invisible thread

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

home studying

This part of the adoption process is boring. Lots of forms and reports. Getting letters of clearance. Trying to get documents from Ontario. Renewing passports. This all takes time and seems endless sometimes. Our current work is to get our home study meetings done so that our case worker can write up a big report on us. Tomorrow we have our third meeting with her and then one more. It will be nice to wrap this up. Many places that offer grants to help cover the cost of adoption require applicants to have a completed home study. That's what we'll be working on next.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Spring break and home study

We're one blood test away from being done with that round of paperwork. Next week we begin meeting with our case worker so she can update our home study. We'll have to meet four times for an hour each time. Meanwhile, we continue working on the online training requirements. It's hard to have any idea of timeframe at the point since we're really still in the early stage of this process.

In other news, it's spring break!!!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Otis

We had to say goodbye to our dog Otis last week. He was about 15 years old and his body was just not holding up anymore. He was a great dog - like a living, snuggly teddy bear. He always was up for a good tummy rub and was unbelievably gentle with our kids even when they were not very gentle with him. Rest in peace little buddy.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Forms, forms, forms,

Over the past week we've been working on filling out forms and gathering paperwork. This is a time-consuming part of the home study process. We have questions to answer about our childhoods, our parents, our marriage, our parenting style, what we argue about etc. We have to give all kinds of specific financial information. We have to take drug tests, get fingerprinted, get police clearance letters, doctor physicals, health insurance information, get copies of birth certificates, passports, etc. It's a daunting task and we have to remember that it's all about making sure we are the right family for a little boy or girl who needs one. The best we can do is pray for this little person who we don't even know yet and remember that God holds him or her in His hands.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Formal Application Approved

Our formal application was approved by Bethany Christian Services this week which was one of our first paper chase steps. Next we have to get our home study updated and start working on getting some money stuff in order.

Also, we were interviewed for a local program who was doing a segment on special needs adoption. Click HERE if you'd like to watch. Thank you for all of your support!

Sunday, February 24, 2013

A new journey...

It's been about a year since I put anything on here but I think we'll be posting a bit more regularly. First of all because I found an iPad app which means I can work on this without sitting right at my computer. Second, and more importantly, we're beginning the journey to go back to China to bring another child home. We turned our formal application in to Bethany Christian Services and once they've looked it over and approved it, we will begin the long paperwork part of this journey. The first step will be to get our home study updated.

In other news, we added a new dog to our family this weekend. We've named her Sweetie which is turning out to be about the most perfect thing we could have named her.