I'm glad you're feeling better, Italian. I know I sometimes need some quiet/down time to feel sorted again. Sort of a reboot of the systems. :)
Thanks, andie! The reading bonanza sounds familiar - I practically have a library building up over here. I guess I just like feeling like I have all the info. Or something. At the moment, I'm working through 'How to Talk to Kids So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk'.
The prep course has been very good. We have a friendly group and the sessions are a mix of informal presentations by the sws from our agency, experienced adopters and group activities. The last I thought would be weird, but actually, it is helpful to share with people, esp when those people are going through the same things! Dh and I have also found it sort of liberating to be able to discuss our situation openly (I mean, not full disclosure, but still pretty open) with other people who, again, have had similar experiences. In my own circle of friends, no one else is going down the adoption route, and no one has really had the fertility issues we've had. And although my close friends know our situation, we have only recently started widening the net. Hard to work it in before when everyone else seemed to be getting pregnant. But now that we are firmly on the adoption path, we feel like we have something positive we'd like to share.
So far so good with the home study visits. I have my second individual appointment this afternoon, actually! This time at home (last time it was at the sw's office). We're on a pretty good schedule - there's either an individual or a joint appointment once a week, plus prep group once a week. Plus all the background admin ... piece of cake, lol. Am working on my MA dissertation at the moment, so I was interested to see you're working on a PhD! I hope to go on to the PhD after some time off spent with our dc ('our dc' - I love the sound of that!).