I have some interesting stories to recount since the last posting.
Both Taney & I have completed the medical reports that we need for our home study. Dr Goisse our new physician, left a note with letter needed to wish us every success in our adoption journey.
CCAI our agency contacted us in the last few days to remind us to return some papers that needed to be notarized. The local bank in the town that we opened our adoption account had a notary who we saw yesterday. Normally their is a fee for this service, but as we have discovered many times already people are only too willing to offer help freely with a smile when they realize they are part of our adoption journey.
Yesterday, the first day of Spring, Taney & I took time-out to enjoy our adoption journey, and visited a couple of new baby stores located in King of Prussia PA and Broomall PA and yes we did a little shopping that we simply could not resist!
The store in King of Prussia was very posh, and somewhat unique in the quality of the baby cribs, bedding and decor that we could only dream about affording. It was all beautiful, one of the crib sets had little doznes of sleeping rabbits in different postures on them in a style I can best describe as 1940-1950 ink drawings. We did make a purchase, a musical mobile that is quite simply beautiful and not much more than one that Baby's are Us might have charged - but far better.
The second store was on a light industrial park, "Baby Supermarket" and we throughly recommend those in the Philly area to visit. We are still looking at cribs and changing tables and this gave a great alternative to the Baby's are Us selection with a better build quality and selection.
We also made a couple of purchases, a "Life Book" that had special pages for adoption. We had been looking for this for a very long time as many Baby books are inappropriate as they focus on the record keeper being the birth mother. We found a great bag that fits on the back of our new McLaren stroller, made by McLaren and also given a little toy free for just showing up. It was a pleasure to visit a baby store that was outwardly adoption friendly.
Next Monday we have our third meeting with our home study agency in AHA in West Chester PA. The meeting on March 3 at our home lasted three hours. We answered many questions together, took Sherie our Home Study Social Worker on a tour of the house, and then she wanted to ask questions of us individually. The process and the questions were one might describe very intrusive into our personal lives, and the time we were children, but they are necessary. In general both Taney & I are very private people, it is necessary however for Sherie to ask questions that may be difficult as this is what she must do and that we had to answer them for the sake of our daughter. Preparing the house fo the home study in March was looking back on the process hilarious. The degree of cleaning and babyproofing the house was insane even by the standards of the home study. But now we look back, pleased that this part of the process is complete and move on.