I have been exposed....
Yesterday and today our close friends who were our references received their letters from our agency. Most of them received their letters on Monday and Tuesday. My girlfriend called me Tuesday afternoon to tell me that she and her husband received their letter with instructions on Monday and as of today they have already submitted their reference letter. Thank you Kendral! Love you guys! Our other friends are submitting theirs this week as well. Our agency advised them in their letter that they had 10 days to get their reference letters back into them.
Today, my husband was talking to my parents because he had a question about something with the house because our lights were acting weird this evening when I arrived home. We had really bad thunderstorms and winds, and we are not for sure if the electrical work was damaged. We had the electrical company come out tonight and they diagnosed the problem and it will be repaired after the rain stops within the next two days. They have a set up outside to assist with our lighting until the problem can be repaired.
As my husband was talking to my parents, he told me an hour later that my mother said, " We received our letter from your agency today about being a parental reference and we are sending ours in this week.
I did not realize that the agency was going to send letters to our parents. I assumed that the references that she was sending them to were only the references that we listed which were close friends and coworkers.
There was a section underneath the references where we had to put our parents name, address and telephone numbers down. I thought this was just for logistics!
Well, they sent reference letters to both sets of parents!
This was the problem. We had not shared the adoption with my husbands parents yet! We were trying to get a little deeper into the adoption or either when we had a definite match and knew we would be bringing the baby home etc before we brought up the adoption to them.
As we were leaving ChicFila this evening, my phone vibrated and it was my other girlfriend texting me saying that she and her husband received her letter and she was working on hers. I said it out loud and my husband said, Oh, your parents go theirs today. I said, Huh? What? What do you mean they got a letter today to be a reference. He said, your mom was so excited and they are getting it turned in this week, they told me when I was talking to them tonight about the power.
Then I said, that means your parents will have theirs in their box today in their mail and you have not even warned them. He said its okay, they will supportive and it will be alright. He was as calm as he wanted to be about the whole thing.
I was panicking and decided to call my girlfriend Kendral and she was laughing at me! She said, girl, you can't hide this! This is God and just like a pregnancy, you can not hide that last trimester. You have been exposed and God is in control of this. Your baby is on the way and things are lining up quickly! She also stated that his parents would be okay when they received it, and they truly were.
Sure enough my husband decided to call tonight after my girlfriend mentioned that he should go ahead and give them a heads up that they will be receiving a letter from our agency about sending a reference as a parent for our adoption, because they might be clueless.
Well, they received their letter in NYC today from our agency! My mother in law told him that she received it today and my husband asked her was she going to send the letter back in or what, I guess as a conversation filler, and she said yes. It was that simple. No questions really asked or anything. She said she showed it to his father too. He talked to his father as well tonight. So, they are sending their reference letter in this week as well. They kept on talking about other stuff as they normally do.
We were not trying to keep it a secret, it is just that we had a select circle of who we told about deciding to adopt. We figured it would keep down a lot of questions and confusion if we waited to share as we got closer to the end. It is truly a personal decision and going through an adoption process can be truly emotional.
I was trying to control the situation, but God showed me differently. Well, I was exposed or 'We" were exposed tonight, but in a great way.
I just thought that I would share our exposure tonight.
I also want to say thank you to all of our close friends who did reference letters for us and have responded quickly considering a short time frame. You all are fabulous. I have never seen people get things and respond immediately within 24 -48 hours. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone were on top of things like that?
We appreciate all of your support. As Kendral always says, she "wrote the book and has the T-shirt for this " so she knows how important getting these things in on time is for parents going through the process.
This blog journals my life as I take the journey towards motherhood, my passion for photography, other hobbies, and all of the things that come with living and having faith. "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him" - 1 Samuel 1:27
4 comments:
Kristy - How awesome that folks are getting their letters! You're on your way to your God-given child! And, yes, if only everyone responded promptly to requests, things would operate a whole lot more smoothly. LOL
Tricia,
Yes, we are so happy that we have friends who are really advocates and supportive of our journey. It makes a difference.
When we were in the ET program with the first agency I mailed out the reference form that the agency gave us to give and I put it in a
pre-stamped and addressed envelope to the agency for each person.
All they had to do was write their letter and put it in the envelope and mail it to the agency. I also typed a reminder note about getting it notarized, notary expiration date and I also typed out a return address label with their address on the envelope.
I believe that it made it so much easier for them. All they had to do was write the letter and get it notarized.
This reduced the possibility of someone writing down the address wrong etc. Half of our references got their letters in before we were finished sending in our application! We were still working on gathering all of the documents that we needed to send in for group 1 materials and group 2!
While we were still pulling things together for all of the documents needed, thats when we ended up being still and later moving to a different program with a different agency.
Some of the things that we have to do now are similar to international but scaled down a bit. So, we actually had some things already prepared.
I say, just make it easy for your references if you are the one that has to mail out the reference form for them to follow.
Our current agency does it all. We don't even know what they asked because we have never seen the form!
Things are moving right along for you as well. Before you know it you’ll have a little one in the house.
It is a joy to write a reference for you guys. You are truly in your last trimester. We are all anticipating the arrival of this bundle of joy. This is your season.
Love ya,
Kendral
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