Received Dossier Guidelines

We've been a little busy lately so it's been a while since I have updated our blog. In the last couple of weeks we went to Gatlinburg with some friends and then when we got back we went to Columbus to start looking for the area we would like to live. The day before we left we got our dossier guidelines which was pretty exciting! It was like getting a present at Christmas to go through it all and see what we needed to do. It just felt good knowing that we could start the next step to getting our baby.

Well, I suddenly realized after looking through everything that it was going to be a little more complicated that I realized. I know everyone said it would be a lot of work but I had seen a checklist and a lot of the stuff we already had from our homestudy. We have to compile all our documents and then get them all notarized in the state they originated from, after that we have to have them all certified by the Secretary of State but apparently, Kentucky is a little different from other states because before we can do that we have to get it county certified in the county that the document was notarized in. That should be fun because our documents have been notarized in at least 3 different counties. Luckily though, we can take it to the Secretary of State in Frankfort in person to be certified so we should be able to get it back right away instead of waiting two weeks. Once we get that done then we will send everything to the Vietnam Consulate in California to be authenticated which will take about two weeks. Once we get our I-171H we can get it certified and then send out dossier sent off. We are hoping to have it all done and sent off by the end of February. It's a lot to do, but it will be so worth it when we see our baby for the first time.

Things are a little stressful right now with the situation with the Vietnam adoptions. The agreement between Vietnam and the US expires on September 1, 2008 and the US is saying to be cautious because it might not be renewed. I am a little nervous about what that will mean and if we aren't going to get to complete our adoption but I just have to have faith that God will see it through because we truly feel that this is His will. Hopefully we will know something in March when the intent to renew is supposed to be signed. Our hope is that we can get our dossier in and have our referral before September...we are praying that even if they don't renew the agreement they will at least let families that are in the process complete their adoptions. We will just have to continue to pray that God will see us through and have faith. We are pressing forward with that in mind.

Our Home Study Is Finally Approved!

I am so excited...our home study has finally been approved by our agency and sent back to our social worker! Of course, when I say "our agency" I mean the first agency that we had originally started with. I know we are crazy:) but we switched back to them. This is our final switch but we just never felt comfortable with the new agency and then when we started having communication problems with them we just felt we should change. I had called and emailed the agency several times with no responses or I was told he would call me right back and he never did. Then I was told twice that he would contact our social worker "first thing in the morning" and another time "I will contact her tonight" and two days later she had still never heard from him. Needless to say, I was stressing out. Luckily, we had only sent our application and that is all so we did not lose out on any time. Well, after going back with the first agency, within about 2 hours we had the approval for our home study! I am so relieved and excited! Our social worker is having it notarized and then she is sending it to the USCIS on Monday so she said we can expect our I-171H approval in about 30-40 days. Once we get that then we will be sending our dossier off!

We also started our adoption education classes today. We have to each complete 10 hours of education for our adoption and it feels good to be able to do something while we are waiting. Of course, right now we should have plenty of things to keep us busy and hopefully make our waiting go quickly.

Home Study Update

I thought that we would have a definite answer today on our home study but I called our agency this morning like they asked me to and was asked to call back in a couple of hours. Well, when I called back I just got the answering machine and did not get a call back today. Basically, our agency is just supposed to review our home study and let our social worker know if it is okay for her to send off and it has been a little frustrating because it is hard to talk to anyone. I guess they are really busy because they were closed the week between Christmas and New Years so they have a lot to catch up on. I am trying to be patient but I just really want to get our HS sent off so we can get our I-171H approval and get our dossier together. I decided this evening to go ahead and email him about it and to ask him a few other questions as well. Specifically, can we go ahead and start gathering our dossier documents and what do we need to do to start our required 10 hours of classes. Hopefully I will get an answer tomorrow so I can quit thinking about it:)

It's been a busy day today because we also had two different real estate agents come look at our house today. This is all new to us so hopefully we pick the right one. I still can't believe we are getting ready to put our first house up for sale. I sure thought we would live here longer than three years but I know this is a great opportunity for us to move to Ohio. Both of the realtors think our house should sell quickly but of course I'm sure they have to tell us that so we will "pick" them:) I have to say though, I don't really want our house to sell too quickly. We have until the end of July to move and I would like to take every minute of it. I guess we will make our decision this week and officially put our house up for sell. In the meantime...hopefully our HS will get sent in!

We Got Our Home Study Draft!

I am so excited! When we got home from our trip to see Nic's family last night I had an email from our social worker with the draft of our HS. We were just talking about it on our way home and wondering when we would get it. It is such a relief to know that it is in the process. It had a few minor changes and corrections that she wanted us to email back to her and then she has to send it to our agency for approval. Once she gets that she will get it notarized and certified and then it will be sent in to be added to our I-600A so we can get our I-171H approval to adopt. Things are moving along again after being at a standstill over the holidays. We are going to contact our agency this week to see if we can go ahead and start getting our Dossier documents together.

It's A New Year!

Christmas and New Year's are over. We had a great time with both of our families and we see how blessed we are. Nic and I had a nice time just the two of us on Christmas morning. He is so sweet and thoughtful...he gave me the cutest ornament that has a stork carrying a Vietnamese baby in a Vietnam flag. I was so excited when I opened it and I took pictures so if I can figure our how to post pictures on here I will.

This other ornament was given to me by my friend Rebekah the day after we started the adoption process. It is our first "Expecting" ornament.

It is going to be an exciting year this year! After over a year of infertility and crushed dreams a new year and new hopes and dreams are beginning. God is so good and I'm so grateful that he has led us to this path. I feel such joy and excitement over our adoption that is is hard to explain. Hopefully this year we will get our referral and picture of our beautiful little girl. We've got a lot going on this year especially in the next few months. The two major things are getting all of our paperwork and dossier done and sent to Vietnam and our move to Ohio. Now that Christmas and everything is over we can put our energy to getting our house ready to sell. Thankfully, we are so blessed with Nic's job that they are having movers come and pack us up and move us so I don't have to worry about doing that. I'm excited and nervous about moving. I'm looking forward to the adventure of moving but I'm really nervous of what it will mean in our adoption. It will probably be about 5 or 6 months before we move so I'm hoping our we will be DTV but I don't know what it will mean to have to change our address and what all that will involve. Hopefully it won't delay us too much but we just have to leave this in God's hands. It's hard because my nature wants to control the situation but God has been teaching my through my infertility that He has other plans for me than I have and His plan are better. His timing is perfect and there is a reason for any delays we may have. Every delay we experience is to bring us to the one baby that God has for us in Vietnam. I just hope that through the delays and bumps that I remember that:)

We bought our first little dress for Alexa this weekend! I am so excited to hang it in her closet as a reminder that she IS going to be here to wear it some day. It's hard because we can't really buy many clothes for her because we won't know her age and size until we get her but I couldn't resist with this dress:) The way it's made she should be able to wear it for a decent age range and with the colors I think she will be able to wear any time of the year so that is why I decided to go ahead and get it. I will try to post a picture of it also.

This is the dress I made for my niece Emma and I made an identical one for my niece Kate.