In the mail

Hello everyone! As we are heading in to summer (it's 100 degrees in Hampton today - HOT HOT HOT), we just received an email that our paperwork has been sent off to Russia!!! According to the agency, it was just sent this week to the in-country facilitator for processing and translation. So, the time frame they are telling us now is 9-12 months for a boy and 12-15 months for a girl. Since we do not have a preference, hopefully the wait time will be sooner than later. So, we just keep waiting!! It's a good thing that we are busy or the wait would be very hard! School is almost over, so Nicole is busy wrapping things up with that. Dennis is keeping busy with the Coast Guard. We are sponsoring a military officer from Lithuania, who is attending a class in Yorktown (where Dennis is stationed) and have had a great time getting to know him and learning about the Eastern European culture. We have had fun teaching him about America and taking him to some fun events around the Hampton Roads area. We hope to introduce him to many of you, since he will be in the US until August. We have a couple weddings to attend in June. We have family and friends visiting us in July and August. Then it's back to school and start the cycle all over again. We hope you are all doing well! We will be in touch as more information is shared with us....Love to you all :)

We are......APPROVED!!!!

Yes, everyone, you read it right....we have been approved to pursue international adoption through The Gladney Center! So, how did we get to this point and what is next? Well, since the last post, our homestudy was approved. The actual process was a piece of cake....it was putting together the final paperwork and making sure all of the wording in it was PERFECT and how Russia wanted it that has taken some time. They are VERY PARTICULAR in what they want and how things should be worded and nothing should be abbreviated or crossed out....it's definitely a TEDIOUS process, but well worth it. The people we are working with have been great at making sure things are done right, so we have been lucky to catch the "mistakes" before it all gets sent to Russia. We have made quite a few trips to the bank to papers notarized for the dossier. They know us now when we walk in - it's kinda funny! So, by the end of the week, Kate (the lady who is putting our dossier together) should have all of that complete. She will send it to Gladney and they will look it over and send it Russia. Once Russia receives our paperwork, they will review it and begin looking for a match. The estimate they have told us on finding a match is 6-9 months for a boy and 12-18 months for a girl. We are open to a boy or girl - whatever becomes available first. It's exciting to know that Russia will finally know who the Merz's are!!! We are definitely getting more excited...it just seems more real now that we have gotten through the first 1/2 of the process. We are thinking more seriously about how we are going to transform our "DINK" house into a "child friendly" home. We have been discussing names, nursery ideas, baby shopping - not buying anything, but just looking, applying for grants to fund the remainder of our adoption expenses and just praying that the rest of our journey continues with the success that we have had so far. All we can do is stay positive, pray for our child every day and thank God for all of our friends and family who have been so supportive of us since the beginning. It has been so fun sharing each step with all of you and we can't wait for the day to share our child with you!! This baby has no idea how lucky they will be to have each and every one of you a part of their life! We love you guys and will continue to keep you posted as things progress....

Homestudy.....COMPLETE :)

Hi everyone. Hope you all had a nice and restful Easter! We ended up staying in Hampton and spending it with some friends....so it was a quiet one for us, but nice! Since our last post we have completed all of our home study visits. After we met with our social worker together, we each had our individual visits/interviews. They weren't bad at all....Dennis went first (I think I was more nervous for him than myself) and then I had mine 2 days later. She just asked us about our childhood, our families, our relationship, our parenting/discipline styles, etc. Then today (TUESDAY), she came to our house for the final "pre-adoption" visit. She had a couple more questions about some information they were asking for in the report, then we showed her around the house, she asked about our plans for the child's room, met Maggie (our dog) and then she was done! So, what happens next, you ask???? She will finish typing up the report, submit it to our home study agency (ABC Adoption), submit it to Gladney, hopefully we are recommended to complete the adoption and then we finish up our dossier requirements and begin waiting for the referral. Dennis and I are calling this our "half-way point"....we've made it through the first part of the paperwork and waiting and are ready for Round 2!

Visit #1....COMPLETE :)

We had our first visit with our social worker today. This was basically a visit to get to know us and see how we have gotten to this point of deciding to adopt. I think we were both nervous (even though we told each other we weren't) because it was silent the entire 30 minute drive to her office...ha ha ha....but it was pretty easy. It was kind of a question and answer session, we went over some paperwork, she gave us some things to think about and our next visits are booked. She is meeting with Dennis on Tuesday (3/18) and Nicole on Wednesday (3/19) for the individual visits - stay tuned for the details on that!! Then she comes to our house on Saturday (3/29) to do the last and official "home visit". She assured us that we do not have to have our home "babyproofed" yet - she is just looking to make sure we live in an environment suitable for a child. After that, she writes up our report, sends it to Gladney for approval and then we submit it to our dossier send that off to Russia and then the waiting for a referral begins. Once the dossier is submitted, they estimate to have a referral within 6 months - so hopefully by October or November (at the latest) we should get our referral - if everything goes smoothly! We have enjoyed sharing our journey with all of you so far and can't wait to share the rest of it alongside with you.....please continue to keep us in your prayers! Love you all and hope everything is going well!

Finally.....something new!!!!!

Hey everyone! We hope this note finds you all doing well. Things have been busy with us. Between work, running our online business and waiting for news on the adoption - we have kept ourselves busy! A lot of you have been asking about any news....well, we finally have some! It's not much, but it is a start! The reason for the hold up for the past couple months is the Home Study Agency is waiting on our background and child protective services checks to come back. The reason it is taking longer than normal is that they are doing more extensive checks/searches and there are quite a few people going through the process (according to our social worker). But, we just got an email from her last night and even though they haven't received our checks yet, she wants to go ahead and start our home study visits! So, let the interrogation begin :) So, our first meeting with her is March 12th and 6:00...please keep us in your thoughts at that time - I'm sure we will be a little nervous! We will keep you updated as things change! Take care.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We had a wonderful holiday with our family and friends. We spent Christmas Eve with Nicole's family and Christmas day with Dennis' family. It was a quick visit, but a nice one! Then we were back up to NOVA to celebrate New Year's with friends (Cristin and Wayne). We are very excited to see what 2008 has in store for us....we know it will be a busy year, hopefully with a wonderful ending. We know it has been awhile since our last posting, but nothing much has changed. Still compiling PAPERWORK! We are in the home study portion of the process....just waiting for a date for the actual visit. We still have some forms (medical) that we are waiting on from our doctors, our criminal background checks to go through and our references to be returned. After our home study is complete (and hopefully approved) we will submit our dossier and wait for our referral! We have been getting a lot of tips from families who have adopted from Russia and are continually learning! So, we just wanted to give everyone an update and we'll let you know as things progress! We love you all and hope 2008 brings you many blessings!

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!