Details of international adoption

   There is no exciting news for today on the adoption front. We mailed in our application to Forever Families on Monday. Hopefully they will receive it today or tomorrow and we can get an appointment scheduled. Once we have our first appointment scheduled we can officially commit to a child. While we wait I thought I would share a little of the process, at least what I know of it so far. I am sure I will learn lots on the way. Mostly it is preparing lots and lots of paperwork. You first find a home study agency which conducts background checks and family history through home visits. We have compiled all of our birth certificates, marriage license, sent off child abuse checks and background checks, wrote about our mothers, fathers, siblings and our marriage, letters of reference from our jobs, had physicals, tax forms, and statements saying we won't use corporal punishment with our adoptive child. We still need finger prints but need the forms from the agency before we can do those. After we start our home study, we can start sending off our birth certificates and marriage licenses to the states they originated in. After being notarized  we send them to be apostilled, which is fancy word for a sticker that says they are authentic. Those forms will then go in our dossier. The dossier is large packet of all our paperwork that will be sent to Eastern Europe for approval. The dossier consist of our home study which will have to be sent to USCIS, federal finger prints (different then state, and we must receive an invitation to do those after our I600 form is approved at the USCIS), all our records notarized and apostilled, and probably much more but that is what I know so far. After compiled it must be translated. So in a nutshell that is what we have been working on for the past week or so.
   Another big thing we need to do is come up with $30,000. So far the home study fee is $1,900, and all the forms and paperwork we have ordered have cost around $400. We have been told that to finish the dossier cost around $5,000. The majority of the cost then goes to travel and  fees. Depending on the time of year we travel can mean the difference of thousands of dollars, but that is not in our control. Our current fundraising and donations total $1,400. I have resigned with Mary Kay and all my proceeds will go toward our adoption. I am having my first facial party Sunday at 6 if any locals are interested!:) Joey is talking about running a 1/2 or a full marathon and raise sponsorship per mile. (I will not be running:) We have heard that the timeline for Eastern Europe can be as fast as 5 months so we have lots of work to do. We are so very thankful that God has chosen us to be blessed with a orphan, and know He will provide for all our needs.