Well, it only took 17 months and a move to another state, but we have finally turned in our paperwork for our adoption! Woohoo!!! I feel like we’ve accomplished a huge milestone and I need a party to celebrate!
Although in reality, we are just getting started…
Here is our latest update on where we are in the adoption process.
First, I will say that it has been difficult for me to get motivated to do the paperwork for this adoption. Y’all. Adoption is HARD. And you have to be really committed to the idea in order to get it all done. And even when you are super committed, it’s still so overwhelming.
Every time I thought we were close to finishing up one thing, another thing was thrown in to knock us two steps back. The most recent example is that India (and many other countries as well) is now asking for a psychological evaluation to be completed on both parents as part of the home study process. Just what I needed – a psych eval! Ha!
Anyway, here is where we are and what is happening next:
Our social worker recently came to our home for our final home visit and interview. She toured our house and chatted with the kids about their feelings and expectations about adding another child to our family. The visit went really well – we absolutely love our social worker! She has been extremely helpful and patient in answering our many questions.
We have just completed our financial paperwork to show that we can afford to support another child, and we have also completed our psychological interviews and testing. (Peter spent 5 hours with the psychologist and I spent 3 hours with him. I’m not sure what that says about us… but at least we got a positive report!)
Our paperwork is now complete and we are waiting on the final draft of our home study to be approved. Once that happens, our dossier (which is just a fancy word for paperwork) will be sent to immigration for approval, which generally takes about 6-8 weeks. Once we are approved to adopt a child from India, our agency will begin sending us referrals for a child and we will have a couple days to accept or deny that particular child.
Then when we are matched with a child, it will take another 12-18 months to bring our little boy or little girl home. Government red tape is awesome!
So as you can see, we are moving forward, but the process is LONG and GRUELING.
We would appreciate your prayers for us as we stay the course. Pray that we would not get discouraged with this process and the many setbacks that are sure to occur. We know that God is in control and His timing is perfect but sometimes it’s difficult to understand exactly what He is doing.
Also pray for the child that we will be welcoming into our family. Pray that we will bond with him (or her) and that he (or she) will bond with us. I think that’s one of my biggest fears in this whole process – that bonding will not occur. We adopted Jonah as a newborn, and bonding happened instantly. We know that it will be totally different with a toddler and we’re anticipating some difficult times in the beginning.
So, that’s where we are in the adoption process right now. Hopefully over the next couple months, I will be able to update with our immigration approval and the matching will begin! Thanks for following us on our journey!