Fingerprints

We had our fingerprint appointment yesterday afternoon. Brian and I went to an immigration office in Chula Vista, waited a couple hours and got our prints taken. It feels good to be able to cross one more thing off the list!

Releasing Americans from Wealth in Jesus' Name

Releasing Americans from Wealth In Jesus' Name

Quick read that is very thought provoking.

Homestudy Update

The application and contracts are in. Unless they have questions about our application we will have a social worker assigned to us by the end of the week!!

Passport

On Wednesday I sent away for my passport with my updated last name. Yes, it has been 3 and a 1/2 years that we have been married but I haven't needed it since the honeymoon. The thing I am most bummed about was I really liked the picture on the old one and they made me get new pictures taken - luckily, I think I will still survive.

I-600-A

So with our couple of hours of warning, Brian and I filled out the I-600-A. This form will allow us to be pre-approved for a visa for our child. Once our homestudy is done we turn it in and then we wait for an approval letter from Immigration. So I dug through my file boxes to find the supporting documents and filled everything out. We learned Monday night that we needed to get this form in ASAP and that Tuesday was the only day to return it. On Tuesday morning I went downtown to the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration. I was given walk-in hours and figured this would take 10 minutes because surly no one else in San Diego is adopting internationally. Sure it's a city but it's not that big. Boy was I wrong. Two and a half hours later I was finally leaving. The process was very much like the DMV. I had to feed my meter a couple of times but it really wasn't all THAT bad. There were 15 people in line in front of me all regarding international adoption. Who knew?!? One woman sitting next to me was chatting on the phone and saying this process had her contemplating suicide - now that was totally dramatic and inappropriate. Meanwhile I sat there super excited and actually happy to be sitting there waiting for my name to be called because it meant that we were one step closer to our little guy. When my name was finally called I couldn't hold back the beaming smile. The woman I had the appointment with was super nice. She did almost give me a panic attack though :) As she was glancing over our paperwork she started counting on her fingers while looking at my birth certificate. She goes, "You are 23?" I said, "Yes." "Well you aren't old enough to fill out this form." I said, "Sure I am, I know I am at the minimum age but I can adopt at 23." She says, "No sweetie for this particular form you have to be 24." WHAT?!? You mean according to Ethiopia and according to our agency I am old enough to adopt but I am not old enough, by 4 months, to fill out the necessary paperwork to adopt? Luckily I had my thinking cap on and pointed out that I put Brian as the primary person adopting and I was "only the spouse." That was good enough! I was so happy in that little 10 minute meeting. For those of you who know me well, you would never describe me as a "peppy person" and had I been on the other end of that meeting, I am pretty sure I would have nauseated myself with all the obnoxious peppiness that was going on!!

Home Study

Ok, so I am WAY behind but I've been out of town. Here is the latest. On Monday (a week ago) I spoke with Adoption Alliance, the home study agency here in San Diego. I learned that there will be 3 home study meetings, two at their office, one at our house. We will be attending educational classes at their facility with other families who are adopting during the end of March and beginning of April. I am very excited because the coordinator said there were a lot of families adopting from Ethiopia right now and we would get to meet quite a few who live close to us. I am really excited about that. We need to turn in an application with them and then we will be assigned a case worker. I asked how long the process takes and was told that things will progress as quickly as Brian and I can get through the paperwork. We were told scheduling appointments with our social worker should not take long at all and that they are usually flexible and very available. Unless something unforeseen comes up, we were told to expect 2 months start to finish. I was also told that many times the Immigration form takes much longer than the actual homestudy. Since we will probably end up waiting for this form, the woman at the homestudy agency gave me instructions for getting the I-600-A in right away. She also said that the office was only open on Tuesdays during the morning so we should fill out the form tonight and I should pop by tomorrow morning. We are really excited about the homestudy although I have to admit this is the part that makes me the most nervous. I am also very excited to meet other people from San Diego who are adopting from Ethiopia.

Contracts

The contracts are in! Brian and I sent everything to AGCI yesterday. The next step will be getting our dossier packet and being assigned a case worker. I imagine that would happen by next week.