Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is our first home study visit. I am a little bit nervous about this. It's not that I think that the social worker will find us unfit to adopt, but no matter what it is nerve racking for me to be scrutinized! I found this to be true when I was teaching, too. I was a very good teacher - I never got a negative evaluation or was turned down for a job when interviewing - and I knew I did a good job, but every time my supervisor scheduled a time to observe my class and evaluate me, I got nervous. It was no better year six than year one either.

So if you think of me tomorrow, please say a prayer that this visit goes well. We will have another one next week, too. Hopefully, having already met the social worker and knowing a bit more what to expect, I won't be as nervous next week!

I now have gathered all of my official documents for the adoption dossier, too! The last ones we had to send for came in the mail Monday, and the last one I had to pick up locally was picked up today. Oh, wait - we are still waiting for our police clearance report...I forgot about that one! Anyway, I can begin the process of sealing these documents now. I will start by sending the documents that have to be certified out of state to the appropriate states (our birth certificates). I also still have some documents that need to be notarized. I'll gather them all for one big trip to the notary. Once that is done, and I get my police clearance report, I'll send off all the in state documents to the Texas Secretary of State. Then begins the in-active portion of my dossier preparation. I will have to just wait for things to come back! I am going to send everything either FedEx or USPS Express Mail and include pre-paid FedEx or USPS Express Mail envelopes for the return to try to get things to go as fast as possible, but I will still be at the complete mercy of others. After I get my home study report back (hopefully the first week of July) I can also send in my application to immigration. Immigration will be the longest wait of the whole dossier preparation process. I am going to start filling out that 16 page mammoth document next week!

So that's where we are now! I'll update tomorrow as to how the home study went. Things are moving along, though!

5 comments:

Elspeth said...

Praying and will continue to pray for a successful adoption outcome.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like MASSIVE amounts of paper work! I am happy to hear things are moving along though :)

Amy said...

Praying :o)

Reading about your adoption process is very interesting to me, especially as we are considering adopting sometime in the future. Thank you so much for sharing, Johanna. We had been seriously considering adoption for awhile, and then once all of my health & fertility issues began to creep up, it began to seem more "meant to be." :o)

Joanna said...

I'll be sure to pray it all goes well.

Johanna said...

Thanks everyone for your prayers! It is so cool to know that we are being lifted up from all over!

Amy - even though it has been a lot of work, it is a great experience so far! We are so excited about it all that even when it feels overwhelming, we just remember that we are doing this to bring our daughter home. I would have loved to have an inside view to the process to know what I was getting into, though! I'm happy to be providing that for you! :)