We still have several steps to complete before I can relax and know that the adoption is really complete and final. We still need to have post-placement social worker visits, made more complicated by the fact that we've moved and we'll have to find a new social worker. Then we'll complete a re-adoption so that Bella will have a U.S. issued birth certificate (a lot easier than her Guatemalan birth certificate for school enrollment, etc.). We will also change her name legally at that point to Isabella Faith. Once that's done, we'll have to go back and change her name on her Social Security card, our health insurance policy, etc.

All this to say that adoption is an exhausting process and it feels as though it will never end! I applied for Bella's Social Security card last week so that we could claim her on our taxes, and it was an exciting step for me because it made everything feel a little more official and a little more real. However, at the same time, I kept thinking that it is just one more thing I'll have to re-do eventually when we change her name.**

There is such a huge difference in the processes between bringing a child into your home by birth versus adoption! We adoptive parents gladly present all of our financial statements to several different strangers, get fingerprinted several times, get certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage licenses, spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a social worker to come to our house, inspect it, interview us, and hopefully be willing to write a report on our behalf stating that he or she thinks we will be good parents. We send off checks in tens of thousands of dollars to people we have never met for attorneys fees and processing fees. Some of that money goes toward the well-being of our future child (housing, care, diapers, formula, etc.). Then we wait (and wait and wait and wait). Months (or years!!) later, we have the pleasure of bringing home a child we have been praying for. And after the honeymoon period, it's time to get down to business again. Blah.

Don't misunderstand my message here. I LOVE my daughter and would do it all over again, in a heartbeat. She's worth it- ALL of it. But there is a part of my heart that wishes it was simpler and is a envious of those for whom conception happens naturally. They don't have to fill out forms or be found worthy of the child they are going to have.

Eight months ago, I really had "baby fever". We were still in process for Isabella, but I missed her being a baby and started longing for another baby. Now, the thought of starting that long process all over again is just too much for me. I'm sure we'll eventually get there, but it's just too overwhelming right now.


**Disclaimer** This is typical for a Guatemalan adoption. It is my understanding that there are other countries with different processes and it is possible to change the child's name in their birth country. This is not the case in Guatemala. I don't know why it is different from one country to the next, but can only assume it has something to do with how the adoption paperwork is processed, because that is dramatically different from one country to the next.