Home Study coming to an end & military worries....

Today is exactly three months since we started our adoption process.  I decided to do a little detective work today and emailed the person responsible for Ohio's Central Child Abuse Registry.  See, our Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana clearances were already received by our agency and all we have been waiting on to conclude our home study are the clearances from Ohio.  I did not know her email address, but found another person's with Ohio's Job and Family Services and decided to formulate the email in the same way (hoping that was the correct email address).  She actually responded saying that our clearances would be put in this afternoon's mail!  YAY!  Finally!!!!  As soon as we get them, we will forward them to our agency so that they can finalize our home study.  It seems like life lately has been a huge paper chase and looking ahead at what's to come in doing our dossier packets, this is JUST the beginning!  

Meanwhile, life has been interesting around here lately with Aaron's job.  We are hoping and praying for some good ole' Air Force compassion and that they don't decide to deploy Aaron in the middle of all this.  There were two people slated in line ahead of him to deploy and both of them have received deployment assignments to leave in the July/August time frame (which, by the way, according to our agency is when we could be getting ready to travel if all goes according to plan with a referral).  One of the families I have been reading about on their blog just had their second trip to Russia and their court hearing...and were awarded custody of their daughter!  It would be one thing if I could just move ahead with our adoption without Aaron here, but that is not the case.  For a Russian adoption, both parents must travel on the referral AND for the court hearing.  However, from what I have been able to understand from my darling Aaron, it appears that if a power of attorney won't allow me to complete the process or if we can demonstrate financial hardship, the Air Force can allow for him NOT to be deployed during our process.  Those not familiar with the military probably won't understand this, but we all understand prayer and most of us understand the desire to have children.  We are so blessed to have a wonderfully supportive family and friends.  We just ask for continued prayers as we move through this process.  It's frightening all of the unknowns of adoption in itself....and to complicate matters, throw in the military and the worry about a deployment messing things up.  However, we are both trying to maintain a positive attitude and move through things as if there was no deployment or worry about that!  

My mom is flying in from Alabama next Thursday to help us decorate in our little one's room.  Last weekend, we moved our queen size bed upstairs into our loft to allow our second bedroom to become a nursery.  Hopefully, it won't be an empty nursery for a long time!!!  It's encouraging to see other people's adoptions be completed in less than a year.  The family I was telling you about can say that their adoption was complete in about nine months (really, a little less than that).  

Part of me goes to sleep at night wondering what her face looks like and if she's been born yet, but also praying she's getting some love.  The other part of me is able to go to sleep knowing that God has a special little girl picked out just for us.