One Small Step...One Giant Leap

What a day!!!! Chris and I were extremely productive today in regards to the paperwork for the adoption. Let me do a quick recap of our day...

We both are early risers so we decided to make use of our time and try to organize ourselves for Adoption Paperwork Day, a.k.a. President's Day. At 10:30 a.m. we left the house with our binder in hand. We decided to go the the State Department of Health first to get our birth certificates at the vital records department. This was the first time that I have been to this building in downtown Kokomo. The lady that helped us was extremely nice and was excited about our adoption.

After we received two copies of both of our birth certificates, we decided to go ahead and stop in at the department that gives the immunizations and vaccinations at the State Department of Health. I am so glad that we did and I am glad that it was Monday! Let me tell you why... Who knew that the state of Indiana has free HIV testing on Mondays? This is actually something that we need for our medical clearance from our doctor. Score! Now, the real good news...We also have to get several different shots in order to travel to Ethiopia. These include Hepititis A, Hepititis B, Yellow Fever, Maleria, Meningitis, Thyphoid and a Tetnus shot. Well, after talking with the nurses, we found out that if you get the HIV testing there, you can also get FREE Hepititis A & Hepititis B vaccinations! This will save us over $300!! We absolutely love Indiana! The ladies in the department were so nice and want us to bring our child back when we return from Ethiopia. We will be visiting them several times in the next few months. God is already opening doors for us when it comes to financing His plan for us! He is so good!

Since they only do shots between certain times, we had to run a few errands and decided to go back there around 1:45. In the meantime, we decided to complete a few more items from our dossier. We made a pit stop (that reminds me of Amazing Race - I love that show and would love to be on it with Chris someday!) at Walgreens to get 4 passport size pictures of ourselves for the dossier. Since there were several people in front of us, she suggested that we come back later in the day which worked out fine since we had to head back towards downtown Kokomo for the shots.

From there, we still had quite a bit of time so we went to my dad's office to do a few things. First, we talked to the person who is completing our taxes because he had a few questions for us. I have to say that is one benefit of your dad being a CPA. You can hand him all the documents and not pay for him to get your taxes done. We appreciate that service. Thanks, Dad! Next, we had my father print out the first page of our tax returns for the past three years. We need this for our dossier. Finally, we had Brenda (the notary and the mother of some of our high school friends) notarize a lot of documents for us. I think I have said this before, but we have to have everything notarized. It is crazy. We are keeping her in business! Luckily, this is also a free service as long as we take in our child when we return from Ethiopia so she can hold him or her. That works for us!

After spending almost an hour at Dad's office, we stopped for a quick bite to eat before heading back to get the photos from Walgreen's and the State Department of Health. Everything went smoothly and we have received our tetnus shot along with our first round of Hepititis A and Hepititis B vaccination. Our next appointment is April 1st. At that time we will get tested for TB, get our second round for the Hep A/B and also get the shot for meningitis. What a day to look forward too! You would assume that I would be used to shots after going through the IVF cycle, that is not the case, I still hate the site of seeing a needle.

Since we were big kids today and accomplished so much, Chris took me to one of my favorite places - Ivanhoes, in Upland. We used to go there all the time when we were dating and we haven't been there for years, just to get ice cream. It was a great time and we think it would be a great place for the show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives (food netowrk show) to visit.

Tonight we were able to organize the information that we did so it will be easy to know what we still have to do in order to complete our dossier. We feel like we are making progress, but we still have a long way to go.

We have heard from several people this week and we have been encouraged to keep moving right along. We are so thankful to have such a great family and group of friends. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.