Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Yesterday we had our homestudy. IF you haven't read our previous posts, this is a home visit and interview by a licensed adoption social worker to make sure we are good candidates for adoption and that our home is safe and child-friendly.

Alisha was very anxious about having the house inspected, so she had her mom come over and help clean the house from top to bottom, and I got to spend much of my Saturday giving my office a much-needed cleaning. Real estate creates a huge amount of paperwork, so I put my new file cabinet to good use.

We didn't know what to expect from the homestudy, but it turned out to be a recap of the questions we had already answered when we typed up our autobiographies. We ended up with a very friendly social worker, so that made us both more relaxed. We first met Jenny when we went to an adoption seminar in Columbus, OH. We will meet with her two times after we adopt as well. She helped make the process seem painless, and she told us that we had passed before she left so we wouldn't have to worry about it. She spent about three hours at our house, and then we rushed off to church.

Now we are in a holding pattern as we need the completed homestudy evaluation to turn into Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS). They will give us an appointment to be fingerprinted, and then it will take a month or so to get our document giving us permission to adopt internationally. After that our adoption agency mails our documents all over the place to get them notarized, authenticated, and copied so we can submit the completed package (the Dossier) to China. Once we do that, we will be looking at 8-12 months before we get the girls.

Most of what we have to do now is wait. I think that will be much harder, as for the first couple of months we have been kept busy running around town, making calls, faxing and emailing, and mailing documents.

Keep us in prayer as we finish the last few steps.

Love,

Gary and Alisha