so many things at once

well after nothing really happening since our last post, 3 things have happened in the past week.

1. our home study was sent to the CIS to be matched up with our I-600 application.  Great news and another thing to be crossed off the list.  We also received our appointment to get our fingerprints done again for this application.  Jan. 6th at 8:00 AM in Alexandria, VA.  

2. We received our Fee Agreements from our agency and have signed off on them.

3. After signing off on our Fee Agreements, and sending in a payment we will not get our 'Korea Packet'.  This will be the information that goes over to Korea.  My coordinator tells me it is much of the same information we have pulled already but now it will be in the way  SWS wants to see it.  So it seems the hard things are over since we have copies of everything we have done so far.  Hopefully once we get this packet and send it back we'll find out what number on the list we are to have our paperwork sent over to Korea. 

Everything kinda slowed down there for a bit, but now it seems it is picking back up again.  I guess that is just the way this process goes.  We are excited to be one step closer, it still looks like we'll be home sometime in 2009 with our baby.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!

3rd and Final Home Study Complete

We had our final home study visit last Thursday.  All went well and our SW will start writing it it up now.  There are still a few pieces of information she needs and then she will send it to CAS for review.  Once CAS reviews the home study report and we approve it, it will go to CIS and get matched up with our I-600a so we can get a pre-approval to adopt a child from another country.  We will have another finger print appointment with the CIS.  

Our next step is waiting for our fee arrangement to come from CAS and for us to agree to them ad then we will be sent another packet of information called our 'Korea Packet'  We will be required to gather more information that will be sent to Korea once complete and sent up to FAC in CT.  We are currently in line to have our paperwork sent over once complete but we just don't know right now what our number is.  Packets from FAC are sent to Korea once a month.  I imagine we'll be able to find out once we send back our information the approximate date our packet will be sent over.  Our agency did tell us that FAC will not hold back our packet if a couple above us is not ready yet, which is good news.  After the packet goes over, the wait begins.

So far things have been going rather quickly, I think the hardest part will be waiting for the referal to come in after our packet goes to Korea.   We will have to find things to keep us busy durning that time.  

We have also started our required 30 credits of education.  Once class we are taking on our own which is worth 3 credits and the second class we just completed was given online by CAS.  Of course we don't get credit for the class until we turn in our homework,  but we'll get that done soon.

Thats it for now

2nd Home Study Complete

We had our second home study visit last week, it went great!  We all meet together for a 1/2 hour and then our Social Worker meet with us one on one.  John was first since he had to get to work and then I was next.  All in all the visit went very well.  We have also started our first adoption class called AdoptPrep.  We have only had one class so far and it seems to be an overview of what we will be going through during the process as well as when the child comes home.

Our next and final home study is this Thursday.  Our Agency and our SW would like to have everything finalized by Mid-November.  so far it looks like we will be able to meet that goal.

We had our 1st Home Study Meeting

Our Home Study Social Worker made her 1st visit to our house on Tuesday. She needed to document that we have running water with indoor plumbing and electricity; I think we passed that part. 

She went over the paper work we had already submitted and what we would need to have finished prior to her writing the Home Study for our dossier; we're hoping the dossier will be complete by the end of the year and off to Korea. In the meantime  our checks have been clearing from Homeland Security, Virginia DMV & the Virginia State Police so our backround checks are in full swing!

We only need to meet with the the social worker 2 more times; she lives in Fredricksburg which is an 1 1/2 away, thankfully there is another family in our area she is supporting so we are going to try and piggy back our meetings so we can split the expense.

We leave for vacation later this week so we'll have plenty of time to start reading our educational materials while we're sitting on the beach.

Until next time.....John

 

Our First Baby Gift

We got our first baby gifts today.   2 books, one is baby names from around the world, different then most baby name books this one is broke down by country.  The other book we received was a Korean/English dictionary.  I can't wait to learn some of the language.  

Well they are not really for the baby they are more for me and John, but I consider them our first baby gift.

Things are moving along

We have confirmation from our references that they have received their letters and have begun to work on them.  

We also got our education packet in the mail this weekend.  Our agency requires 30 credit hours of education before we can submit our paperwork to Korea.  This can be done online, via the CAS website and also by reading books on adoption.  We even get 2 credits for reading adult books and 1 credit per every 2 children books we read.  So it looks like that will be pretty easy to complete.  Korea does require 2 courses which we will be able to get through the CAS website.

We also have our first home study appointment with our social worker on Tuesday morning.  She will come to our house which works out great because actually seeing out house if one of the things the social worker must do before completing her portion of the home study.   The rest of the process lays with the different government agencies.  Hopefully our request will not end up on someones desk for a while before running the required checks on each of us.   

On to the next step

We got a call today that we have been assigned a social worker to complete our home study.  Hopefully she will call soon so that we are able to start setting up appointments with her.  We also will be receiving our education packet in the mail.  Our agency requires their parents to complete 30 hours of adoption and parenting education, most agencies require 15 hours.  I'm not sure just yet what classes are to be taken, I'm sure the packet will have that information.

So one more step started, if we keep going at this rate it is very possibly that our paperwork can be completed and sent over to Korea by the end of 2008.  

The Home Study History is back in the mail

We finally finished our first set of paperwork.  We wrote our autobiography's, signed, signed, and signed our names again and again.  We got our first set of finger prints done, that was so simple it is all computerized now and so there were no messy fingers after we were done.  We also filled out another application with Family & Children Agency based in Norwalk, CT so we can get a place in line so to speak.  FCA partners with CAS and the Social Welfare Society in Korea to help place children in the US.  FCA has placed over 2,000 children around the country since 1982.   

We also applied to the Government a I-600a form which is a pre-application to adopt a international orphan.  This will help speed up the paperwork next year after we receive our referral.

