Adoption Homestudy...

Today was our first adoption homestudy visit and everything went great! During the visit Alex enjoyed being interviewed, we were so proud of him as he articulated so well his feelings about adoption and being a big brother. When our Social worker asked him what he thought it would be like once we bring the baby home he said, "At first it will be very challenging. The baby will probably be scared. But it will also be fun sooner or later...and I finally get to see what the whole adoption thing is like because I don't remember when my parents came to get me."

And the most significant decision that came out of this visit is that we are going stick with Korea. We made this decision based on the fact that our agency received a few referrals this month, and they expect to receive a few more in September.

We are approximately number 12 on this list (I say approximate because there are some circumstances where your "place in line" can change slightly). Given this, it is possible we could receive a referral next Spring. Generally, after you receive and accept the referral of a child, you are invited to travel three to five months. That is the best case scenario.

Because of the Korean law changes I talked about in an earlier post, it is also possible that referrals could trickle in very, very slowly...and we could be looking at a referral closer to the end of 2008.

This week we have to get very busy with paperwork. The U.S. Department of Immigration is getting ready to raise their fees substantially for a required form we must file...so we need to complete that this week or pay about 250$ more. Next Saturday we will have another home visit with our Social Worker. Within the next 2 or 3 weeks we need to complete many miscellaneous forms, have complete physicals, get birth certificates, marriage licenses, letters from our employers, copies of our recent income tax returns, copies of our cat's rabies vaccinations (no I'm not kidding), and get fingerprinted for the 2nd time (we will be fingerprinted a total of 3 times...no kidding again).

That's all for now, for the next two to three months there will be many more additions to our "Adoption Timeline".