An update on where we are at....

Happy New Year! Hard to believe it's already 2012! Brandon and I headed back to work this week, and while it's nice to be back in a regular routine/schedule - it's hard to give up your vacation!! :) We've been making a lot of progress over the last couple of weeks on adoption stuff, so I thought I'd give you a quick update on where we are at!

We've ALMOST finished our autobiographical statements for our homestudy - we probably have about an hour more of writing to go. My goal is to finish it up tonight, so we can get it all sent off! All of our other homestudy forms have been filled out, and are ready to go. We've got the cat's vaccine records printed, received certified copies of our marriage and birth certificates. (that wasn't cheap!) I had my physical this morning, and my physicians report has been notarized, Brandon is having his done on Monday morning. All that we still have to do is photocopy our W2's and proof of insurance, make photocopies of everything and ship it off to our social worker!!!

So what does that mean? If only that was the only thing we have to do! :) After we get that sent off, we need to finish up MORE paperwork, for our homestudy review with our placing agency. What? Another agency? Yep, that's right! Because of the nature of our adoption, it looks a little different than your "typical" international adoption. (if there is such a thing!) Because we have chosen two girls we would like to adopt off of a waiting child list - we contacted the agency they are placed with - rather than waiting for an agency to give us a referral of a child. But, that agency is not local - so we had to find a local agency to do our homestudy, which then they send to the placing agency, and they will review it and then submit it to the girls' country in our dossier. (future blog post idea: adoption "lingo") So, we'll be filling out very similar paperwork for our placing agency and sending that off as soon as possible as well.

Then, we get to fill out MORE paperwork for USCIS (immigration) and have that ready to go, so as soon our homestudy is complete. After everything is submitted to USCIS, we'll receive an appointment date for fingerprinting - and once that is done we can submit our dossier to the girls' country. Once that is submitted, we wait to hear from the country about when we can travel the first time. We now get to take 3 trips to the country - per a new law that went into effect January 1st.

It's a crazy process - and I'm so thankful for the new friends I've made already who are going through the same process!! It helps to have someone to chat with who knows exactly what you're going through every step of the way! And can help you feel like you haven't completely lost your mind!! :)

Financially - we have a LONG way to go! We are thankful for each donation, small or large. We will hopefully be announcing some other fundraisers soon. Until then, please feel free to share our blog (or Reece's Rainbow Family Sponsorship Page) and our story. We fully trust that God is going to do amazing things throughout this process, and are already seeing evidence of Him in what we're doing. (Like the fact that when I called for a doctor's appointment, my doctor didn't have any availability until March - but when the person on the phone refreshed the scheduler, all of a sudden a cancellation appeared for this morning!)

Also, if you are crafty, or have a business that would be willing to donate your services/product - I would love to have a blog giveaway in the near future. Please let me know if you can help us out in that way! :) Thanks!!!