Hey Everyone! Our home study visit was this morning and it went great! It was completed without any trouble - including any from V who was AWESOME the whole time! He played, watched his "ABC" movie, ate lunch and went to bed without any complaint. His cooperation was a huge blessing.
It should take about two weeks for our report to be written up. Then we (and several other people) will review it before it is finalized and sent to CIS. So we are hoping that we will get fingerprinted by the end of December at the latest, but I don't honestly know if that is an accurate guess as to the timing of it all.
Please continue to pray that the process will go smoothly. Today was an awesome day!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Home Study is Scheduled!!!
We are so excited! We got a call two days ago from Amy Curtis to schedule our home study! Not only that, but I talked to her about our living situation and the fact that Hank and Lindsay's baby would not be born for a few more weeks and she said that we would not need to do a follow-up visit! That means that she will only need to meet with us for four hours on the 18th! We were under the impression that it would take multiple visits plus an update after Henry is born. So that is GREAT news!
While we wait for the home study we are continuing our work on our dossier. We are about halfway through that paperwork. So here is what the rest of the paperwork adventure will look like:
Once the home study is complete it will be sent to Gladney and we will be officially approved to adopt through their program. We will then be passed off to Abbey Reeves who is our Ethipia caseworker - she will help us complete our dossier.
During all of this, our home study will also be sent to CIS. Once CIS receives it they will schedule us for our fingerprinting. The fingerprinting will take a few weeks to complete.
After our dossier and fingerprinting are all finished we will be placed on the waitlist! Our best guess is that it will be early February when that finally happens. We can't wait to wait! :)
While we wait for the home study we are continuing our work on our dossier. We are about halfway through that paperwork. So here is what the rest of the paperwork adventure will look like:
Once the home study is complete it will be sent to Gladney and we will be officially approved to adopt through their program. We will then be passed off to Abbey Reeves who is our Ethipia caseworker - she will help us complete our dossier.
During all of this, our home study will also be sent to CIS. Once CIS receives it they will schedule us for our fingerprinting. The fingerprinting will take a few weeks to complete.
After our dossier and fingerprinting are all finished we will be placed on the waitlist! Our best guess is that it will be early February when that finally happens. We can't wait to wait! :)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
One down, a lot more to go
We hit another small milestone today... we sent in the last portion of our Gladney application! We will not be officially accepted into Gladney's program until our home study is completed and approved, but it was still a huge blessing to get it all done in just under 3 weeks.
So here is where we are at now:
1. We are waiting to have our home study scheduled - which is taking quite awhile we've been told. We are expecting to hear from them in the next three weeks or so.
2. We are working on our dossier - which is all of the paperwork that will be sent to Ethiopia.
Once our home study is complete it will be sent to Citizenship and Immigration Services and we - and all of our housemates - will be scheduled for fingerprinting. Once we receive our CIS approval our dossier can be sent over seas. Soon thereafter we will be on the waitlist! That sounded so simple didn't it? ;)
Please continue to pray that this process will keep moving along smoothly. Thanks for all of your concern and prayers!
So here is where we are at now:
1. We are waiting to have our home study scheduled - which is taking quite awhile we've been told. We are expecting to hear from them in the next three weeks or so.
2. We are working on our dossier - which is all of the paperwork that will be sent to Ethiopia.
Once our home study is complete it will be sent to Citizenship and Immigration Services and we - and all of our housemates - will be scheduled for fingerprinting. Once we receive our CIS approval our dossier can be sent over seas. Soon thereafter we will be on the waitlist! That sounded so simple didn't it? ;)
Please continue to pray that this process will keep moving along smoothly. Thanks for all of your concern and prayers!
Monday, October 6, 2008
We sent in our first packet of paperwork today!
Yay!!! We got all of our I-600A paperwork together over the weekend and sent it in today. We are so excited! It is so nice to have something out of our hands and into the mail. The only thing that we still have to send to them is our home study - which Gladney will submit for us after it is complete.
So now we are working on finishing our Gladney application, which is moving at a great pace. The application is broken-up into three sections and we have almost completed the first two. We are aiming to finish the third by the end of next week. That part includes all of our physicals - and by all I mean ALL SEVEN of us in the house. Please be praying that all of those appointments and all of that paperwork is completed with ease. The paperwork has to be done just right and there are a lot of details to pay attention to.
