"psych eval"

Okay, sorry everyone, for not updating sooner. I did not even want to talk about that day last week that was so long and way boring (much more than I had imagined) I am just going to start by saying that we got to the office 20 minutes early (thanks to eric) and we enter the building to find a long hallway lined with a lot of closed doors. To our surprise, all the doors were locked. Even the one "105" which we were supposed to be going into for our appointment. We knocked. No answer. We walk upstairs to find the same thing, long hallway of locked doors. OK...we thought...lets go knock some more. Seriously, no one could be found except this one guy who sells insurance and he doesn't know anything. Then suddenly, about 5 or 10 minutes after 11 a guy comes walking out from behind one of the locked doors and is like, "yall lookin for me?" It was all we could do not to just bust out laughing. where the heck had this guy been? and what was he doing? weird. So, anyways, he procedes to give us a bunch of questions to answer, then we have the oral part of the evaluation. Basically, he just had us talk about our marriage and our "stuff" and what our issues are and all that. Then he gave us some advice and some test questions. We sat in this room, Eric at a desk and me on the couch and began doing this test of questions like 'I would like to be a fireman....true or false' and 'when I get angry I want to smash things' and 'I think about sex during the day' and all kinds of random things like these. Then you would find the same questions worded differently later on in the survey. About what I thought was half way through the test, I thumbed through to the back to see how much more I had to go (this is a common test taking habit that I have....sometimes i like to start at the back and work my way forward, just for fun) and I kept flipping and flipping. Finally I got to the last page....633 questions!!!!! so you know its not a typo...six hundred thirty three questions. I felt this overwhelming sense of dispair. I did not think I could ever answer that many questions that are formatted like these. It was truly really really long and really really boring. Finally we both had finished and once again the guy had disappeared. We were kinda over this whole experience at this point, so we left our answers and test questions on the desk and left...it was 10 til 4!!! That thing took almost 5 hours! Hopefully he returned and found our answers and we don't ever have to do that again. And then, we get to the car and I check my voicemail where I find that many of you had called to see how it went... thanks! But the best message was from my sweet, psychological guru of an aunt, Stephanie....and i quote..."Hey, just wanted to see how it went today, I hope you got to do the MMPI...that one is so fun to do...." The mmpi was the name of the 633 question test we had just finished. I let her know that there is NOTHING fun about the MMPI. All in all, it wasn't that bad.... but of course, we don't know if we have passed or not yet! We are hoping no news is good news. Again, sorry it took so long to blog this time. I just couldn't think about that day before now.
p.s. (I have been very melodramatic in this blog. please, just humor me.)

so, here is Aubrynne! My sweet niece who is the MOST precious girl. I promise Eric is not drunk.... just a little tired!
Here we are at our yard sale!

This is the first 5 bucks we made!

Let me tell yall about our week. A situation with a brand new baby girl was brought to our attention by some sweet friends at work that had been brought to the ER and would be needing a home. Without going into all the details of how and why this situation occured, I will just say that a need for a family came up, and Eric and I had the opportunity to make ourselves available to take her. When I recieved the call from the ER, it did not feel real...until I talked to Eric about it. When I told him what I knew of the situation, his response was, "What are you waiting for??? CALL THEM!" We hung up the phone, and with my mom as a witness, I began having chest pain, feeling short of breath and feeling like I was gonna vomit!! Some of you may be thinking 'wow, you really aren't ready to get a baby if you are gonna freak out!' You can rest assured, I was not freaking because we might be parents, but just at the thought of my baby being without me...alone...without a name! I have wondered if I will naturally feel that 'motherly instinct' or 'instant bond' with my adopted child. I know, after this week, that I will. I was overwhelmed with worry and an extreme amount of love for this little girl I have never met, seen, held, and quite frankly that was going to be a stretch to actually come into my home. After all, all we were doing was making ourselves available to the people in charge of this baby. It's not like this was actually something we were doing through our agency that actually had potential to be in our home. But it did not matter. If she was to be ours, I wanted her, and loved her, and immediately began praying for her and for her birthmom who is quite obviously in a really bad situation. Realistically though, I tried to keep myself grounded and remind myself that this was a long shot. But it did not matter. I still loved her, and wanted her, and prayed for her. At one point shortly after getting this phone call, I looked at my mom and asked her what on earth will I do with a baby? I don't have any stuff, like diapers and uh, a crib, or clothes! It's really cold outside! My mom calmly responded, "We'll go to target!" I said, "oh, okay...we'll...go to Target." So, we made the appropriate phone calls, to the appropriate people and then just have waited to hear something. I talked with a social worker this morning and it looks like that little baby girl will have a family soon, through the state's custody and provision. I am glad that there are other families waiting to take home little girls who don't have a home. I am glad that I was able to love her so much, so instantly, so unconditionally. I am glad that we got to experience the real possibility of becoming parents. I am happy with our response. I know that God is sovereign and in control, and that He is still preparing us for parenthood. I am really, seriously okay and actually great with that baby girl finding a home through the state program. I rest in knowing that our child will come to us soon enough. And it will be the child for only us. I am not having anymore chest pain or shortness of breath or nausea now that I know I am not separated from my little girl, cause she's not mine! I am also excited that i felt what a lot of my "anxious" patients feel and they never can quite explain it or why they have these symptoms, but the are real. And now I can stop thinking they are making it all up! (just kidding...I am not that harsh, but I am sometimes a little skeptical)

