Making progress

The saga continues. Thursday we received a call from our doctor's office that in order for them to get my medical records from the neurosurgeon that I need to come in and physically sign a release form - again faxing will not do. Unfortunately, I could not make it to the office in time on Thursday so will visit them first thing Friday morning.
I went to the office Friday and sign the form that they had waiting for me. If you recall earlier I was over the weight restriction China has in place for adoptive parents and have been working on dropping some lard. While I was there I had them weigh me and I have lost enough to be under the restriction! That in and of itself was worth the trip and good news indeed. I asked them to have the doctor update my adoption form with the new weight and with the additional explanation of my hematoma we should be able to fax it to the agency, get approval and then have a signing party where we have the notary come in and verify the doctor's signature. Crazy process, I know, but it is what we have to do so why fight it?
Julie and I decided that we are going to have to take the more proactive approach as the sense of urgency from the doctor's office has been less than we hoped for. I called the neurosurgeon's office Friday and spoke to their medical records department and found that there is a different fax number that goes directly to records that our doctor should fax the release form to. We turned around and called to let them the about the new fax number so that may save some time. We'll have to become the squeaky wheel and call Monday morning to see if they have sent the release form and see where we are in that process.
The bigger goal is to be in a position to take all of our OH documents and get them certified in Marion county and a stretch goal of getting the State of OH certification done, too. I have the day off and was originally planned to use it for a visit with our social worker, but that got moved up earlier so I have a "free" day and since all of this stuff can only happen during the normal work week, we'll try to capitalize on it. I'll let you know how that plan works out - it all hinges on the doctor's office doing their part.
On the fun stuff over the weekend front, we went to my manager's house for an Italian cook-off contest between the technical team members in Columbus. We took our puttanesca recipe that I learned from a friend years ago and love to eat - it takes all day to cook and I started it Saturday at 8:30 and with the help of Julie, tended to it all day. We also took Julie's famous macaroni & cheese recipe that the kids love. We had a great time with the other families and there must have been 20 adults and 15 kids. We had chicken Marsala, secret lasagna recipes, stuffed shells, tirmisu, shrimp scampi and plenty of good vino. I took my favorite Italian beer, Pironi, and watched it get grabbed by everyone else - LOL! Glad I grabbed one when I put them in the cooler. The kids all had a great time with potato sack races, playing on a swing set, skateboarding, playing football, monkey in the middle and more. At the end of the evening we all voted on favorite dishes in 4 categories - Best Overall; Most Authentic; Best Kid's Disk; Best Dessert. As luck (and 5 people in our family) would have it we won Best Overall and Best Kid's dishes with prizes of Olive Garden and Sur La Table gift certificates! We packed up and headed home, got the kids to bed, forced ourselves to stay up longer and watch Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsay will fall over from a major heart attack some day from the stress!) before we called it a night.
Sunday brought a trip to church and Julie getting prepped for a PSR open house. We were paying the price of a later than usual night this morning so I was worried about keeping Veronica when Julie left to do her Open House. We all picked out doughnuts after mass, sat in the gathering space and ate them then went to the car. Veronica couldn't have been easier to work with - a sugar high helps, I'm sure. We decided to go out for brunch afterwards and ended up at Waffle House. We definitely were over dressed for the locale but you can't go wrong with Steak and Eggs, scrambled, scattered, smothered, covered for brunch! Good thing I was weighed Friday! LOL!
We came home and enjoyed a lazy afternoon nap, followed by me winning Family game night of Pay Day, baths, dinner, etc. Overall a great weekend and hopefully we have a plan for success on the adoption front now.
We'll keep the blog posted on our progress!