V is struggling with his allergies and has a bit of a runny nose. Please pray for him as well.
Love you all.
So now we are working on finishing our Gladney application, which is moving at a great pace. The application is broken-up into three sections and we have almost completed the first two. We are aiming to finish the third by the end of next week. That part includes all of our physicals - and by all I mean ALL SEVEN of us in the house. Please be praying that all of those appointments and all of that paperwork is completed with ease. The paperwork has to be done just right and there are a lot of details to pay attention to.
V is struggling with his allergies and has a bit of a runny nose. Please pray for him as well.
Love you all.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Gladney Update
Hey Everyone!
We had our phone orientation with Gladney today and it went great! Even better than we had expected. It is a large organization and we were worried that the process would feel impersonal and that we would be largely doing the massive amounts of paperwork on our own. We will certainly be responsible for a lot, but today we were given the name of our caseworker and the woman that will be helping us complete our dossier - all of the paperwork that will be mailed to Ethiopia. So that took a load of worry off my back just knowing that there will be someone for us to contact with questions that knows us well.
The time frame we are looking at is roughly one year total. Meaning that we might be able to travel around this time next year to pick up our sweet baby! That is a HUGE relief because the smaller agency I met with last week gave me an estimate of 18-22 months just for the wait alone. (Meaning after the American paperwork and before the wait time for travel.)
Here is a rough idea of what our next year is going to look like:
Now - Jan/Feb (4ish months): Working on our CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval, which includes the completion of our home study, fingerprinting, background checks, etc.
Feb - Aug/Sept: Then comes the 6 or so months of waiting for the "referral" - the name, picture and medical info of our baby. (And for those of you that are wondering, we will most likely change the baby's name.) That is the average wait time they are giving us for the youngest available child. The baby will most likely be between 6-9 months by the time we travel.
Finally there is about a 2-3 month waiting period before we will be able to travel to bring the baby home.
So that brings us to a grand total of 12-13 months. It is possible that the process will move faster than that, and it is unfortunately possible that it will take longer. The courts in Ethiopia break in August for the rainy season, so we are hoping to get our end of the paperwork done ASAP so that we can get our referral before that time. If we get on the wait list in January there is a good chance that we will beat the August break. However, I have to say that knowing that the baby and V will only be about 2 to 2 1/2 years apart is really giving me peace about how long the process takes. After talking with the other organization we were preparing ourselves for a 3 1/2 to 4 year gap. Most of you know that we want a large family and that large of a gap was definitely more than we had planned on - at least between our first two.
So here is what we are dealing with for the time being... Now we have to send in our preliminary application to Gladney to receive the full international adoption application. We should be able to complete the necessary paperwork for that tonight and mail it tomorrow. It will take about a week for them to process that infomation and send us our full application packet. In the meantime we are waiting for copies of our birth certificates to arrive in the mail. Once we receive those we can mail in our I-600A - the form that we send in to CIS in order to be approved to bring the baby into the US. (Eventually we will also send them our home study.) From there we will work with our caseworker to complete our application and our foreign dossier.
Please be praying:
*That our paperwork goes as smoothly and quickly as possible - that we don't miss steps, loose anything in the mail, etc.
*That V will continue to be healthy and feel loved and secure.
*That our living situation doesn't create any obstacles or major setbacks.
*And most of all, please pray that this experience draws us closer to the Lord and closer to one another.
Thank you SO much for all of your love and support. We love you all very, very much.
We had our phone orientation with Gladney today and it went great! Even better than we had expected. It is a large organization and we were worried that the process would feel impersonal and that we would be largely doing the massive amounts of paperwork on our own. We will certainly be responsible for a lot, but today we were given the name of our caseworker and the woman that will be helping us complete our dossier - all of the paperwork that will be mailed to Ethiopia. So that took a load of worry off my back just knowing that there will be someone for us to contact with questions that knows us well.
The time frame we are looking at is roughly one year total. Meaning that we might be able to travel around this time next year to pick up our sweet baby! That is a HUGE relief because the smaller agency I met with last week gave me an estimate of 18-22 months just for the wait alone. (Meaning after the American paperwork and before the wait time for travel.)
