Moving Forward

I'm so very excited...we have begun slowly inching our way forward on the adoption road. After having talked with a few clients of each agency I made the calls and started to talk with both agencies and so far both are sounding very positive. I'm leaning a little closer towards one but before we make a committment to either we are going to get started on our homestudy and continue talking with both agencies and hopefully that will give us more insight and help us make a final decision.

In order to begin with the homestudy we will need to find a local adoption agency that can work with us, meet with us in person and complete that part of the adoption process. Yesterday I talked with 2 different local agencies recommended by one of the international adoption agencies. One of the agencies is so close to us and was having a welcome/introduction meeting at their office last night so I went to check it out. After the presentation, I was able to talk with a few of the staff members about our adoption and our homestudy and really felt they were sincere, knowledgeable, committed and easy to talk with so it looks like we may have chosen our local agency to complete our homestudy. In order to begin, we just need to send in our application and both hubby and I will have to attend an all day preadoption class in July before we can be signed to our social worker. So far so good...sounds easy enough.

In the meantime, I have a partial list of papers that I will need to track down...marriage certificate, birth certificates for all, renew passports, get the kids their passports (just in case), bank statements, W-2's, recent tax return, fingerprints and recent family photos and photos of our home. Apparently the homestudy is pretty intrusive and both governments want to make sure we are good parents that can provide for a child and have no history of crime or violence towards others especially kids. Makes absolute sense I agree. But when I think of how easy it was for us to have our boys...the cost, the time, the wait, the emotions...it was nothing like the vigors of adoption. I constantly hear.. "it is not for the faint of heart." And the fact that it was only us that made the decision to start and add to our family and now that decision is out of our hands and being made by 2 governments, 2 countries and all the people in between...it's just crazy.

So keep your fingers crossed...we hope this first part...the beginings to the homestudy...goes relatively easy and painfree.