I think the next step will be starting our home study, which will include meeting with a social worker at least 4 times.  3 times we will meet her and 1 time she will come to our house.  CAS will also start running all of our background checks. 

That's it for now............until next time

Well Monday Came and went

my original goal of turning in the paperwork on monday was not so successful.  One thing holding us back right now is John's birth certificate which we can get in CT, and we just so happen to be leaving for CT on thursday.  So instead of calling town hall, and having them mail the birth certificates which would probably arrive after we left anyways we decided to just get it while we are up there. We do have the majority of the paperwork filled out, i still need to work on my autobiography but i have a 6 hour car ride to work on that.  I'm one of the lucky ones who can work on things, and read in the car.  We also got our finger prints done on friday afternoon, that was a pretty simple process.  No more ink, its all digital now!  We went to the local sheriff's office here and we were in and out in less then 20 minutes.  

That's all the update we have for now

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We are heading up to CT this weekend to celebrate my second nieces 1st birthday, the party will be at my mom's house and i am so excited to see everyone again.  

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The packet arrived

And here starts the real beginning of the hurry up and wait part we have been hearing so much about since we made the decision and have been talking to other family's about the process.  The first stack is not too bad called "The Homestudy History", at lot of background stuff on each of us, we have to do fingerprints, driving records, criminal background, and so much more.  I'll have to put the entire list online.  The one thing we have to get done is autobiography's, man i feel like I'm in school again and i have this major deadline to get my paper done and I haven't even started yet.  But I'll just do it piece by piece and it will all come together.  

Once we get the Homestudy History back to CAS they will then assign us a Social Worker to complete our homestudy.  The only thing I know about the home study right now is that we meet at least 4 times, 3 times we meet with the SW and 1 time the SW comes to our house. 

My goal is to have everything completed and back to the agency by Monday,  that's my goal lets now see what happens.

Until next time.........

So we sent the a message out today today to tell people that we are about to start the adoption process, and I must say that the response we have received back has been incredible.  All of you all out there are great and I know with the love, support and prayers we are getting from across the world we will be able to get through this.

We should be getting or packet of information and the start of the paperwork by Friday. 

Stay tuned for more........

It is officially official!!!!!

Its officially official now, we received the phone call on Thursday to let us know that we have been accepted in to the Korea program with CAS.  They are sending us our packet of information along with the first part of the paperwork we will start filling out.  

We are so excited to start the process now :o)

More to come as soon as we get the packet and have a better understanding as to what we need to do next.  

It has been 3 weeks and no word

so week 3 is upon us, we are hoping to hear something on Monday as that will be 3 weeks to the day Paige got confirmation that CAS received our application and they would be in touch in 2-3 weeks.  We have to remember that they work Monday - Thursday and there was also a Holiday weekend in there so, most likely Paige will call on Monday to find out the status, inside she is going nuts!

 

July 11, 2008

10 years ago tonight Paige went to the Westfarms Mall in Farmington, CT to have dinner with a friend on her way to dinner she passed John Ross who she used to work with at Nordstrom and secretly had a crush on too!  Thinking no more then saying hello to an old friend in the hallway she and her friend went on to eat their dinner.  As Paige was leaving Nordstrom that night who but John Ross walks by her and her friends and asked them if they had any plans that evening.  Paige said no, but would like to meet me for a drink later when you get off of work.  John agreed and asked her to meet him at 10:00 that night.  They went to Friday down the street (which is no loner there) and had a few drinks.  Well that date turned in to another date the next week, they went to go see "There is Something About Mary" that date lead to 10 years later, married and hopefully adopting a cute Korean Baby soon (if you consider a year and a half soon).

After 4 1/2 years of trying to start a family naturally and through IVF John and Paige have decided to bring a child in to their hearts and lives though the wonderful gift of Adoption.  Our journey to have a family started the day we got married September 20, 2003.  We had been together for 5 years when we got married and wanted to start having a family right away.  Unfortunately it was that easy as we are amongst the "One in four couples in the US have to go through some sort of treatment to have a baby" and so after one year of naturally trying, though how natural can it get when you are taking your temperature and counting days, and well that's enough our parents are reading this :o)  and 3 1/2 years of IVF treatments we have realized that Adoption is what we supposed to do.  It has been years of heartaches but it has only made us stronger and I truly believe that our child is out there waiting for us to bring him or her home.  So after a lot of soul searching and discussing the different options of adoption first domestic or international.  We choose international, then you have to decide from which country you would like to apply for and our choice is Korea, when we picture ourselves with an adopted child the child has always been of Asian decent.  And it just so happens that Paige's sisters-in-law, sister is adopted from Korea.   Korea and Vietnam are the longest running programs in the US; at the time of our decision Vietnam was on hold and not accepting new applications.   

Friday June 20, 2008   Today we put the application in the mail.  It took us over a month to find the right agency to use.  After talking and emailing families we finally decided on using Carolina Adoption Services.  They are based in Raleigh, NC and have an office in Roanoke, VA called ABC Adoptions.  I knew right from the beginning of finding an agency that they would be the one we went with but I had to make sure.  Every family that I was in contact with who used CAS spoke very highly of them, one family adopted 2 children from Russia with them and she said if they had the money to do it again they would in a heartbeat!   I thought that spoke very well of them.    

Monday June 23, 2008 We received confirmation today that CAS received our application and it is being reviewed and that we will be contacted in 2-3 weeks.  

Tuesday June 24, 2008 It has only been one day since the confirmation and Paige is already going CRAZY!!! Here starts paperwork/wait/paperwork/wait and so our lives will be as we continue this journey.  

Monday June 30 2008 One week down!  1-2 more weeks to go to find out if we get accepted in to the Korea program.