Dossier Preparation

During this last week our home study was approved and finalized by us and our adoption agency which means we are now ready to prepare the rest of our dossier- all of the paperwork that Ukraine needs before they will approve us to adopt.  We were initially very overwhelmed when we saw all of the paperwork we need to collect for our dossier.  Not only is there so much, but everything has to be notarized AND apostilled.  This will mean many little fees adding up quickly and, of course, more waiting time.  Several of these documents are things we already prepared for our home study a couple months ago, but Ukraine requires all documents to be dated within 6 months by the time they receive them, so we are needing to collect all of these documents again to ensure the date stamp will fall within that time frame by the time everything is collected, translated, and received on their end.  We will need to collect all of the documents, have them notarized, and then mail them to the state capital where they will be authenticated with an apostille and mailed back to us.  Our goal is to have everything sent for the apostille by the end of the year, but we know that will take a lot of quick work on our part.  Please be praying this week as we begin to gather as many of these documents as we can- that they will be easy to collect and the mail will be .quick- even though it's the holiday season!  And of course for continued finances, especially as many of these documents require fees that will quickly add up.  

We are excited to share that we have made over $200 from selling Stephanie's hand made gift items at the bazaar last weekend and via word of mouth.  Please continue helping us spread the word during the next month or let us know if you'd like to place an order!  We're also excited to share that we will be having another fundraiser night at the Heights Burgerville on Friday, December 2nd from 4-8pm.  We had a great time and a successful fundraiser there in August so they have generously offered to let us have one again.  We hope many of you will see us there!!  We are so grateful for all of your prayers and support throughout our adoption journey!

Home Study Draft Complete!

We received a copy of our home study draft early this week!  It is currently in the process of being edited and approved by us, our adoption agency, and our home study agency.  We are hoping to have it finalized within the next week.  Once it is finalized, our next steps will include gathering the rest of the paperwork and necessary documents for our dossier, which will then be translated and sent to Ukraine for them to review.

In the midst of all our waiting, we are continuing to work on fundraising ideas and have a great one for those looking for some unique, handmade Christmas gifts!  I am selling reusable produce bags, reusable Swiffer pads, and Christmas baking mixes in a bag.  They make great little gifts for neighbors, hostesses, teachers, and anyone else on your list!  Contact me for more info or to place an order!

 

Home Visits Complete

We had our second and final (pre-adoption) home visit with our social worker last weekend!  We finished up our individual and couple interviews and now just wait for the home study report to be written.  We will hopefully have a completed draft by the beginning of next month at the latest!  If everything from here on were to go as planned, we are probably seven months away from traveling to Ukraine.  We know delays are common with international adoption, so we are also trying to mentally prepare for all of the bumps in the road we may encounter.  Our best case scenario would be to receive our travel invitation for six weeks prior to the end of the school year.  This would allow us to use the maximum amount of adoption leave for everything in country AND have the whole summer for bonding time at home.  That is our hope and prayer, but we know we still have many hoops and hurdles to get through first.

We also have an amazing story to share: In our last post we shared how we were still quite a ways from having what we needed to make the next payment once our home study is complete.  About a week after posting that we received an unexpected check in the mail for the balance of what was left in our escrow account after moving.  The amount of the check gave us MORE than what we need for our next payment!  We never remember ever having that much in our escrow account (let alone thinking we would be getting a check for it) and we were completely shocked, but once again blessed to be reminded of God's faithfulness and our calling to this journey, even when it seems difficult.  We had read stories from other adoptive families about how an unexpected check would seem to just appear in the mailbox when they needed it most, but we always kind of dismissed it, thinking that would never happen to us because who would ever send us a check unexpectedly?  Well. apparently the mortgage company! We still have a long ways to go financially, but we know everything will fall into place in perfect time.  God seems to remind us of that at all the right moments.

If you have not had a chance to sign the petition at saveadoptions.org please do it now!!  The Department of State is working on pushing through some very concerning proposals regarding international adoption, some of which have the potential to even disrupt our adoption.  So please, please sign it!  If you are willing, please also write a simple note to your senators and representatives asking them to NOT support these proposals, due to the fact that they will make international adoption much more time consuming and expensive- two things that it already is!