Here is a rough idea of what our next year is going to look like:
Now - Jan/Feb (4ish months): Working on our CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval, which includes the completion of our home study, fingerprinting, background checks, etc.
Feb - Aug/Sept: Then comes the 6 or so months of waiting for the "referral" - the name, picture and medical info of our baby. (And for those of you that are wondering, we will most likely change the baby's name.) That is the average wait time they are giving us for the youngest available child. The baby will most likely be between 6-9 months by the time we travel.
Finally there is about a 2-3 month waiting period before we will be able to travel to bring the baby home.
So that brings us to a grand total of 12-13 months. It is possible that the process will move faster than that, and it is unfortunately possible that it will take longer. The courts in Ethiopia break in August for the rainy season, so we are hoping to get our end of the paperwork done ASAP so that we can get our referral before that time. If we get on the wait list in January there is a good chance that we will beat the August break. However, I have to say that knowing that the baby and V will only be about 2 to 2 1/2 years apart is really giving me peace about how long the process takes. After talking with the other organization we were preparing ourselves for a 3 1/2 to 4 year gap. Most of you know that we want a large family and that large of a gap was definitely more than we had planned on - at least between our first two.
So here is what we are dealing with for the time being... Now we have to send in our preliminary application to Gladney to receive the full international adoption application. We should be able to complete the necessary paperwork for that tonight and mail it tomorrow. It will take about a week for them to process that infomation and send us our full application packet. In the meantime we are waiting for copies of our birth certificates to arrive in the mail. Once we receive those we can mail in our I-600A - the form that we send in to CIS in order to be approved to bring the baby into the US. (Eventually we will also send them our home study.) From there we will work with our caseworker to complete our application and our foreign dossier.
Please be praying:
*That our paperwork goes as smoothly and quickly as possible - that we don't miss steps, loose anything in the mail, etc.
*That V will continue to be healthy and feel loved and secure.
*That our living situation doesn't create any obstacles or major setbacks.
*And most of all, please pray that this experience draws us closer to the Lord and closer to one another.
Thank you SO much for all of your love and support. We love you all very, very much.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Maggie Valley trip number 4
We just returned from Maggie Valley, NC. My grandparents have a summer home up there. It is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. This was V's second time up there, and our 4th time since we got married. The best part of the whole trip was taking V for his first amusement park experience. It was awesome! He rode five different rides - two of which I was sure he would be too scared to even consider. He was so brave!
Enjoy the pics!
Enjoy the pics!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Making Progress... We Hope
So we are officially adopting. I'm not really sure that I have the emotional energy right now to explain all that I am thinking and feeling. I will simply say that we are VERY excited.
We are going to have a phone orientation with someone from Gladney on the 25th of this month. And as awesome as it is to have that on the calendar, I'm already feeling like we could be moving faster. By the time we have the orientation a month will have already passed since we filled out our information sheet. I was really hoping to get through this initial stuff a lot faster.
During the orientation they will explain the adoption process to us - including the massive amount of paperwork we have to fill out and send off. So I guess now we are just praying that our living situation will not be a major obstacle. We are planning to explain everything over the phone during our orientation, though I would much rather deal with it in person.
I will continue to post updates when there is any new info or progress. Thanks to everyone that is keeping us in their prayers and will stand beside us through this long process.
We are going to have a phone orientation with someone from Gladney on the 25th of this month. And as awesome as it is to have that on the calendar, I'm already feeling like we could be moving faster. By the time we have the orientation a month will have already passed since we filled out our information sheet. I was really hoping to get through this initial stuff a lot faster.
During the orientation they will explain the adoption process to us - including the massive amount of paperwork we have to fill out and send off. So I guess now we are just praying that our living situation will not be a major obstacle. We are planning to explain everything over the phone during our orientation, though I would much rather deal with it in person.
I will continue to post updates when there is any new info or progress. Thanks to everyone that is keeping us in their prayers and will stand beside us through this long process.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Hales enter the 21st century!
Hello Friends!
We have finally created a blog. Sorry it took Joe and Jenny leaving for it to happen. :) We are excited to share photos and videos of us and our sweet baby with you.
We have finally created a blog. Sorry it took Joe and Jenny leaving for it to happen. :) We are excited to share photos and videos of us and our sweet baby with you.
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