I haven’t written a post in a while as there’s not too much exciting stuff going on, or at least that most people would consider exciting. I wrote a post earlier about the mounds of paperwork that are required, and that is where we are and will remain for a few more months. Once we get through the home study and can send that off to whomever it goes to (immigration? I can’t remember at this point), then we’ll be able to proceed with get our biometric fingerprints and getting all the other stuff together for our dossier to send to China. Once that is sent in we’ll get our log in date (LID) which basically means we’re logged in to their system for adoption . Then we’ll start waiting to be matched.
Anyway, that’s still a few months off—honestly, our first big hurdle is to get our home study completed and finalized. We are meeting with our social worker for visit #2 on Tuesday evening. I have no idea what’s on the agenda for that evening, and am just going to fly by the seat of my pants for that meeting (that’s how I do most things anyway). We will have two more meetings with her after that, which will be done in Oct/Nov, before we’ll be wrapping up our home study.
In the mean time, we are working away at our documents. We are required to write an extensive, and I mean extensive, autobiography about ourselves. It covers everything from your parents/siblings health status, where they live, memories growing up, how you were disciplined, how you view yourself now, what school was like, where you went to school, what activities you participated in, what your life was like in college, what it was like when you were single, where you met your spouse, why you married your spouse (and making sure you still love your spouse, even though you may want to kick them to the curb some days), and the list goes on…and on…and on…and on…and on….. My friend who just went through her home study for adoption earlier this year told me her autobiography was 16 pages. I thought that was a little…extreme. So, I just finished mine yesterday. It took me 5-6 days, working 1-2 hours/day (approximately). It was 14 pages long. Now I have to start answering the questions (2 pages) they require you to answer. I have a feeling that’s going to be another long winded document.
We also had to get SLED reports run on each of us, which was done today (they report any history of arrest). I also sent off the forms to run background checks on us with the SC DSS. We are now working on forms to send to NC and VA DSS, as I was a “resident” of NC for 4 months back in 1995 when I attended one semester at Appalachian State University. David is running one in VA as he was a “resident” when he attended grad school at VT. David had his physical exam started yesterday (which requires blood work, a PPD (TB) test, letters and what not from the physician, etc). I still have to get mine done. Next week we’re going to have to go to the police station to get fingerprinted so we can have our FBI checks run. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?
We’re also reading our required reading, “The Connected Child” by Karyn Purvis. We still have a bit of online training to do through our adoption agency as well. We did read the required readings on China (history, culture, etc) as well as the travel information. We’ll be revisiting some of this stuff once we get our LID and get in the waiting period. The travel information changes frequently, so we’ll be refreshing ourselves on that as well once we get matched and start thinking about travel (next year sometime).
On a positive note, we did receive copies of our marriage license and birth certificates from SC DHEC. So, we’re getting there…slowly, but surely.
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