Concerning News About Adoption

We received a letter from our adoption agency today with some concerning news regarding some changes the Department of State is proposing for international adoption, one applying specifically to Ukraine, and other non-Hague families (see point number one below).  We have attached the letter below in hopes that you will join us in going to http://saveadoptions.org/ and signing the petition, letting lawmakers know that these proposals are NOT in the best interest of adoptive children and families.  You can also email your senators and representatives asking them to NOT support these proposals.  They will only create more expensive hoops to jump through before bringing families together.  At this time we are unsure of when these proposals could potentially be passed.  Please join us in praying they will not be put into effect (for us and future adoptive families), signing the petition, and asking others to do so as well.

Home Study Update

Whew! So much has happened since our last blog post over a month ago!  A little catch up on our crazy lives: A new school year started for both of us the beginning of September and along with that we closed on the sale of our house in Vancouver, and the purchase of our house in Longview during the first week of school.  The following Saturday we moved into our new family-sized home!  We were very blessed to have an amazing moving crew in our family and friends which made the day so smooth.  We were then in crunch time to get everything either unpacked or somewhat organized because our social worker would be doing our first home visit two weeks after we moved.  But to make the time crunch a little more exciting, a couple days after moving, Stephanie left for a week to go to outdoor school, immediately followed by a workshop in California.  Eric was able to take care of all of the bigger things that needed to be moved around and organized, but there was still so much to do this last week prior to the home visit.  We were thankful to have some help with some unpacking this week, but we still ended up running around until just a few minutes before the scheduled visit!

Which brings us to today when we met our social worker in person for the first time and had our first home visit and safety inspection.  Amidst all of the busyness in the last month we were able to secure all but one piece of paperwork needed for our home study, including our immigration paperwork to obtain an orphan visa for our child, so now our interviews and home visits with our social worker are the last things we need before our home study draft can be written up and submitted for approval by our adoption agency.  Our visit today was very simple.  We had already made sure that everything that needed to be out of reach of small children either was up high or in a child-proofed cabinet, we had fire extinguishers on both floors, first aid supplies, and an empty bedroom which will become the "little one's."  The only thing we were missing were fire ladders for the bedrooms on the second floor which we can get before her next visit.  She seemed pretty impressed that we already had everything else in its place considering we had just moved!  We then sat down for a couples interview and individual interviews which included basic questions about why we want to adopt, things about our relationship, what our experiences with children have been, plans for after the child comes home, etc.  We will have our final home visit in two weeks and after that we should have a draft of our home study ready to submit for approval by early November at the latest. 

Of course with submitting more paperwork comes another payment due.  We were very blessed this summer with the couple fundraisers we did and the extra work opportunities we had.  However, we are still needing to raise about $3,400 for our next payment within the next month or so.  We are running out of fundraiser ideas so if anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear about them!  We are still selling coffee through our Just Love Coffee link, as well as collecting donations through our YouCaring page (see top right side bar for links to both).  We also still have some of our adoption t-shirts available.  Once our home study has been approved we will also be able to start applying for grants, a few of which we have already started the applications for so they are ready to go when the time comes.  We are prayerful that something might come from those to help us with future payments.

UPDATED Fundraiser Results

We are feeling so blessed by how many people came out to Burgerville for our fundraiser last night!  It was so great to see the restaurant so busy during much of the time, and so fun to see and talk with so many people we know.  The restaurant did nearly $2000 in sales during our four hour time slot, which means along with the donation jar they had out last week, we raised almost exactly $300 towards our adoption!  Knowing that this particular location was not always very busy even on a Friday night, we thought it would be great (and a bit of a stretch) if we could make $100.  We were definitely excited to see the final numbers at the end of the evening!  Thank you so much to all who supported us in this fundraiser!

An update on our home study process- We are just about finished collecting all of the paperwork we need for our home study.  We have also been reading books and working our way through online  modules in order to meet our adoption education requirement.  These books, documentaries, and online modules have given us valuable (and overwhelming) information on so many different things that come with adopting a child internationally- expectations (delays and stress) while completing the adoption process, attachment issues, medical issues, behavioral issues, cultural and historical information about Ukraine, etc. Now we are essentially just waiting until we move in a couple of weeks to our new home so that our social worker can come do our home visits.  After that, our home study report will be written up and we will be ready to submit it to our adoption agency as the first portion of our dossier.

Burgerville Fundraiser

A local Burgerville is willing to partner with us to support our adoption!  Please join us at this location and let us serve you up some dinner and/or dessert next Friday.  Help us spread the word so we can get the restaurant packed during these hours!