So, it's back to waiting some more, to finish our homestudy. We have sent letters now to our employers for their references and hopefully they will be prompt. Someone asked me today if this event makes me feel more anxious about the wait, or more ready for it to hurry up and be here. I think a little, but not too much. I am still not in 'wait' mode, because we aren't expecting to get a child yet. I still really see good in both sides of it coming fast and then we are parents! But here are the reasons that it is soooo okay that we aren't there yet:

1. we need to save some major money so we don't have to borrow it!



2. we get to spend more time together, alone!



3. we need to be training our dog to be outside



4. we need to be reading our required books about being adoptive parents



5. we get to continue preparing our hearts



6. me and mom have time to find some good material to decorate the nursery



7. we have time to soak up Aubrynne (our new niece)



8. we get to enjoy dreaming about what our child will look likel (it's kinda fun)



9. we get to continue to trust God and experience Him in this time of waiting, in ways we wouldn't if we could just always have our way, when we chose and how we chose. I am convinced and expect that our child will prove to us and hopefully to any of you who are in this journey with us, that God's timing is perfect, His ways are better than ours, and we can learn to be thankful, hopeful people as a result of this truth and how it plays out in our lives.

We received a letter in the mail today that informed us of the status of our paperwork. We both have to give reference forms to our employers then once they are turned in and one more person turns in their personal reference form, we will move on to the next step...the interviews! We also are going to have a psychological evaluation done on November 12. First of all, this is my birthday. I kinda was being selfish in scheduling it on my birthday, cause Eric has to take off work to have it done cause it takes 3-4 hrs to complete. But, does this sound scary to anyone else... 'psychological evaluation'???? What on earth will this be like? I assumed we'd be able to adopt, but who knows what will happen if Eric and I both have to convince a psychologist that we are sane! I don't think either of us have felt 'sane' in a while now! Some of the people in these groups that we are going to for support have said that they actually try to trick you. There is some kind of validity score/test that is in the evaluation to see if you are being truthful with your answers. I don't do well when I am being tricked....I am quite gullable. May the Lord be with us! We also received our financial statement in the packet today. This basically told us what we have already paid, what we owe, and when to pay. It did not include lawyer fees (which comes after placement of the child) but I felt great about the cost. It was right at what we thought, actually on the low side of what we thought and that is ALWAYS good. I am feeling excited about everything, but still nervous. I am nervous that I am totally gonna be freaked out by bringing a baby into my house, forever. It sounds awesome, but feels crazy. I held my beautiful, sweet, precious, little neice Aubrynne tonight for like an hour or more. She makes me want to hurry up and bring our baby home. I also kept the Vinson boys again today. Tate (the youngest of the 3) is EVERYWHERE! At one point I found myself washing out his cloth diaper that was poopy, by the way, while owen was pooping in the potty right next to me, tate was just sitting in the floor laughing and smiling, while griffin was trying to 'help' me wash the poop out of tate's CLOTH diaper. He was pointing out what he thought Tate must have eaten earlier in the day and just thought it was so great! They began talking about all the different aspects of 'poop' from their 3 and 4 yr old perspectives and I thought to myself, 'This is where you are headed...poop land!' Laurie....more power to ya with the fuzzy buns (cloth diapers) and to having 3 boys who are so wonderful, but very busy! We really had a great time, as usual. I write all this to say that I am excited and curious about this next phase of life for us, but incredibly nervous and hesitant at the same time. I hope that is ok. I also feel really humbled and honestly quite amazed that someone (and God) is going to trust me with a child....on purpose!

I still feel like we are running like crazy right now. I don't forsee it getting better anytime soon. Between my work and then Eric's work and basketball starting up a few weeks ago, we definitely aren't looking at a lot of downtime. Please pray for us that we would make time for each other to strengthen our relationship. Also, that we would keep our priorities straight of what is important as far as our time is concerned. I'll be posting about that psych eval coming up. In the meantime, thanks for "waiting" with us!