Homestudy is complete!

We are approved for adoption pending those pesky fingerprints getting cleared! Erica came to our house on Monday (4/27) for another 5+ hours of questions regarding our marriage, parenting styles, and strategies to handle attachment issues and transcultural parenting. Then there was a brief tour of our house. It was so brief that we were really glad we didn't spend extra time deep cleaning our home! Apparently everything looked good and we said the right answers because Erica said she would approve us - HOORAY! We just can't be officially approved and move forward until the Adam Walsh Background Study is done.

The agency let us start making some phone calls last week to investigate why it has taken 4 months to process this background check. To make a long story short, after a bunch of phone calls and dead ends, MN DHS is now re-submitting the paperwork to IA and we are hopeful that everything should be good to go by the end of next week. If you want more of the details on this part of our journey, feel free to call us. We'd love to fill you in!

So we are in limbo right now, feeling good about completing the homestudy but frustrated about not getting the Adam Walsh Study cleared. Erica suggested we go out and celebrate being done with the home visits, but we decided to wait until we are officially done with everything on our end and just waiting for that referral!

Oh, and there's also one more set of paperwork to complete for Immigration Services so we can legally bring our child home. That also requires fingerprints but is processed in an entirely different way, so we are hopeful that we won't have any delays there, too. This paperwork comes with an expiration date (once you are approved you have 1 year to bring your child home or else you have to update the paperwork) so we are waiting to get the go ahead from the Korea program coordinator before we start that process.

We will let you know as soon as we hear about the Adam Walsh Background Study... hopefully sooner rather than later! Thanks for all of your support in this long but exciting process!

Halfway to Home Study Approval!

Yesterday we met with our social worker, Erica. She arrived shortly after 9 and didn't leave until around 12:30. We spent those three hours filling her in on our personal histories. On the one hand it felt like we talked forever, but on the other hand it feels like there's so much more to share. I keep thinking "Oh, I forgot to mention that" or "Oh, I should have told her this." It's hard to cram 31 years into one and half hours apiece!

She told us that based on our self-studies, she thought we could complete the home study in just two visits and we are already scheduled for our next visit on Monday, April 27! Amazingly, we were both free that day, so again our schedules are cooperating and things are moving right along. After the second visit, Erica has to fill out approval paperwork and gives that to the Korea program coordinators. She said she can usually get that done the day of the home visit, but she also let us know that she has two other home visits in Iowa on the 28th, so I'm not sure when she will be back in the office to get that paperwork completed. Anyway, as soon as that approval paperwork is in, we are on the official "wait list" for a referral. Erica still has to write up her full report, but we can start waiting while she does that. That means that we most likely can start waiting by the beginning of May! HOORAY!!!

Oh, one minor detail... this is all pending that our Adam Walsh studies get through Minnesota DHS. Still no word from them so Erica will be working with Katie this week to figure out what is going on. We can't be approved until that background check clears, so we are very hopeful that it gets sorted out in the next two weeks.

Thanks for all your good wishes and thoughts yesterday. We really appreciate all the support we have been receiving!

We have a social worker!

It's official, we have a social worker and a date for a first meeting! Her name is Erica and she was actually the social worker that led our small group at PAC back in February. Incredibly nice and always smiling... I even remember thinking during PAC that I hoped our social worker was as encouraging and supportive as she was. At that time I thought we would use the social worker based in Cedar Rapids, but apparently they have assigned all the central Iowa families to Erica. Instead of one visit in the office and one in our home, Erica will be coming to our house for both visits. The first one is Tuesday, April 14th. Amazingly enough, both Kevin and I are free and didn't have to do any rearranging of our schedule to make this date work. The stars must be aligned! What a great day!