Taking the leap...

Originally written November 7, 2005

As many of you may know, we have begun the adoption process and have decided to go internationally through the China program. Our application has been submitted and today was our first meeting with our social worker. As you can imagine, there's a lot of bureaucracy. I think we have a ream of paper that we need to fill out -- literally. We have paperwork to fill out for our agency -- Lifelink -- DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) and, of course, for China. The amazing thing is we have more paperwork to fill out for our agency than we do for China. We also have to be fingerprinted three different times -- FBI, DCFS and China.

Our home study will officialy kick-off on Monday, November 21, 2005. This is the meeting where our social worker will begin interviewing us as a couple. Two weeks later, she will meet with Jenn and I separately, then two weeks after that, she'll take the "home tour." This is to make sure that we have a safe home to bring the child to as well as adequate space.

Once we have been approved as potential adoptive parents, we will begin work on our dossier. The dossier preparation is not overly difficult. It just takes time on receiving the information in order to submit -- fingerprint(s) analysis, etc.

We are anticipating our dossier to be submitted to China as early as January 2006, but more likely in February. Once that is complete, we should have a "match" about six months later. So, we should know who our child is around August 2006.

We will then begin organizing our travel arrangements for two months later October/November 2006. We will be in China for 10 days and will have to prepare a "photo board" of our family -- be it ourselves or including some of you. This "photo board" is to represent us and tell the story of who we are.

We will receive our child(ren) on either the second or third day of arriving in China. The child(ren) will be anywhere from 9-13 mos. old, and, will, of course, be female.

In the meantime, we will be networking other couples that are in the same stage as we are. And, more than likely, will be traveling with them next October/November to China.

In the Spring, we will be taking "parenting classes" that is a requirement. These are two sessions on parenting.

We will be requesting twins, but because twins do not run in the Asian culture, we will probably adopt one girl. But who knows, there have been a few times in the past that couples have brought home twins and even triplets. We'll see...

For those of you we asked to be our references (non-family), you will be contacted by the agency to find out how we are/who we are/what we'relike/etc. Now, be nice!

I think that's it for now. It's going to be a fun, strange, and often times stressful journey for us. We ask that you be supportive and enthusiastic for us during this crazy year. I'm sure it will fly by.

Much love.