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by Paul Vick.
Original Post: Yes, it's been quieter than usual around here...
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As some may have noticed, the quantity of my blogging output has dropped precipitously in the past few months. This hasn't been due to a lack of interest in blogging, instead several big things have been going on in my life that have conspired to limit the available time for blogging.
One of the "big things" is some new stuff I've been heads-down on doing while I'm at work and which I'll talk about over time as it becomes more solid and public. But work aside, there is also a "big thing" going on in my personal life that's going to have some (understandably) far-reaching implications.
After a considerable amount of thought, my wife Andrea and I have decided to adopt. Although this is the first time I've discussed it here, we're actually pretty far into the process--this past winter we decided we wanted to adopt internationally from Guatemala (Andrea's mom is from Panama, and we originally wanted to adopt from there, but Guatemala was much more hospitable to international adoption than Panama). We started the considerable amount of paperwork required, figuring that we would be done with it by the early summer, which would result in a referral sometime in the late summer/early fall. However, things have moved a bit more quickly than that.
Our social worker (who did our home study to make sure we weren't axe murderers) recommended that if we were even the slightest bit interested in adopting twins, we should go ahead and do all the paperwork twice so that we would be already approved in the unlikely event that twins became available. Since we were willing to consider it we did two of everything, notarized, certified, the works. Then, just as we were about 2/3rds the way through preparing our paperwork, we got an extremely unexpected call: twin boys had just been born, and we were the only couple that our lawyer was working with that were considering twins. (Also, the fact that they were two boys had something to do with it; according to several people I've talked to, international adoptions appear to heavily favor girls.)
After a bit of soul searching as to whether we were ready to take on twins, we decided we were and wanted to do it. What followed was a mad rush to finish the paperwork and get it off to Guatemala, which we did in early June. Now, it's basically a waiting game as the paperwork wends its way through the legal system in Guatemala. Bureaucracy being what it is, it's just a big question mark: could be the end of the year, could be into next year, just hard to know.
As you can imagine, though, once the paperwork was done, the second phase of work began in earnest: preparing the house for the arrival of two babies. This has been the major project of the summer and has meant that a lot of that discretionary time that I'd devote to blogging has been consumed elsewhere. (Of course, when the kids get here then the real work begins and who knows what time I'll have for blogging!) So that's a big reason why it's been quiet here--I expect things will pick up in the fall until whenever we're blessed with the chance to go pick the kids up!
All in all, it's hugely exciting and we can't wait to get them here. But between that and work, blogging may suffer for some time until things settle down into more of a routine. I appreciate everyone's patience!
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