Party of Five

We passed our homestudy!! Woohoo! That is such a huge hurdle out of the way. I know there really was no worry, but it just feels so good to be done! Now we are waiting on INS, pray that goes fast and they send us our fingerprint appointment quickly. Thanks so much for your prayers for our homestudy!

Ok, we don't have a name picked out for little sister yet, I think Chris and I both have some ideas, but nothing we can agree on. But, we are tired of calling her the baby or the little sister, so we thought we would ask the boys what we should name her. I am pretty sure we won't be using any of these.

Ryan: Batman, Lightning McQueen, or Chicken Little
Brandon: (See previous post about how he thinks we are getting two babies) Megatron and Optimus Prime, Diesel and Thomas, and if we only get one baby, Blockbuster (that way she will always have movies in her, I am not making this up)

So, if you guys have any ideas, we are all ears, they can't be any less in the running than the ones the boys picked.

So, this week, I was talking to Brandon about the adoption. I told him that we were going to have a baby, but that she would not grow in mommy's tummy. He asked me where she would grow and I told him in Vietnam and we had to go on a plane to go and get her. So the conversation went something like this....

Brandon: "I am going to have a sister, but not Avery, right mom?"
Me: "Right, Brandon, not Avery, a new sister."
Brandon: "Because Avery is in heaven, right mom?"
Me: "Right Brandon."
Brandon: "So my new sister will grow in Vietnam and we will go get her on a plane?"
Me: "That's right"
Brandon: "Mom, we should get two babies so that Ryan can have a sister too. Ryan, do you want a sister too?"
Me: "Ok, you tell Daddy, that Ryan needs a sister too."

I love my sweet boys!! How can he possibly understand that he has a sister somewhere in Vietnam (I don't quite get that myself), but he wants to be sure Ryan is a part of this too. They will be the best big brothers, I can't wait to see them all together! It makes my heart happy.

So, we had our first minor setback, that wasn't really a setback, just annoying. We sent our paperwork into INS with our big fat check, and they sent it back saying they don't take checks. However on their website in quite plain English it states if you send a check make it out the department of homeland security. So, now I will go and get a money order and spend $20 mailing the packet again. Chris wants me to print out the instructions and highlight the part about sending a check, but I think making INS mad at us would do no good at this point.

A bit of exciting news, our homestudy is scheduled for this Sunday!!! Wow, can you believe it. Pray that my house has some sense of order when she comes for our meeting, for those of you who have been in my house, housekeeping is not my gift. Once that is done, it gets sent to our agency and we get on the "list." The list to get a referral!!! (otherwise known as the child who will be matched with us to join our family!!) I can hardly believe it!

Anyway, all rambling aside, pray for our home study. And for those of you looking for pointers for adopting, when the government says send a check, they don't mean check, they mean money order. "Check" must be some kind of code. I will figure it out one day.

So, I made the first of what I am sure will be many trips to the UPS store by my house. But, I mailed the first of the important documents off!! You have to apply to bring a child back into the country, so that is what I sent off today (the infamous I-600A form). So many steps, but it is forcing me to be organized, something I am not. I have my binder with all my tabs in it telling me what to do and what to mail. I have also been collecting all of our birth certificates and other important things about us. So the next step is our homestudy which will be next weekend! Once that is done and sent off, we will officially be on the waiting list! I just keep thinking to myself, there is a little girl out there (probably not born yet) that will be ours! It makes all this crazy paperwork worth it!

OK, so I said I would never do this blog thing, but it seems like it is not such a bad idea, especially when you have news you want to get out to people. So here goes, as you might have guessed by the name, the Topf clan is growing, but not in the typical way with pregnancy weight gain, morning sickness, cravings, c-sections, and just general stress. We feel that God has led us to adopt the newest member of our family. We are early in the process, just basically drowning in paperwork at this moment, but we are soooo excited. We chose Vietnam to adopt from, and if everything goes as planned, which it rarely ever does, especially if your last name is Topf, we should have a little girl at this time next year! Finally some pink in our blue world. We appreciate all of your prayers during this incredible journey!