You Can Check Off That Box!

It was a very successful day on the adoption front! This morning we were able to get our fingerprinting done at the state patrol office. Let me just tell you how amazing technology is nowadays...as if you didn't already know. I was thinking we were going to go into the office and they would stick our fingers on an ink pad and then on the form...no sir...everything is done on the computer now. I don't know why that surprises me but it does. Then they just print our fingerprints right on the form. They look like the good ole fashion fingerprints when printed off but we didn't have to get all messy. It took about 5 minutes and we were done! We went straight to FedEx and mailed them to Lincoln where they will be run through the FBI database. Maybe I'm so surprised that it's done on computer since they had to be printed and mailed...if its all done on the computer why can't they just run them right there?

Anyway, after that we were off to the doctor's office where we had our physical exams and had blood drawn for our HIV tests. We also had to have TB tests...which is another thing I knew nothing about. So, they take tuberculin and inject it under your skin. It looks like you have a bug under your skin for the first little while. It's kind of creepy looking if you ask me! We go back on Monday to have them read the test...they will look at our arm and if the bump is still there and red then we have TB. If its pretty much clear then we are good to go!

Lastly, we were able to send in our in "Personal Information Data Forms" today, which are 22 page questionnaires that we had to each fill out. They ask you how you feel about your parents, the way you were raised, how you are raising your children, how your marriage is, what you think about the birth parents of the child you will adopt, and just about everything under the sun. But, ours are finished and we are making progress!

What does the adoption process look like?

It looks like a ton of paperwork to start! I thought I'd post on what we are currently doing to move along in our adoption...we submitted our official application to our agency on Friday, December 7th. Just with the application alone you have to submit a picture of your family and one of your home, your last 3 years of tax returns, the medical checklist (what medical conditions you are willing to accept and how severe), lots of other personal information, and a 12 paged initialed, signed, and notarized adoption agreement.

On a side note...we have lots of little testimonies along the way and I want to share them as they come! This may seem like a small one but we have someone at our work, who we didn't even know before but someone told us her name, who has volunteered to notarize all of our documents through the adoption process for FREE! Seeing that we've already had to have 3 things notarized in the first two weeks, we are feeling truly blessed! It is saving us money and time because she is in the same office building as Jonathan.

So our agency has a local office here in Omaha that will handle our home study and the Philippines program office is in Eugene, Oregon. We have already received lot of paperwork from both offices! Before our home visits can begin we have a lot of things to complete! Here are just a few to give you an idea:

• Background checks from every state and country we've lived in since we were 18 (that's 6 for us if you haven't been keeping track of all of our moves!)
• We have to get fingerprinted and have them run through the FBI database
• Lots of agreements and financial statements (how much it will cost for us to adopt...how does $25,000 sound?)
• Financial worksheets (showing how much we make and how much we spend monthly)
• Physicals by our doctor including HIV and TB test results
• References from 4 people not related to us
• Adoption classes (We will be taking these Jan 4 & 5)
• Copies of our birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc., etc., etc.

Needless to say it's a lot. Some of those things above will also be used in our Dossier that goes to the Philippines and basically presents our case for us. The dossier includes a lot more...like a Mental Evaluation from a psychologist (we already know that we're mental...I guess we just have to prove it!) As we get closer to our home visits I'll provide more updates on what is next! Thanks for your prayers and support!

And So It Begins...

Well, this is our first blog but we thought we better start one to keep everyone updated on what is going on in our lives...especially since we are going to have a lot of updates coming on our adoption! Yes, for those of you who may not have known, we have started the international adoption process!! We are adopting from the Philippines and couldn't be any more excited about it. I'll try to give a quick background to get everyone caught up on where we are today...

Back in April we really started to feel like it was time to start looking into the process..."looking into" ended up being the start of the process! We really felt like God was leading us down this path and that the timing was right. Almost immediately we ran into a roadblock that had us questioning our timing...the Philippines was not open for adoption of children under the age of 9 unless they have special needs.That definitely seemed too big for us...it's a good thing that nothing is too big for God! God lead us here for a reason and we knew we should proceed. Little did we know, proceeding meant sitting around for 6 months without making any progress...at least that is what we thought!

It ended up that God was doing things behind the scenes and we were informed on December 3rd that the Philippines had opened for adoptions of all ages! They would only be allowing applications from 5 families per adoption agency so we weren't "in" just yet. But by the 7th we had word that we would be one of 5 families from our agency! So, here we are a few days before Christmas and officially starting the adoption process!