Home study approved...finally!

I have been waiting to do this post for a long time.  It's been one month and 2 days since we had our last home study interview and I had no idea it would take this long to get it approved.  It took about a week and a half for our social worker to get the home study written up.  Then we were waiting on our last reference before it could be finished.  Our friends actually overnighted their reference so that it could get to our social service agency ASAP but then...nothing.  Finally, I emailed them to make sure they got it and they couldn't find it.  Great.  Apparently, whoever sorted the mail put it in wrong place.  The good news, they found it the day after I emailed them about it.  The bad news, they found it on the first day that the director went on vacation for a week and she's the only one who can approve it.  Okay, we wait.  She comes back and approves it the next day and sends it on to Holt.  Then we wait some more.  After a week, I email them to ask (nicely) how long they think it will take.  They email me right back but don't answer my question.  Finally, after having it for a week and a half (I know, it doesn't sound like much but it seemed like forever) we got the email.  Our homestudy has been approved!!  Now, our social service agency notarizes it and sends us 3 copies, one of which we will send to USCIS with our I-800A application.  And then...we wait some more...a lot more.  But hey, at least we've made it to this point!  It's taken so much work to get here, I feel like this is a major accomplishment.  Now, let's see if I can get some sleep.  Ha!

Superhero eyes

Ella is very excited about adopting a little girl from China.  We've talked about it a lot and she has asked some really good questions.  We talked to her about what a home study would be like since she was going to be involved and she did her own "home study" of me one day.  She got a pen and pad of paper and asked me questions like, "Do you promise to always love the baby?" and then she would scribble on the paper after I answered.  She has even gotten money out of her own piggy bank and put it into our adoption piggy bank, which made me so proud that I cried.  I told her that we will tell her little sister someday that she helped us to bring her home by using her own allowance.  We've discussed the fact that our little girl will be her real sister and our real daughter even though she didn't grow in my tummy and looks different than us.  The other day, when we were driving home from preschool, Ella said that our little girl from China would have superhero eyes.  I said, "Superhero eyes?"  She said, "Yes, and she can see reeally far away."  I couldn't bring myself to correct her because I thought that was just one of those adorable 4 year old ideas that come with such a wonderful imagination.  I'm sure her little sister will someday get a kick out of the idea that her big sister thought she had "superhero eyes".  :-)

The Beginning...

Oh boy, here I am doing something I never had any desire to do...start a blog.  But here I am, entering an amazing journey that I always hoped for but never knew, until recently, if it was truly in God's plan for us.  Years ago, God placed the idea of adoption on my heart and I mentioned it to Erik and, amazing man that he is, he was all for it.  We both were, as a maybe thing in the future.  We have since been blessed with our  beautiful children, Ella and Ethan.  Around the end of the summer, the idea of adopting a child really started to weigh on my mind.  Being the type A person that I am, I began to research.  Where?  How long would it take?  How much would it cost?  What are the requirements?  Is this really possible?  I asked Erik his thoughts and he really wanted to do it.  So we took some time to think about this and pray and we knew that this was what we wanted to do.  After a lot of researching, we decided to adopt a litte girl from China.  Ethan was only about 15 months old at the time, so we thought, maybe we should wait until he turns 2...?  We prayed some more.  After all, God knows when our daughter in China will be ready for us.  After a lot of prayer, we just knew He was saying, nope, now is the time.  So on October 1st, we applied to Holt International.  We were quickly accepted into the China program and our journey began.

Now, here it is December and we've made some great progress.  On Friday, after over a month of getting all the paperwork ready for our home study, we had our first home study visit and then yesterday, we had our second home visit.  As scary as a home study sounds, it went great.  Yes, it's a little intrusive but understandably so.  After all, they're trying to fit a child with the right family.  What could be more important?  So the homestudy is a big deal.  Now, we're just waiting on our social worker to get it all put together and then she will send it to Holt and once they approve it, we will send it to USCIS (Immigration) with our I-800A application to get approval to adopt a child from another country.    It takes 2-3 months for them to process this so it's a long wait.  While we're waiting on that, we'll be finishing up our dossier, which is a whole lot of paperwork that China requires for adoption.  When that is done and we get the approval from USCIS, we'll include that in our dossier, along with our home study and send it to Holt who will make sure everything is done right and then they will send it to China.  Once our dossier is logged in, we can officially receive a referral for a child.  Yeah, it's confusing and a lot of work but it'll all be worth it when we receive the referral for our daughter!