Paperwork Progress

The adoption process is completely new to us, and we really had no idea what to expect.  I figure that's the case for most people.  So here's a little detail on the less glamorous side of adoption -- the paperwork:

We mailed in our application to the home study agency first.  We're using Adoption Assistance because they came recommended by a local church we trust.  A few days later we got a letter back from them with a list of things to collect before the home study itself.  Within a couple of weeks we had all those things ready to go.  They asked for copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, letters of recommendation, background checks from all the states we'd lived in over the past few years, child abuse registry checks, letters from our employers, copies of our federal and state tax returns from the last three years, a letter from our bank, a letter from our water company, copies of our drivers licenses, medical documentation and a few other things.  I told hubby I thought adoption was turning out to be easier than I'd heard...we were able to gather all this stuff pretty quickly and easily.  I have to admit, I was motivated too.  Most of my spare time went into trying to speed things along if I could!

We got in touch with Adoption Assistance to let them know we had just about everything ready and they scheduled our first interview for the home study.  We met with a wonderful social worker, Missy, at Starbucks and she asked some pretty general questions about us, our families and our parenting ideas.  It turns out that her husband is a student at the same seminary as hubby, and they've adopted two children from Guatemala.  We scheduled the second half of the home study for this coming Tuesday, and she'll be coming to our apartment to look it over.  You can be sure this weekend you'll find us at home cleaning to get ready for her visit!!

Somewhere along the way we started collecting the few things we needed for our adoption agency application.  They asked for five letters of recommendation, a picture of us and copies of our passports.  I let the case worker know our stuff was on the way, and she was really kind to give me a user name and password to log in as a client on their website so I could see what we needed to be collecting for our dossier.  I'd heard the word dossier thrown around but I really had no idea what it meant.

It turns out the dossier is a pretty big deal.  Thankfully, some of it overlaps the home study paperwork.  I'm SO glad I saw the dossier checklist before we handed over original copies of our home study application!  And they have editable documents on their website that are making my life a lot easier.  I think we've got all of it ready except the home study approval, which we're hoping to have in about three weeks.  Then it needs to be notarized.  The Lord has graciously given us two friends that are notary publics.  How good is He??  I think after that we have to take it to the the county clerk and then the capital of KY to have it authenticated.  Then we make four copies -- one to send to Ethiopia, one to Washington DC, one to our agency and one for us to keep.  We haven't gotten that far yet, but we'll figure it out along the way.

In the meantime, we filled out a US government form to request citizenship for two immigrants.  We went downtown and had to be fingerprinted when we turned it in.  First time for everything!  I guess the FBI will run background checks to be sure we're not criminals.  This form takes 75 days to process once they have our home study approval, then we'll be eligible to receive referrals.  So we're hoping in January we might have a referral -- a picture and medical history of our children.

We're also working on a baby registry, grant applications, getting life insurance and this blog.  It's been a whirlwind!

We look forward to the day when we can tell our children how much we were eagerly anticipating their arrival as we labored to bring them home!!