Short Update

We have approved a final copy of the Home Study report and sent in the acceptance letter. As soon as we get our original copies we can send in our packet with the I-800A form for the government. We are super excited!!!! I'm glad we are moving forward and that things are actually going pretty smoothly.

Have a Happy Halloween!

We are DONE!

We had our last meeting with the social worker last night. We turned in the last of our paperwork and went over some of the information we learned in the Heart of the Matters DVD program. Overall, it was a very nice meeting. We are very excited to finally be moving on to the next stage of the adoption process! Lori sent me a rough draft of the home study report and I read through it this morning. I didn’t have to make many changes, just a few things here and there. All in all, it looked good, so I made a few comments and sent it back to her for further review. Once it is finalized, we can approve and accept the home study report and send it in to the USCIS. We are at the end of the paperwork stage!!! FINALLY!!

We hope to be approved by the USCIS by the end of the year. What an AWESOME Christmas present that would be!

Almost Done!

Our last meeting with the social worker is this Thursday. We will be turning in the last of the paperwork (Heart of the Matters Certificates and a new Verification of Employment letter) and hopefully be looking at a rough copy of the home study report. Our DCF abuse/neglect research requests came back and all of our reference letters are in! This means by the end of the month, we should be able to apply to the USCIS and get our fingerprinting scheduled. YAY!!

Other than that, things have been pretty normal. The hectic flurry of paper has dissipated finally. We are focusing on the holidays now and trying not to think about all the waiting we have ahead of us.

Waiting for Paperwork

So, we have completed the Heart of the Matter Seminar DVD program, our local background checks are done. We are still waiting on Abuse Checks to come back and there are three people who have not returned the reference forms... Ahem... Ahem... We hope that our friends and family (you know who you are) will return those as quickly as possible so that we can move forward with the Home Study and complete that by the middle of October. We have everything we need to apply to USCIS and we are waiting patiently for the Home Study to be completed.

Aside from that, not much is going on. I recently accepted a new position within MIMA, so we have to re-submit some of the paperwork relating to employment verification. I know, I have really bad timing! But its a great opportunity and I'm super excited about my new job!

The Heart of the Matters Seminar

We took the test last night. Poor Chris was very grumpy about it. I agree with him a little bit that we shouldn’t be required to do something like the seminar or DVD, but at the same time, I think that the information is very important. Parenting an adopted child is not as straightforward as parenting a biological child. I think that the DVD series had a TON of really valuable information and that we learned a lot about attachment, the cycles of need, and how these things relate to the parenting plan. I only wish that it was done in a more interesting format.

The tests were not that hard, but the last part was a short answer/fill in the blank kind of test. That part was the most difficult and it was from the section of the DVD series that covered the most information. We had to go back to the DVD for reference several times.

All in all, we both did well on the first portion of the test. The latter portion must be hand graded, so we are waiting for the results from that part of the test. Once those come back, we should be completely done with paperwork. Next Monday we are heading to the police station to fill out local background checks. After that the home study is complete! I can’t wait!!!

Our Second Home Study Visit

The second Home Study visit was very short. Lori collected our physical exams and Chris’s biography and gave us information on some of the paperwork we were missing. We have to get local police background checks done for the home study, which we will do this afternoon at the police station. After that, all we are waiting on is the Child Abuse Records Search, the Heart of the Matters certificates, and the reference letters from my friends and family. So far, only one letter has come in. I’m hoping to have the home study process complete by the end of the month so we can get our approval from the USCIS by the end of the year.

Overall, the home study is going really well. We are learning quite a bit of valuable information from the Heart of the Matters video series as well. We discussed some of the things we learned from the video, our visit with CAWLI, and our thoughts on older children as well as children with special needs. Lori is great and I think she is really learning quite a bit about us, China, and our family.

The Cleaning Begins Again!

Well, our second home study is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. We plan on cleaning the house top to bottom (yes again) for the visit. My sister graciously offered to help. Fortunately, since the social worker already went around the house on the first visit, I don’t think she will need to do a thorough inspection this time around. And, since there are only two of us in the house, how dirty could it possibly get in just a few weeks?

We are down to our last bits of paperwork (we just need to get the doctor to sign the physical exam forms and collect the reference letters from our friends and family, and last but not least, finish the Heart of the Matters DVD series). The DVD series is very dry. We know we have to watch it, but the format is very much like sitting in an actual seminar for several hours. At least we can sit there in our PJ’s eating popcorn! Haha! We hope to complete the DVD by the end of the week. Well… At least I hope to complete the DVD by the end of the week. We have to have it completed by the time the home study is complete. That doesn’t give us that much time since everything else is nearly done!

Now if only I could get my mother to fill our the reference letter before the next millennium comes around…