Post #8 - Getting Closer

First of all, thank you to all who wrote a comment on the previous posts. I love reading them and sharing them with Cody! They come through as "unknown" unless you put your name, so I'm not sure who sent most of them, and I'm not able to reply or respond to them. Just know each one is special to us and appreciated 💛 

Short version - Match letter is now submitted to the agency - scroll down to see it. Still waiting on the certification from the court. 

Long version - continue reading, then scroll  😃.........

Welp, my self deadline to complete the match letter by the end of November was a success. I was able to submit it to the agency Nov 29th for review. They loved it and only had a couple suggestions for editting. They also had us fill out a "couple summary form" with some extra info such as eye color, hair color, age, weight, height, race, job, personality, education, etc., for each of us to add as the back page to the letter. 

They asked for us to get 30 copies professionally printed and stapled including the summary form. I was able to get that all done and turned into the agency Dec 4th! The cashier at Staples even gave me a discount for the printing, which was a wonderful surprise and blessing. 

It has now been almost 6 weeks since our home study was sent to court for approval. We were told to expect about a 2-4 week turn around, so it’s taking longer than we expected. We are anxiously checking the mail each day hoping to see the certification come through. Maybe with the holidays the processing time takes longer?! Who knows, but it will be a happy day when we get that notification! 

We will need the certificate in order to start fundraising and ultimately be put into the match book. There is nothing else that needs or can be done now, just have to wait and enjoy the holidays in the meantime! 

I am so happy with how the match letter turned out! It's basically a family profile of us that the birth family will get to review and use to help make their decision on if they would like to meet us and consider us as the adoptive parents.  I will share it below with you! FYI - I'm having a hard time inserting the pages without them being a little blurry. Hope you can read them okay. 

As always, we will keep you posted. If we don't hear anything and don't get back on here in the next couple weeks, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Thanks for being apart of the journey. We have felt so loved, supported and encouraged through all this!