Update

We are working hard to get all the required documents together to begin our home study!

This is definitely not for the lazy! If you didn't really WANT to adopt, there is no way you would ever fool with the mounds of paperwork, requirements and deadlines involved.

But bringing our sweet girl home will be worth all the paperwork, all the craziness…

We met officially with our home study agency on Wednesday.  We signed our life away it felt like on a large stack of papers and began handing over some of the many documents we had gathered so that our caseworker could begin checking them off the list…

• copy of our three most recent tax returns
• statement of motivation
• our child statement
• employer letter
• proof of health insurance
• conviction statement form signed
• copies of our IDs
• USCIS inquiries form signed
• copies of our birth certificates and those of our children, our divorce decrees, our marriage certificate
• fee schedule form signed
• post placement requirements form signed
• adoption agency services agreement signed
• statement confirming that we are scheduled to attend the UAB International Adoption Clinic
• grievance policy form signed
• behavior management form signed
• incidentals form signed

Now onto the next list of items we need to turn in!  I will go by the agency's office on Wednesday, while we are in Birmingham for Neely's therapy to turn in as many of the following items as I can!!

• our financial statement…Bryan is currently working on this
• medical reports…have to make Bryan an appointment Monday to have his done, mine is being completed by my doctor and have to go Monday for a TB test and our little ones all go to the doctor on Thursday to have theirs completed.
• pet vaccination records…the vet is coming to our house Tuesday afternoon to vaccinate all of our dogs…say a prayer…
• photographs...one of our family…many thanks to Holli Edwards for taking a picture Sunday of our family after church…and photos of the front and back of our house….Bryan wants to do a few things before I snap those photos but we'll take them and print out pictures by Tuesday so we can hand deliver them on Wednesday.
• guardianship letter….this is the notarized letter from the family that we have asked to care for our children should something ever happen to Bryan and myself.
• reference letters…these notarized letters were mailed out to our references and we are just waiting on them to send them back in to the agency.
• certificates that we completed our twelve hours of online training through Adoption Learning Partners.  I don't think Bryan knows yet but this is how I plan to spend most of my Mother's Day…no greater gift for this momma than for Bryan to watch these classes with me and we can check them off our list!
• mine and Bryan's written autobiographies….ought to be interesting… :-)

Only a few of these will not be ready on Wednesday!  So excited to get these things DONE so we can be assigned our social worker for our home study!!!

We also go on Monday to have ourselves fingerprinted! The kids will think that is cool I'm sure.  Those, along with the necessary paperwork will be mailed to Virginia on Monday as well!

Bryan has made plans to have our unfinished bathroom finished in our house starting towards the end of next week…the only really unsafe thing and then we'll put fresh batteries in our smoke detectors, make sure our fire extinguishers are not expired and then I say bring on the home visit!!!

We will have three separate meetings with our social worker and then our home visit.  These can all be done just as quickly as we can schedule them and we are praying that our social worker is a huge overachiever and a fast worker! :-)

Thank you for following our journey!  Please pray with us that we move with haste and accuracy as we take care of all the things to bring MinLan HOME!!!!

We are coming sweet girl,
Mommy