The Never Ending Paperwork

Well....we have started to try and piece together the last parts of our paperwork. We have two major documents left to put together. One is called the I-600A, which is our request to the US government to allow us to bring a child in from another country. The second is our Dossier...which is basically everything and anything you would want to know about Ryan and me. We need all police records, health records, birth and marriage certificates, letters of recommendation, bank statements, 401k statements, income statements....nothing is off limits. If anyone is considering adoption, just be prepared for all skeletons to come out of the closet because they want to know everything. We know it will be worth when we bring this child home. We have requested a girl, mostly because we have an entire house of girl stuff from Reese. However, we are open for either a boy or a girl. I may not have too many updates until we get our referral from Ethiopia. The rest of the time will pretty much be a waiting game. Time to research Ethiopia and prepare lifelong change we are embarking on and to try and get the rest of our lives in order before baby #2 arrives. We are always open for questions if people have any. I will try and get some resources posted for those who are interested. Peace.

Home Study

We finally finished our home study. It was ok, but neither of us are big on dishing out our entire life history to a stranger. However, we know it it just part of the process. The agency just wants to make sure that each child is going ot the best home possible. We had to answer a ton of questions about our upbrining, our families, our school experiences, how we were disciplined, how we plan to discipline our children, our strengths and weaknesses as a couple and as a family...you name it, they asked about it. It is nice to have that part behind us. We are heading into the last phase of paperwork, which is all the international stuff so that we can bring the child home with us. Then.....the wait begins. It could be up to a year before we get a referral, but we are praying it won't take that long. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the months ahead. We will need them.