Slow Mail

Well, I thought I would have mailed off our next document to the USCIS by now, but we have not received our final home study report yet.  I asked for them to mail it to our family's address in Iowa but it has not shown up.  I'm hoping that we receive it before we leave or that it is in our mailbox in Florida.  Those documents have about every detail about our lives in there, so I hope they are not lost in the mail.  I did tell a few family members in Newton that we had received them, but when I went to open the package they were resumes being sent to Jason.  My darn husband also requested some mail be sent to Marshalltown!! :)  Let's hope it miraculously shows up in the mail tomorrow!

Background Checks Done

I received a great surprise yesterday that our Texas background checks were completed and our Home Study report is in the final stages.  I approved the 17 page report and now I just have to wait for them to sign it and then they are going to mail it to us.  Another step almost completed!

Update - Back in FL

We are out of the cold and back in sunny Florida.  We had a lot of fun spending time with family...and we are excited to go back in three weeks for Christmas.  We love coming back to our nice weather, but I really hope for some snow at Christmas.  Lupe LOVES the snow...and chasing deer.  I am interested to know if she will try to chase them again this year or if she will remember how big they actually are. :)

On to adoption news.  I mailed a few documents that had to be certified by the Secretary of State before we left for Iowa and when we returned we already had them back in our mailbox certified!  Also, previously we heard that we needed our background checked in Texas.  While in Iowa we also found out that we needed to fill out the forms to have this accomplished, and these forms needed to be notarized (in FL).  So I had these forms finished today and they will be put in the mail tomorrow.  I hope that Texas completes these checks quickly, but on the documents they say it could take up to 30 days.  Let's hope they are a little faster than that.  Until those background checks are done, we are on hold.

First Delay

So this is what they mean when you hear that you should expect delays in the adoption process.  Our Home Study document is technically finalized, but since we haven't lived in Florida 5 years yet they had to get some background checks done in Texas.  Unfortunately, there was a fax issue and the request didn't go thru.  We could be delayed another two weeks until they receive the info back.  They did say it could take up to a month initially, so I guess if she wouldn't have emailed me that there was a delay, I wouldn't have known any better. :)
On a more exciting note, we are leaving on Friday to come back to Iowa.  We are going to another Hawkeye football game and then staying thru Thanksgiving.  We are excited to be able to spend Turkey Day with family!!

Hawkeye Football

The highlight of this weekend was going to my 1st Hawkeye football game with Jason.  We were given some great tickets so we are on the 40 yard line about 7 rows up...and best of all, they won!  We ran into some old friends there, which was also a lot of fun.  And while back, we also got to spend some time with family.  We always love going back to visit and it's great when we can see so many people in such a short time.
Before we left we also received the rough draft of our Home Study report.  We made some revisions and sent it back to our Social Worker on Thursday.  She now has to send it on to our Agency to approve...I would expect us to receive the final version by the end of November.  I hope earlier, but not getting my hopes up.

Final Home Study Complete!

Last night I had my individual home study and all of our meetings are now completed.  I am very happy about how quickly they went.  Our social worker said that she should get the draft to us this week to look over and approve and then it would probably take a month to get the final report back to us (it has to go on to another two or so people to be approved before we are sent the final report).  I have added a timeline down the right hand side of the main page so you can see what all we have left to complete before the anticipated travel.  It sure seems like we should have a lot more steps completed by now, but it takes a long time to collect all of the needed paperwork.  Thankfully the paperwork portion is almost complete and I only have a few more things to get notarized.
On a side note, Jason and I will be back in Iowa on Oct 30 to go to an Iowa football game...and currently as I type, he is outside of the Phillies vs Giants game trying to scalp tickets. :)  I hope he gets in so he can have some fun time before he flys to Houston tomorrow.

Amazing Story

I really loved this story.  I heard it on the radio on my way to work two weeks ago and then the next weekend during our Life Group class.  So I thought I would pass it along.  I wish I could say that I would have done the same thing...

March 28, 2008

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"
Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.
"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.
"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"
"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"
"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.
The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."
Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

#2 and #3 Down!!

Today we had our second home study meeting at Cracker Barrel.  The meeting went good (as far as I know) and I am very thankful for Jason as he answered all of the hard questions.  Each meeting is making me realize there's a lot about parenting that I have no idea how I will handle!  I guess we'll have to figure it out as we go!  As a nice addition to the meeting Jason had his individual meeting following dinner.  I've tried to get him to tell me the hard questions so I can be better prepared, but he won't spill them.  My individual meeting (and our final meeting) is on Tuesday after work, so I hope that I can get something out of him before then.  I'm sure it'll be ok though.  So considering that our last meeting goes as scheduled, we will have all of our home study meetings wrapped up in a record 11 days!  After that I think it will take about a month to get our final Home Study report back.  On a related note, some good friends of ours are in Russia this week meeting their son for the first time.  We are so excited for them and I can't imagine when it will actually be our turn.  Unfortuntely you can't bring your child home with you on the first trip anymore.  Our friends in Russia have to make three visits and get to bring their son home on the last trip and we will have to make two total visits.

Home Study #1 Down

We had our first Home Study visit today and it went well.  I was a little nervous but thankfully she came over at 10:30 so I didn't have much time to be nervous this morning.  Most everyone knows I like to get my sleep. :)  Our social worker, Vickie, was very friendly and made the meeting go smoothly.  Even Lupe behaved. :)  We basically had to answer questions about why we wanted to adopt and from Ethiopia, how we would communicate to others and our child about their adoption, and other issues related to the process.  The meeting ended with a tour of our home.
Until now we had only had email contact with our agency, so actually meeting someone in person made it feel a little more real.  I have a feeling this is going to make me more excited and unfortunately less patient with the whole process, but I hope not.  We have our next meeting already this Thursday evening, so we are hopeful that we can get through the Home Study process pretty quickly!
Look for an update at the end of the week!

First Blog

Well, this is my first post ever, hopefully it turns out ok. :)  We decided to adopt from Ethiopia back in May and just recently finished all of the Home Study paperwork needed to start the Home Study process.  We just got our first appointment scheduled for Saturday Oct 9th.  I hope our dog stops shedding by then! :)  Really though, I hope everything goes smoothly and we can get thru the 3 to 4 meetings quickly.  My friend Cindy is also adopting from Ethiopia and they are a few steps ahead of us.  I hope somehow we can catch up (without them slowing down).  Probably about less than 5% chance, but how awesome would that be if we got to travel together and adopt our baby boys at the same time!!