My trip into Dallas

Today I got to drive into Dallas to pick up our Home Study. Yea!!!! The Director went over our next steps and we will be mailing a mound of paperwork down to the Secretary of State to be apostilled and filing our I-600A on Monday. None of this probably sounds very interesting or even understandable, but trust me when I say this is very exciting and will open up the door to our actual dossier. Yea again!!!! Once we get our paperwork back from Austin we will forward it onto our actual agency who will then in turn forward it onto Russia. From there we will be assigned our region, which means we will know where in Russia our daughter will be coming from, even though she won't actually be selected for us yet. Prayer requests: that none of our documents will get lost, postponed, or need a do-over, that all of our documents will be moved through the systems as quickly as possible, and that God will open up doors for us financially as we begin to apply for grants to help fund this adoption.

Home Study Update

Well, we made it through our home study. It was very different from what I expected, but having never done this before I did not have much to go off of. I knew going into this that the process would be an emotional rollercoaster, but hearing about some of the cases and living conditions that these kids live in (where we are adopting from) absolutely breaks my heart. It's bitter sweet to pray for protection for our daughter from such experiences, but terrifying to know that it is going on to other children (that we can't bring home).

Our case worker came and talked to me, Brent, me & Brent, and the boys for about 2 hours. She also went and checked out the boys' rooms. I have been talking back and forth with her and she is finalizing the home study and intends to submit it for approval from her director and then to us. Once we have it in our hands we will be forwarding it to our actual adoption agency as well as using it to apply for grants :) I have found out that you can't apply for any grants until you have a home study. This also means that we can start working on our dossier...yea!!! While I know that this is going to be a mountain of paperwork for us to complete, I am excited that we get to start working on it.