Independent Home Study Interviews and the next step....

Last Friday I had my one on one interview with our social worker and today Brad is having his! One step closer, one check mark on the to-do list. Those lengthy (12  page) autobiographies were tough. We had a great interview and discussed our families of origin, marital relationships, and common issues that might arise once we get home with our child. It was great to hear her wisdom on some issues that we hadn't considered. We finished the meeting and went over the remaining items on our home study check lists and made plans to meet up after Christmas for our final joint interview. We will be getting our physicals, doctors notes, employment documents, etc. ready these next couple weeks.  We also have several education requirements to complete during this time. We are reading the book The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis- I would recommend this reading to all parents- adoptive or not! It really helps having a hard copy of easy to follow, easy reminders to keep visible when difficult situations may arise with our children. We also have to complete Hague training, US Department information, Unadopted program, and some other education reading. We are hoping our HS is completed by the middle or end of January...but if you are wondering what is keeping us busy during this month...now you know!

Once our interviews are complete, all of our documents and education complete, our social worker will write up and lengthy document that will be finalized. At that point- the process gets a bit more difficult to understand to the average lay person...me included! I have to pull out my manual, meeting notes, and abbreviation cheat sheets each time I look at this process. Slowly, it is beginning to make sense to us!

-Along with our home study, we will file an application called an  I 800 A- with the CIS in order to be approved to adopt internationally. The USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) is the department within homeland security that is responsible for issuing approvals and permits to families to bring their adopted child into the U.S. from their country of origin.
-Approval from Immigration can take approximately 2-3 months to receive.
- While we are waiting for this approval, we will be finalizing, certifying and authenticating all of our documents into a large collection of 13 documents- called a Dossier (pronounced doss-ee-ay).
-Once we receive our approval we will mail all of this (our dossier) to the CCWA (The Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) which is located in Beijing, China.
-DTC- Dossier To China! This is a big milestone!

So our next steps will lead us to China!! Taking baby steps...but very exciting, with a lot of waiting.

Prayer requests: Pray that we can accomplish all we need to by the end of January to get this ball rolling! Finishing the home study will be a load off  and freeing to know we are moving on into the next phase.

We received our first little gifts for our little love this weekend!! Envisioning having our new addition next Christmas makes my heart jump for joy!!