Adoption Update

For posterity sake, I am trying to blog or write down as much of our adoption process as I can.

Therefore, I will be posting these adoption updates periodically just so we (and someday our future children!) will be able to look back at our journey to bring them home.

Yesterday was our first home study visit for our adoption.

We liked our social worker and felt comfortable with her almost immediately. We gave her a tour of the house for her to verify we have enough space for our growing family, the correct safety precautions necessary for small children, etc. There was no looking in closets or cabinets. Although, after cleaning every closet out for the recent yard sale, I was actually a little disappointed that I didn't get to show off how organized they currently are =)

She also interacted with the kids for a few minutes. Ezra quickly showed his 2 year old self by answering "no" to every attempt at conversation with her. Oh well. Nothing like kids to knock down that perfection image!

We then sat down and talked about our autobiographical information including family backgrounds and connections and school and work history. We talked about the thought process that brought about our desire to adopt and our reasons for choosing Ethiopia. We also talked about how we plan to address any issues that might arise with our choosing a trans-racial adoption. She then interviewed Jeremiah for more in-depth discussions on his family background, personal highs and lows, how he deals with stress, etc. All very probing and thought provoking questions, but nothing surprising or unexpected.

Next week we will discuss our marriage and parenting philosophies in depth and I will be interviewed. Then we are done with the interview part of the home study.

We are almost done with paper chase and documentation needed to complete the home study. We are just waiting on a certified copy of Jeremiah's birth certificate as well as our state and federal background checks to be returned. We went this morning to be fingerprinted and got our notarized local police clearances.

We sent off our adoption processing fee to our agency this week and should receive our dossier education packet sometime next week. We already have an idea of the documents needed to go into the dossier and have been able to get a head start on a few things, but are holding off for specific instructions for the rest of the items needed.

As soon as we receive Jeremiah's certified birth certificate we will filing our I600A. Hopefully by mid-week next week.

For those of you wanting to know more about all this adoption lingo...

Home Study

Dossier (pronounced doss-ee-eh)

I600A (Immigration approval)

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