So What's Next?

For my family and friends who are not as familiar with the adoption world as I have become in the last 3 years here is a little run down on what is next for us.

We have been assigned our family coordinator with our agency and she has hooked us up with all our check lists and guidelines for putting our dossier together. This stage is called the paper chase and can take anywhere from  4-6 months...our goal is to have this completed and turned in by Garrett's birthday August 3rd.

dos·si·er

ˈdôsēˌā,ˈdäs-/

noun

1. 1.

   a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject.

   
   

   
   

While simultaneously working on our dossier we will be going through a home study. We have our first meeting with our social worker on Monday, we will meet with her 3 times, one time in our home. The sooner we can get our home study done the sooner we can get our dossier complete as we can not apply for our   1-600A without it  (Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition).

There are a lot of new words in here for some of you and it sounds intense. I won't lie, it is. We have ordered birth certificates, marriage licenses, requested letters from our employers and references, scheduled our physicals and lab work, filled out paperwork for background checks, ordered online training and I have said lots and lots of prayers over these binders that have become a big part of my life. Everything will have to be notarized/certified/checked and double checked, we will make a billion copies and then send off all originals.

We are trying to take it all one day at a time, one item at a time but most times I go to bed thinking I could have gotten more done today.

We are hoping we won't have to do a lot of fundraising although we might do something fun here soon for those who want to get involved a little bit. We hope to do most of the saving and apply for grants on our own but it's going to mean a shift in life style for a little bit as big checks loooom over our heads for the time being. I am trying to give away this biggest anxiety to the Lord because I know he will provide and he will make a way.

So for now please pray for us and our family as we keep chugging along and by all means please let us know if you have any questions, we love talking about this new journey we are on and want you all to be as much a part of it as you want!