shine.glow.TWINKLE
Sorry for the lack of updating friends! I guess time slipped away from us this month.
Here is an update of what we’ve been doing this month:
- Completed all visits required for our home study, including the visit at our house (all the others have been at an Atlanta Bread Co). We didn’t really know what to expect, so I made sure to deep clean each room, organize each closet, etc. This of course ended up being a complete waste of time since she was really only in each room for a couple of minutes and totally wouldn’t have noticed if there had been dust on the blinds or whatever, but hey…at least I got our spring cleaning out of the way! ALL of the visits went GREAT!
- Gathered documents needed for the home study and got fingerprinted…again. We still have a few outstanding items, but hope to have those wrapped up soon. We also had our physicals and got our medical requirements taken care of.
- Completed our online adoption education requirements. We’re almost finished with our Eyes Wide Open Workbook. Hope to be done by the end of this week.
- Received our adoption planner in the mail, which basically outlines the requirements for the dossier. We are about to be BFFs with one lucky notary since EVERYTHING has to be notarized!
- Had our orientation phone call with our case worker at All God’s Children Int’l. She was pretty pleased with us because we have a lot of the required items completed already. She even called us Rockstars!! Yes!
- Discussed possible baby boy names. We had to fit a little fun into the mix! 
- Discussed possible designs for t-shirts, which are coming very soon! Our fundraising has sadly been pushed to the back burner this month since we’ve been a little distracted with all of the above. By the way, we still need lots of donations for our yard sale in April!!!
So I guess that’s all we’ve been up to. I realize it doesn’t seem like a lot, but we sure do feel exhausted. We’re REALLLLLY looking forward to the day we are officially on the wait list!
Now that we have most of what we need for the home study, our case worker can begin writing our report to send to AGCI for review. Once our home study is finalized, we will receive notarized originals and then we are able to send in our immigration application (1-600A) to the USCIS, along with a check for $890. This will also require us to get fingerprinted for the 3rd time. USCIS is within the Department of Homeland Security and the approval gives our adopted child permission to enter the US. We can’t be referred a child before approval is obtained, so this is a very important part of the process! Once we get to this step, we will need everyone to pray for speedy processing times because it can take a few months to be processed. We can’t submit our dossier to ACGI for review until we have filed our I-600A and have received our fingerprint appointment letters, and we can’t get on that wait list until the dossier is submitted! We also have to send in another BIG check when we submit our dossier. So with that said, please pray for our fundraising efforts and that the money needed for the I-600A and dossier would be provided. It’s so easy to doubt ourselves when it comes to the fundraising, but we know God is for us and our future baby! He has been so faithful in this process, and we are learning to trust in Him more and more each day!
As always, thanks for stopping by and for supporting us on our adoption journey!
