The process continues....

Hey everyone. We hope you are all doing well. Things are good with us. Each week, we get one step further in the process. Right now we are trying to get a lot of stuff with our home study application complete, before we leave for our trip to Mexico with Nicole's family for Thanksgiving. Since our last entry, we have sent off our paperwork to CIS, sent in the initial application to ABC Adoption Services (our homestudy agency), sent off to have our dossier started (dossier = paperwork requested by the Russian government; we have decided to have a service do it for us - it's a lot of certified copies/authenticated forms/apostilled forms and it's one less thing we have to do - we believe it will be well worth the money spent) and we have been scheduled to go get fingerprinted this week. We received our homestudy history packet in the mail on Friday - they definitely want to know everything about us! We each have to write a 8-10 page autobiography, along with completing their full application and submitting forms (birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc). Once we send the application in, the homestudy visits will be scheduled - they have to come to our house 3-4 times for interviews, check out the neighborhood, etc. We actually got a call today from our social worker who will be completing our home study. She is contracted through our home study agency and is also a social worker for Catholic Charities in Chesapeake, VA. She was very nice and encouraging on the phone and assured us we would make it through the paperwork and she is there to help us with whatever we may need. That was reassuring! It has definitely been a learning process so far and we know we will continue to learn MUCH MUCH more. We have been reading a couple of books that have been insightful and eye opening. Nicole's sister, Lauren, works with a guy who is over in Russia now with his wife adopting a baby boy. We got the chance to talk with them before they left and they gave us some good tips. A couple of other people have shared names of individuals they know who have adopted from Russia and we look forward to talking with them about their experience. We have also been thinking about baby names....so stay tuned for what the decision will be for a name. FYI - November is ADOPTION AWARENESS MONTH...so try to learn something new about adoption :) As Thanksgiving approaches, we are thankful to have each and every one of you in our lives. We hope you all have a great thanksgiving holiday with your family. We love you all!

STEP 1 - COMPLETE

Hi everyone...it's been awhile since our first blog, but that is because we have been busy getting the first step of the process complete - THE GLADNEY INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION APPLICATION. Talk about paperwork...but we know that this will probably be the easiest application of all of them! We had to get copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, employment verification letters, physicals, Maggie's vaccination records, pictures and floor plan of our house, pictures of us, pictures of our family, references, insurance verification, forms notarized, fill out their application and contract and of course send them our deposit, committing to work with Gladney during this process. So, all of that is done.....YEAH :) Next step, the Home Study. So, nothing too exciting to share with you now, but we just wanted to keep everyone updated on what is going on. We want to thank all of you for your words of encouragement, prayer and support. We appreciate it now, at the early stages, and know it will be appreciated more as we continue to get closer to our child. We'll be in touch. Love to everyone!

As many of you know, we have been talking about adopting a child. After much prayer, research and discussion, we have applied to adopt through the Gladney Center for Adoption in Fort Worth, TX. In late August, we received a letter stating that we have been accepted to their International Adoption program. It was kind of neat because we received the packet about 2 days before Nicole's birthday - what a wonderful gift! We were so excited the day we received the information packet! After looking through the information on the countries that Gladney works with, we have decided to adopt a child in Russia. So, here we are...beginning the process (a LONG one) and we can't wait to share each step of the way with you. If you would like to learn more about the Gladney Center for Adoption or Russian adoption, click on the links on the left side of the page. We'll be in touch!