Update and Good news!

I have been needing to update on our progress for a while now. I'm planning to write a timeline of our adoption journey on a sidebar of this blog (as best I can remember).

So far it has been quite a journey, including: applying to our agency, submitting our I600a adoption petition to the USCIS , getting a homestudy done (which includes a questionnaire about your entire life, your family, home, community as well as 2 visits with the social worker), fingerprinting--locally in our state and also again for the federal governement (for background check), getting our passports, applying to lots of organizations for grants/loans, getting medical exams and tests, getting our kids tested for TB, and getting lots of forms filled out and then notarized. These include: medical clearance letters, doctor's license copies, passport copies, proof of residence, proof of employment, letter stating we will fulfill our obligations to the country we're adopting from, a letter requesting to adopt and requesting an appointment in the country, and more! Many of these involve costs (which maybe I'll share later) and several of the forms we have had to have redone due to changes in the country's regulations!

Throughout this time we have been in regular contact via phone or email with our agency and with people from Reeces Rainbow. If you go to their website you can see the general process of the entire adoption (which we printed out and started a notebook to keep all of our documents (in plastic inserts) and receipts. Here is the link: http://www.reecesrainbow.com/adoptionprocess.htm There is a wealth of information on www.reecesrainbow.com about adoption, as well as a email support group for people pursuing or interested in special needs adoptions.

Most recently, we had to get our taxes done since we will be submitting our dossier (the official documents we will submit to the country we're adopting from) in 2009. We got that done and have been waiting since October for our government approval (the I171 form).
We had found out that our homestudy had not been sent to the right place (due to a change in procedure) so the USCIS office did not have our homestudy all that time. I finally found out about it after emailing perisistently to check on our status. We sent it right away and then did not get any replys back from them if they received it. We emailed a few times asking for expedited processing due to the urgency of adopting Sean before he would be transferred to an institution (usually around age 4) and several of our documents would expire if much more delayed. We also contact our senators, though we did not hear back from them (sometimes this can help) However, we earnestly prayed and God delivered us.... last Friday we got an email saying that we were approved and that our approval would arrive in 2-3 business days! Thank you to all who have prayed for us.
So, now our plan is to go get all our documents apostilled once it arrives at our Secretary of State office. Another answer to our prayers was that I had received a jury summons and requsted to be exused, and on Saturday I received a letter that I had been exused. God is good!