Breaking the Blogging Fast

I'm back! My trip to the US is over and more importantly, my midwifery exam is over. I've been home for a week already. The trip to Seattle/Portland was successful on all accounts. I had quality time with my closest friends and some really fun mother-daughter time with my Mom. (I must give props to Matt & Colleen and Danny & Taj for hosting my Mom and me. Thank you SO much. I am so blessed by you!) Colleen and I even drove up to BC to see some more good friends. We had a gathering for dinner with 8 children and 7 adults. It was nuts but fun. I'm bummed we didn't get a picture.

I still don't know if I passed my test (should know some time next month, I think) but I did walk out of the test feeling relieved because it wasn't as difficult as I had feared. In fact, it was quite reasonable in regards to the material it covered. There was a lot on management and on being able to recognize the line between normal and a complication in which referral or transport is needed. I guess it really tests the midwife's judgment and I realized during the test that I feel pretty confident in my judgment. That was a refreshing realization for me. So assuming my judgment is in line with that deemed appropriate by NARM, I should be fine - but I won't know for sure until I get that result.

Just a quick word about Portland. I loved hanging out in that city. It's a lot like Seattle but smaller, cheaper, less traffic and friendlier people. I was surprised by how friendly people were. It is easy to get around Portland - lots of public transport downtown and very walkable - and my Mom and I had some of the most tasty food we've ever had at a little place called The Country Cat. We ate there twice. I'm not articulate enough to describe how amazing the food was. All I can say is I had the very best eggs Benedict I've ever had. My mom and I also popped in to one of the many local breweries for a beer and a pretzel. We even caught some Olympic action on the TV while hanging out in the pub. Oh and Cuban food. Who knew? But this place called Pambiche came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. You could say food was a real highlight of our time spent in Portland. And coffee of course. A favorite being Stumptown. We also spend many hours in Powell's Books, "the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world." One could easily spend all day there. Portland is a city I could definitely see myself living in should I ever have the option.

Andrey and I are having our home study update tomorrow. Our social worker from Manila is flying in for the day and will be in our home for a few hours going over any changes from the last home study. We found out only last week that we needed to prepare several documents. There is no reference to this in the materials given to us. Thanks to the Yahoo Philippines adoption group I belong to, I read about a family rushing to get all sorts of documents together in time for their home study update, and that tipped me off to ask our agency and our social worker what we should prepare. Both of them said, oh yeah, you need new police clearances (background checks), medical clearances, and copies of tax forms from the past two years. Tax forms, no problem but the other two things may not be possible to get together within a week. For example, in order to get a police clearance we have to get something called a barangay (neighborhood) clearance and then something else called a cedula (tax identification number). Each require a trip by both of us to a different government office requiring their own documents, so I was a little worried at first. Thankfully, acquiring these things have gone smoother than expected.

I'm happy to say we have our police clearances and tax forms and I have my medical clearance printed on the required letterhead. Andrey will have to mail his medical clearance to our social worker after he sees his doctor early next week (he's already been once to the office but there was no computer and no letterhead so not possible). We've accomplished a lot in just a week considering how long these things took the first time we tried to acquire them. Experience in this case is on our side. Assuming those are the only things we need, we are in good shape but we have learned to expect things to not go as planned or hoped for. I won't be surprised if we find out tomorrow that there is more paperwork to prepare. Yikes. I sound jaded.

We are praying the home study update report will not take nearly as long as the original report did. (Home study done in March '08. Report accurate and complete 9 months later.) Frankly, we can't afford for it to take months. The current home study expires on April 27 so this must be submitted by then or the whole adoption is off. Prayers for this report to be accomplished in a timely manner are greatly appreciated.

We are about 15 months into our 12-24 month projected wait to be matched. I hear of families with Filipino heritage getting matched closer to the low end of the wait time and non-Filipino families waiting on the longest end. Every day inches us closer.