What's next?

Although I've been posting regularly, family and friends are still asking, "So, where are you in the process? What's next?"

So my thoughts about becoming a mother, while perhaps interest to some... were apparently not informative enough.

So here's a very quick update:

1. We're fairly certain that we've found the agency that we'd like to have conduct our home study. Our next step is to send in our application to this agency.
   
2. Still in the process of researching adoption/placement agencies. Would like to interview a few more before making any final decision, although at this point I wouldn't be surprised if we went with the law center that we interviewed with a few weeks ago.
   
3. Would like to speak with adoptive parents who have utilized the various adoption agencies that we're looking at so as we move forward we'll be asking for references and making some calls.
   
4. Need to determine if we're going to pursue a domestic or an international adoption. Right now we're both leaning very much in favor of domestic.
5. Banking my salary from now on to pay the incredible adoption fees needed to adopt an infant and need to really make a household budget to see if we can live successfully on one salary (we'll continue to bank mine as savings in the future...kids cost money!)

I think after our experience with the law center interview, Chris and I unconsciously took a little break from all things adoption. I obviously used the time to reflect upon impending motherhood... Now that we've had a little break, we're hopping back on the merry-go-round and will be doing more research/interviews/etc.

So that's where we are.

As Chris said the other day to a friend who was asking the "So, where are you? What's the next step?" question...

"If there are 150 steps in the adoption process, we're on Step 6."