I did it!!!

I certified mailed my I-600A application in on Friday!! We will see. I did not send in with it proof of our medical insurance or that extra form the I-134. If those are truly required by our local USCIS office I hope I get a phone call and they don't just reject my application and mail the whole thing back. I went over their website too and there was no mention of either of those 2 extra pieces so...fingers crossed...hope all goes well. I probably should have called like Debbie recommended but I didn't. Oh well...fingers crossed!!

I'm also sending in my last packet of forms to my homestudy agency today...all of our medical forms and labs and a packet of forms our placing agency has requested from our homestudy agency. I got an email from our SW that our report is written rough draft wise and that as soon as she receives the rest of our docs (mailed today) she can send us our homestudy to check over. Yeah!!

I just got an email from the passport agency that our passports are finished and have been mailed back to us and at the latest we should get them at the end of September. I can't believe it!! We had originally heard they were running late and wouldn't get here until the first week of November. I'm so excited!! Now if we can just get our I-600A application and fingerprints done and approved we can set up our appointment to meet with our placing agency and get our dossier packet done. I'm excited and maybe we can have our appt as early as sometime in Oct instead of Dec like I originally thought. Whoohoo!! Things are really moving!!

Dr. Appt today and the I-600A update

I have my doctor appt today to get my forms filled out and my TB test taken. Luckily we received our packet of forms for our dossier in time to be able to bring their medical forms with us so we didn't have to make 2 trips to the doctor. My husband and both boys already have their forms completed and hubby has his TB test already read and signed off so it's just me holding up our final packet of info to send off to our Homestudy agency. We had our labs done a few weeks back so we have those already to send in too. I'm hoping on Monday I can put the packet in the mail just as soon as I go back to the doctor and have my TB test read. I'm kicking myself for not getting that TB done earlier this week so I could have been done today and had it in the mail...bummer!!

I'm also ready today to certify mail my I-600A application off to the local USCIS office. I called my homestudy agency just to double check that I had everything ready to mail off in that I-600A application yesterday and they said the USCIS also requires proof of insurance that your adopted daughter will be covered when she is adopted and also another govt form I-134 Affidavidate of Support not an adoption form that basically says we can financially provide for her. She said that only our local USCIS office is requiring that extra form...just figures!!! Has anyone else had to do this? I looked all over the immigration website and can't find anything that mentions either of these two requirements. She said I could go ahead and send it in just know to begin getting those forms so when they call for them I'm ready. Ugh...the form collecting just never ends..more trips to various offices more forms to gather.

The interviews

We have met with our social worker twice now. She is so friendly and bubbly that she has made us feel very comfortable sharing ourselves. So far it has been a relatively painless process. I'm not sure what kind of questions I was expecting...being interviewed about yourself sounded intimidating but it hasn't been anything too deep or hard to answer. Tomorrow we have our last meeting with our social worker..our home visit. Time to tidy up this evening.

I have already received some forms from our placing agency for our dossier so I have started collecting those documents and making appointments again. So far all the forms have been straightforward and not that different from the ones we used in the homestudy. I'm hoping to send off our I-600A form this week..I have all the documents ready and hopefully the homestudy will follow it next week. I just need to goto the bank and get a money order. We also have our doctor's appointments this week and we already went and got our labs done a few weeks go and I've received my lab results already...I've passed...yeah! Hopefully hubby has too. It was my first cholesterol panel I've had done..so I was a bit curious what it would say but it was normal...thank goodness. We are moving and groving along. Hubby goes back to the classroom this week so this was our last big push to get all the inperson interviews done. We just have one big last test...the MMPI psychological evaluation. Basically it's personality inventory given to see if you can cope with life's normal stresses. Never had one of those done either...should be very interesting. I'm still trying to find a psychologist close to home that performs this...sometimes companies require new employees to have this done so it shouldn't be too hard to find. I think the only 2 things holding us up from going forward on our dossier is getting our passports back and hearing back from immigration on the status of our I600A.

Things are looking good. I spent all last night looking at the russian photolisting put out by MOE at all the babies born in 2007 in the regions our placing agency works wondering if one of the children already born this year could be our future daughter. It was quite exciting and feels really real...I'm feeling closer to her than I have ever felt. My oldest has been talking about Emily a lot. How she will be smaller than him and Bubba. He can't wait to play with her and take care of her. Bubba says she can sit by him at the table. BW has talked about how we will go on an airplane to bring her home and that they will stay with their grandparents. Wow...the anticipation is making my heart thump so loudly. I'm just so thrilled!!

Homestudy Interviews Scheduled

We have scheduled our homestudy interviews. This is my hubby's last month of being off and our social worker was so generous with her schedule to allow us to squeeze our 4 interviews into what was left of this month. I'm so amazed and so appreciative of her working with us so quickly and on such a short time schedule. It would have been so hard for my hubby to try and take early days off in September when he has had the past 2 months off already. The 4 interviews we have scheduled include, a couple's interview, 2 individual interviews and a home visit with the family. Our social worker believes our homestudy should be completed and in our hands the first week of September. At this point the only thing holding us up is still completing our medical exams. As soon as we get back from vacation I will tackle the I-600A and send that in. I also need to see if the fee has gone up which I believe it did on July 30th. It's very exciting but interesting. It feels like you hurry, hurry, hurry up to complete and send in all of this paperwork, and then you wait, wait and wait and then it's your turn again to quickly try and gather more papers and send in something else just so you can wait in another line. I'm glad to participate though, that's for sure because I know that it means someday it will be our turn to travel and meet our baby girl and I just can't wait for that day!!

Passports renewed

Well, we took the kids and we all went and got our passport photos taken. What a funny ordeal. Hubby and I took our photos first so the kids could see how quick and easy it was and then it was to be their turn. Boy Wonder still wasn't sure and so I stood next to him but right out of view of the camera...he wouldn't smile and so his mugshot looks a lot like the children's pictures you see on the russian orphanage photolisting. Bubba would not even go near the backdrop to take a photo. The photographer suggested hubby put him on his shoulders and then duck down so his head wasn't in the shot...what comedy...poor hubby on the ground trying to avoid getting any bodyparts into Bubba's passport photo and trying to straighten Bubba up at the same time as he just wanted to lay his head down on top of daddy's head. Bubba's photo took more than all of ours combined and both kids photos look like the saddest and unhappiest children you had ever seen. Oh well...they only have their passports for 5 years.

Then off to the passport office to submit our paperwork. If your child is under 16 years of age both parents have to be present to sign off on getting the child's passport. I guess they want to be certain that one parent is not abducting the child from the country. There were only 5 people in the waiting room when we got there yet oddly enough the number I pulled put us at 15 people ahead of us...hmmmm. There were many school desks to sit at so the boys had a blast playing students, drawing pictures and eventually cleaning every desk with a pen wrapped up with a huge fake sunflower on the end of it they were using as a duster. They definately made the wait time go by so much faster...it's amazing how imaginative little kids can be.

Yeah..check off passport renewals...if all goes well our passports should be back to us sometime in November.

Small Steps

We have been so busy these past few weeks...but finally I was able to send off another packet of papers to our homestudy agency...our financial info...bank statements, w-2 and past years tax return, birth certificates x4, marriage license and our employment verifications letters. Our homestudy agency also contacted us and we have been assigned a social worker. Hopefully, we will hear from her later this week. Also, we chose a placing agency and sent off our application to them along with our family/home photos. Yeah!!! We are making small steps..but every step is one step closer to meeting our baby girl. Now, we have to work on getting passports, a psych test, medical evaluations, conduct our homestudy and send off our I-6ooA application.