Approved at Last!!!

We've been waiting several weeks, but our home study has finally been approved!!! We can now go forward with completing the I-800A, which is the last major document that we have to submit and have processed. It still may be a few more months, but we are now well on our way to getting everything in our dossier submitted! What a relief!

Home Study Submitted

Well, we finally got in all our paperwork for the Home Study into our social worker last week, and she submitted it for review to Great Wall. It takes about 3 weeks to find out if it's approved, and there are usually changes that need to be made. So it will probably be a several weeks before we know for sure that we are once and for all eligible to adopt.

One Step Closer

Week before last we sent off our adoption documents to Austin to be certified by the Secretary of State, then got them back yesterday. So I made copies of everything and this morning repackaged them and sent them to the Chinese Consulate in Houston, where the documents will be authenticated, meaning we are one step closer to getting all our documents ready to submit our dossier to our adoption agency, Great Wall China Adoptions.

We applied for our passports about 3 weeks ago and had to provide certified birth certificates that were sent in with the applications. I didn't think to make photocopies of the birth certificates, which I now need to complete our home study, so I'm going to check the status of our passports tonight. If it looks like it will be a while before we get them back, we'll go ahead and order more birth certificates so we can finally get our home study in to Great Wall and, Lord willing, approved.

As I said in my previous post, as much as a pain as this "paperchase" might seem, I actually find it enjoyable! I guess it's kind of like pregnancy. For those of us who had a very uncomfortable one, it was a pain that was not without reward. And that's how I see the hassle of assembling all the paperwork. At the very end, when I'm standing there holding my baby in my arms, I will know all that "labor" (and years of waiting) was SO worth it!

Paperwork Pregnancy

I've heard people refer to the process of adoption as a "paperwork pregnancy" before, and now I see why! We are slowly but surely getting all the paperwork filled out and notarized, then getting ready to send it to Austin to be certified, then to Houston to be authenticated. Tomorrow we're all three going to apply for passports and get police reports, as well as getting some more documents notarized afterward. Miles and I have had our shots and physicals, and Chip's physical is scheduled for Friday. At times it seems a little overwhelming, but overall, it's really not as bad as I thought it would be. I put off even getting started on it all for a long time (too long), but now that we've started, it's actually moving along pretty quickly.

I'm actually finding recently that I'm enjoying this part of the process! I like the challenge of getting it all done, knowing that all the hard work will lead us to the reward of our precious daughter.

Hoping for a Baby

Miles and I met our social worker a couple of weeks ago, then yesterday afternoon, she came to our house to meet Chip and my parents. She talked to us about the process of adoption, and told us the hard truth about the conditions that many Chinese orphans live in. It was so difficult for me to hear, but I needed to hear it. Because of what we heard about the harsh and horrendous life those children have, Chip and I have decided to request a younger child. Before, we had wanted an 18-month to 24-month old, but now we want as young as we can get, so that our child will have to endure those conditions for as little time as possible.

I'm very excited about the prospect of getting a baby! For a while I resisted the idea, but lately, even before our social worker's home visit, my motherly instinct started kicking in again and I found myself wanting to know my second child as a baby, to have those baby pictures to look back on and to have those baby memories. Of course, it is up to God what age child we actually get, but I am praying for a baby now and I so look forward to doing the baby stuff a second time around (well, except for maybe the changing diapers part!).

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue on our journey. We are now starting to really get the paperwork together and I'm beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. But with God's strength, we'll make it through.

Prayers Needed

Yesterday I heard the sad news that my cousin and her husband decided to terminate their agreement with their adoption agency. I know this was a very hard decision for them to make, and I think everyone involved is heartbroken. Please keep them in your prayers as they deal with this great disappointment in their lives.

Progress!!

We raised enough money to send in our first contract fee for the adoption on Friday!! We're so excited about this, because it means that now things will start moving a little. Now we're waiting to set up our first home study, and in the meantime, we're scheduling physicals and immunizations, working on our autobiographies and getting passports, etc. We'll have a mountain of paper work to get together (called a "dossier") over the next several months, which will then be sent to China.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers about the adoption. God has blessed us so much already in the adoption process and we pray that He will continue to do so.