date of submission of the entire packet. So, if the baby comes early (as they are wont to do on occasion), we're cutting things really close!

No pressure, ha.

Luckily, I'm making this my full-time job right now :). Still, there is stuff Chris has to do that I can't do for him (get physical, obtain driving record, get fingerprinting done, get TB & HIV test), but we're both confident that it can be done. And so is our social worker, and she's done a million of these...

After I submit the entire packet, we have two more appointments with M., then she writes the home study report, we get to check it before it's final, and then the final approval is given. Once it's approved, they send it to the lawyer in Louisiana, and we're golden!