More Benefits

Wow! I was reading through Chilis benefits packet as it's open enrollment and stumbled across a section for extras reimbursements. Well they offer $7500 in adoption reimbursement. This is great news. It differs a little from Carter's work. His work reimburses as we submit claims. Mine on the other hand is after the adoption is final. So it looks like I'll be at least working part-time at Chili's until the adoption is final. :)

On a lighter note, we have begun gathering our paperwork and filling out the 26 page biographical information sheet the SW sent us. We are on our way!

Spoke with Social Worker regarding Home Study

The Social Worker (SW) who will be doing our HomeStudy(HS) and I finally made contact this evening. We spent about 45min on the phone going over things we need to do to prepare for the actual visit. She will be sending me via email the paperwork we'll need to fill out plus a packet in the mail of other documents. Our appointment is scheduled for December 13th at 9am. The good news is our house doesn't need to be child proofed just yet. However we do need to have at least 1 fire extinguisher. So we'll be buying one very soon. I'll be headed to the courthouse soon to get some certified copies of a few documents.
So once we have our HS meeting it will take her 2 weeks to get the first draft completed. We'll get to review it and once she corrects anything we suggest or correct then she'll send it to Holt. Once Holt approves the document it will then be sent to the director of the HS agency to be certified and sent to us. By the end of January we will need to have our application completed and sent to Immigration for approval to adopt. It will take about 2 months to get that approval and usually that is the last document we'll need before sending our Dossier to the Philipines.

It really feels that we have our feet really wet right now. One step closer. :)

Spoke to Social Worker today

I spoke with the social worker today about getting the paperwork for the homestudy. She will be passing my information onto the social worker who handles international adoption and we'll go over our timeline with her and she'll send the paperwork to us without paying the fee just yet.

We've also filled out the application for Holt today so it is ready to go. We just need to go to the bank to have the contract notarized. I've heard that once we send in this application that Holt sends us this huge book of the process and documents we need to get together for our Dossier. So it's going to be several months of getting paperwork together. :)

So although not much has been done a few baby steps have been taken.

Application and Homestudy

We have reviewed the documents received by Holt and have been in contact with the social worker who will complete the Home Study.

Timeline thus far: We will be submitting the application once some work is completed on our house. With our application we have to send in a picture of the outside of our home. I haven't exactly figured out why but I think it might have to do with appearance. I'll have to ask.

I'll be in contact with the social worker this week to determine if we can start the paperwork now before our first appt with her. From what I hear there is ALOT of paperwork.

We are getting very excited about this process and I'm sure at times we may be a bit overwhelmed.

By the way, as we continue to update this we will try to explain as much as possible the abbreviations and steps.

Thank you to all of our friends and family for all your support as we start this journey to Bring home our Baby! Love you all!

Adoption Decision Made

We have made the decision to adopt. This decision did not come lightly. As many of you know we did infertility treatments last year and were unsuccessful. After seeking a second opinion, and being told our chances were down to 25-30% to have a successful pregnancy. We know without reservations that our hearts and home are open to adoption.

With the decision made we have decided to go with Holt International and have chosen the Philippines. This will be a very long journey of about 2-3 years before we bring our child home.

We have started this blog to keep all of our family and friends updated on the journey.