[Devora]

Besides the things I normally do to relax (bicycling, gardening, reading, etc.), I have three projects I'm working on that really help to offset the paperwork:

(1) I've started a journal that I'm writing to our someday child telling about the process, reactions of family and friends, etc. I'll share it with our child when s/he is older.

(2) I'm putting together a photo album with pictures of us, our house, and our child's grandparents. Along with it I've written captions (in Spanish) that make it read like a storybook. I'll take the book when we go to visit and leave it with the foster family to read to our child.

(3) I'll soon be making a babybook/lifebook. I expect that to be a big project.

These things really make a big difference for me. We're in the final stages of homestudy and dossier preparation and I find that sometimes it all seems like paperwork that's unrelated to actually being a parent, so I have to balance it off with something more "real." I'm hoping it also helps during the waiting process once we have a referral.