Homestudy

Last night we drove to Huntsville to meet with our Social Worker, Kathie. It was time for our update and she has to see and talk to everyone in the family. The girls were disappointed to miss church services, but this was the only time she could meet with us before 4/4 and we wanted to go ahead and have her working on our stuff, as well as the updated paperwork I have to fill out.
The meeting lasted approximately 60 min. where we discussed the new direction we are headed and the implications of adopting a child from another race. Something we have had to discuss at every meeting so far since we have applied to Guatemala, Vietnam, and now Ethiopia.
Today I wrote out updated ages and interests of the girls so she can change that part of our home study. We are also filling our our "Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry Clearance Request" papers again so that the powers that be can make sure that we haven't had anything come on police reports since our last home study update. Lastly, I will be mailing our $200 check to Kathie that was in Aaron's wallet the whole time last night. I remembered 1/2 way home that we forgot to pay her. I emailed her when we got home and told her it will be in the mail today and she was very understanding. oops.
I also have medical forms for our doctor's to fill out -for all of us. I think I will wait on those until we get the forms from our adoption agency. That will be after we apply next month. That way we can go to the DR. once and not twice to bug them to fill out paperwork for us...again...
Now it is work, work, work for me the next 3 weeks to get us financially ready to apply. Trying to be optimistic this time!

Welcome

I started this blog so that family and friends could come along with us on our adoption journey. We started this journey in March 2007 and it has had more downs than ups. Our adoption plans have laid dormant for the last 1 1/2 years while we recouped from the money lost in our last attempts. We are less than a month away and ready to start again.
Also, for those thinking of adopting, or who have had the thought "I'd like to adopt, but..." our journey will show you the blessings of adoption. Perhaps that thought was put there by God. There are approx. 147,000,000 orphans and God has a heart for them all. Can you help? Will you?'
Tonight our family is meeting with our social worker Kathy to update our homestudy. We will be officially changing our homestudy to reflect Ethiopia.
We have kept our homestudy updated for the last 3 years so we don't have to start over. Our homestudy is probably 12-15 pages single spaced about our family and our history. It covers a ton of personal information, so we don't want to start over.
With the agency we will be using, we also have to send in 5 references from friends and family with our application. So I have started handing those out. We should be ready to send in our application by the end of April, maybe sooner. Since we will already have our homestudy ready, it should shave a little time off our process. The agency predicts a 6 month wait for a referral, then approx 6 months or less to travel. Pray for us on this journey.