“We’ve finally got your background check back in. Does this Thursday work for you for the first home visit?”
$*#&@*. While I am utterly relieved and feel vindicated that my background check did not show me to be a spy during the extra month of unending waiting for it to come back, I wasn’t expecting the home study to be scheduled with so little notice.
Tim and I had asked lots of questions about what would be reviewed during the home study and I, in my usual fashion, had made lists of the things we needed to accomplish: install fire extinguishers, test all of the smoke alarms, get an extra smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector for Baby H’s room, clean the house from top to bottom, finish baby-proofing doors and the tall cabinets now that the girls can climb, tackle the organization problem in the master bath…the list was exhaustive and seemingly endless.
And we’d accomplished exactly ZERO of them.
Between the fundraising, making cupcakes, the biggest alliance partnership in the history of my company being launched and completing essay after essay after essay for the home study, we have been tapped out the last few weeks. Both girls developed a bad diaper rash out of nowhere, our cloth diapers needed to be stripped ( a two-day process), I needed to get a million things done for the fundraiser on Saturday…
And Phoebe was sick. Again.
This time we had to take her to an allergist and immunologist. I broke down after that appointment. I hate taking her to a place that makes her cry, and she has been to so many doctors that she cries as soon as she recognizes the type of place that we are in. Sometimes Hazel chimes in out of sympathy. Luckily, this time there weren’t any blood draws or anything painful for her. We have a new regimen for her breathing treatments and inhalers and hopefully we’ll get through the rest of the winter without incident.
This was just one of those days where everything seemed to be piling on to break me. Tim and I want this baby so badly and we are so afraid of doing something wrong and screwing it up. When I got the news about the last-minute home study, I knew it was time to call in reinforcements.
One mass text and several responses later, we had help lined up for the next couple of days. A couple of late evenings and a little flexibility occurred in the form of working from home, so I could shuffle everything successfully and swap loads of laundry over during conference calls and between meetings.
I could breathe again. Sometimes you have to break down in order to get clearheaded. We began breaking everything into manageable pieces that we could tackle, and getting everything ready for the home study actually went much better than we expected. Apparently, we are much more efficient at cleaning and organizing since we’ve had kids. We expected to pull an all-nighter before the home study, but we managed to be in bed by 10:30, which in parent time is the equivalent of 2:00 a.m. Not too bad.
AND OUR HOME STUDY WENT REALLY WELL! She had zero concerns, and walked around our house asking questions about the safety and how we did things. It went so well that a follow-up visit doesn’t look necessary at this point. (Makes me proud of my prep list.) We are at the finish line! We should have the final home study within two weeks and then we are ready for Baby H to come at any time.
Cancer Ever After 
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