Actually Making Progress

Well about 5 weeks of almost no adoption rleated activity happened since the last post, followed by one good week of action.  During the "break", Jerrod started a new job and the boys started 4th and 6th grades.  Also we did start working on our references and a scrapbook of pictures to describe our family to our future daughter.

This week things really started going again.  I think the main reason we were "stuck" was finding a local agency to do our homestudy. Since our adoption agency is located in St. Louis, MO, they are not licensed to do home studies in Iowa.  They recommended a local Iowa agency, but we had never heard of them and it just didn't feel right, so we had not signed up with them.  This week we researched a few local agencies and the only one that responded was Children and Families of Iowa.  It seemed like a long shot for them to handle international adoptions, but they are already working with families adopting from Colombia.  We've been big fans and supporters of theirs for many years, so we get constant marketing material from them.  They feel familar and right, so we are hopefully back on track to focus on getting through the mountain of required paperwork.

It has occurred to me that when we selected Children and Familes of Iowa to do our homestudy that the idea of loving children that are not biological related to you is something both Jerrod and I grew up with.  Jerrod's parents have done an amazing job of combining "his" and "hers" kids into "ours" with equal love and support. I think their family is pretty awesome.  I grew up with an adopted cousin, but he never seemed any different to me than his brothers and sisters (OK, they are a unique family, but he fit right in!).  So thanks to our familes for your love, support and example!

By the end of next week, I hope to report back at least a few more items checked off the list.  Hopefully saying that here will hold us to it!

Thanks for following our journey.

The First Approval

The journal entry is obviously much delayed, but within a week of submitting our application to our agency, we got the call we were approved by them on August 18.  That was the easy part!  Now we have to prove that we are physically, emotionally and financially able to support a new child in our family through a mountain of paperwork, interviews, physical exams, personality tests and another mountain of paperwork!

It does strike us interesting how much trouble both the United States and Colombian government go to in order to ensure children get a good family. Obviously every child deserves a loving family and safe place to live and especially those who are more vulnerable and whose biological parents can't care for them.  On the other hand, a lot people that wouldn't pass such scrutiny do have and keep their biological children. Things that make you go hmmm....

Anyway, since the last update we received our packet (about 30 pages) of instructions on the details of what paperwork is needed.  One of the scariest parts is a letter we have write to the Colombian government explaining why we want to adopt and why we are good parents. Some of the paperwork is fun though, like making a scrapbook of our family to be given to our future daughter.

Part of the documentation process is a home-study.  Since our adoption agency is in another state (St. Louis, Missouri) we can't use them to do our home-study as they are only licensed in Missouri.  So, our next steps are to simultaneously start gathering our documentation and pick a homestudy agency here in the Des Moines area to work with for that part. Also on the top priority list is finding a good way to start learning Spanish.  This is a requirement of the Colobmian government and something we want to do anyway.  We want to be able to learn as much as can to speak with our daughter so that she can become bilingual and hopefully we will too (at least a little)!  Also, it will come in handy when we spend 4 weeks in Colombia for the adoption process.

Thanks for following our journey.