We filled out paperwork (Our Letter of Intent) and sent in in on January 14th, 2011 for a beautiful nine year old girl in China! We are very excited and cannot wait to bring her home. Of course, between then and now we have a TON of paperwork to fill out and collect from various places. So far we have asked for letters of reference, had physicals for kids at home, scheduled our physicals, requested letters from kids teachers, had fingerprints done, sent our for child abuse clearance paperwork in different states we have lived in (I lived in four states besides California since age 18 so I had to fill our paperwork for each state), and requested proof of health insurance coverage. It's hard for me to get each piece of paperwork filled out correctly when I am mentally filling out so many in such a short period of time.
We called the same home study agency we used when we adopted Sasha over three years ago. They did a great job and we are happy to work with them again. Also, the social worker we really wanted was available, so we get to work with her. There is only one home visit this time. She is scheduled to come in the weekend after next. Yeah!
When we sent in our LOI, we were told that PA's (pre approval) were coming in quickly. To me that meant in ten minutes. I had read about people getting them in two days. Ours took 10 days! We were trying not to tell anyone until we got the PA, but my mom, two sisters, two oldest children and I were all getting together for lunch before Dakota left to go back to college. I really wanted to announce it in a fun way instead of on the phone to each one. I had already told my older kids, but not my mom and sisters. As we were walking up to the restaurant, the social worker called me. She had just received the information that she would be doing our home study and called to say hello. It was the first time I had talked to her since she did the paperwork for Sasha's follow up visit three years ago, so I waved them in to the restraint and talked with her for a few minutes. We made the appointment for the vsit and I went in to join the others. I was really excited that things were finally moving forward in a concrete way. Within ten minutes of sitting down, I looked at my phone (which I have done a million times since sending out our LOI) and saw an email from our adoption agency with "Congrats--Your Pre-Approval (PA) has arrived!!!" What great timing is that??!! So, I told my family our news. They were all surprised, happy and excited. I had printed a few pictures of her and I shared what little information we had about her. We know that she just turned nine, is living in an orphanage, does very well at school, likes sports and is very cute.
Since we used our old home study for Sasha's adoption, we have to do another one. Some things are the same and some things have changed since our home study a few years ago. I feel as if I have to relearn all of the paperwork and really have no idea if I am doing it right. I hope I am! I want to get everything to our social worker when she does her visit so we can get things moving on our end!
