Our Homestudy is done!

We had our last visit with our social worker tonight. It was quick...only about 45 minutes. We just reviewed some paperwork and she gave us a bunch of handouts and articles about raising adopted children.

So what's next...
The social worker will be compiling all of the information she obtained from us and typing up a formal document. We are still waiting for a few documents to come back from the doctor and the police dept. etc. Once she has it all, she will be able to send the homestudy to the state and the US immigration office. Next week we will be calling Melinda, the director of the agency. We will schedule a meeting with her and she will walk us through the dossier paperwork.

Things are going smoothly so far!

Hopefully we'll have more info soon!

Our house is suitable for babies!

We sent in our first official form to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office today! This officially begins our petition to adopt an orphan.

Last night we finished our second visit with the social worker. She came to the house. She continued with lots of questions, reviewed our paperwork, and took a tour of the house. Overall, it was smooth sailing! She said that everything was coming along quickly and she had "a lot of material" on us and she would begin typing up the formal report. We scheduled our next and last appointment with her...it will be Wednesday the 29th. She doesn't think the last meeting will take more than about an hour.

I found a new website today...It's a fair trade organization that sells items made in Vietnam. The money goes back to the orphanages in Vietnam!

http://www.provide-n-ce.org/

We'll update again when we have more news! Thanks for all of the great comments!

Number one visit for homestudy DONE!

We survived our first interview with our social worker! It went very well and fast...the two hours were up before we knew it. She broke the session up into two sections..."interview" and "paperwork". The interview focused on our families, dating, when we married, and our infertility. Our social worker, Sue, was wonderful and made the situation very comfortable. She also gave us a stack of paperwork to be working on until our next visit! Most of the paperwork centers around criminal background checks with the local police, the state, etc. We also have to begin applying for some of the paperwork from the government and take two online seminars about adoption. Our next visit will be at our house next Thursday (11.16.06). She will look around the house to make sure it meets state standards for adoption/foster care. She will also be interviewing us, both together and separately.

Timeline...
-Once our dossier (dos-E-A), which is another round of paperwork, fingerprints, background checks, etc. that is required for the government, is done...we may be able to travel to Vietnam within 4-5 months! However, I don't know how long it takes for the dossier to be finished...I'm trying to find out! Keep your fingers crossed that it's not a long process!

For your information...

We've been doing a lot of researching on Vietnam. Here are some great websites if you are interested. They all feature different things...some have great travel tips, others have pictures, etc.

Websites:
www.adoptvietnam.org (just a ton of information on Vietnman)
www.vorf.org (shows pictures of adoption ceremonies...from a different agency)
www.fcvn.org (a great support and posting site for families adopting from Vietnam)

Enjoy!

The homestudy begins...

Our homestudy starts today! A homestudy is a series of interviews and visits with a social worker, appointed by the adoption agency. Our homestudy consists of three separate meetings. The first one, which is this afternoon, will be at the adoption agency's office. We have been told it will take approximately two hours. We think that the majority of tonight's information will be "informational"...duh. We will also be submitting the second half of our application paperwork which includes autobiographies from both of us. The second meeting will be set up tonight. This meeting may include separate interviews with Ed and me. The third visit will be in our home. Once the meetings are finished, the social worker will type up our "life's story" into a formal document that will later be turned in with our paperwork to the government. Wish us luck!