opening up to out of state

Recently we called our family advocate social worker just to check in and see if there was anything we could do since the phone has been silent.  She said that sometimes it's just like this, which makes sense, because it all depends on how many birthparents they are working with and where they are in the process.  She reassured us that our grids are all pretty open so there isn't much to change, but that the one thing we could update was to open ourselves up to out of state referrals. 

When we first filled out our grids, more than six months ago, we decided to only be open to cases in NYS because out of state can get a lot more expensive with the travel and needing to stay in the other state for a while (you have to be cleared to cross state boundaries).  We decided that if we were still waiting after a year, we would consider out of state.  Our advocate told us that they had a few cases from out of state recently and that the costs were about the same as some of our previous calls.  So we thought about it, both agreed that we didn't want to wait until the year mark that we had previously set, and decided to open ourselves up to it.  Why not?  I don't feel as scared of the possibility as I did before, and we also have the option to say no to a case if it unfortunately is not feasible for us. 

The other night we sat down with the grids, and because they have been re-vamped, we re-did them all.  We checked the box "will consider" for out of state, and now we'll see what happens!  I feel like this step was one of faith and renewed trust that God has every single piece of this journey in His control.  Now we have less to limit us by, so God can work!