And it begins.......(the blog, that is!)

Happy Labor Day, Everyone!!
This is my first post. I have been meaning to start this for a while and I figured today was a good day. I am hoping to keep you updated as we wait for our little one from Vietnam. We have known we would adopt since we started dating, as I have known since I was 17 that I would be unable to ever become pregant. It was just a matter of waiting until we knew the time was right, unfortunately that took a little longer than originally anticipated.....

We officially started this journey at the beginning of July, 2006. We sent in our I-600A to USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) the first time :) on July 7 along with a bunch of other required documents, but it was sent back because, of all things, we forgot to sign it--DUH! Not a great start, I admit, but hopefully it was a learning experience! What a letdown when we got that envelope in the mail, all excited that we were moving forward, and then all our stuff was back to us! Anyway, we mailed it right back in and it was received again by CIS on July 18. This is the first step in our state since the application process takes SOOOOOO long. Then we sent in applications with fees to our agency soon after (which was the hardest thing to pick)--it is so confusing and stressful to decide who to trust to lead you through this journey ethically as well as quickly. FYI, in case you didn't know, Vietnam has just reopened to adoptions with the US in January of this year after a two and a half year moratorium-- due to some questionable practices-- and it is of the utmost importance that the adoptions remain on the up an up or we risk problems, and besides, it is just the right thing to do....

So back to my catch-up....We selected our homestudy agency (since our Adoption Agency is located in Ohio, we have to have a different NC licensed agency do the homestudy) and we mailed them a whopping check. We started our homestudy with our first meeting on Aug 8 and finished with our third and last meeting at our house on Aug 14--was worth every penny of the extra expedited services fee to get it done quickly, as USCIS requires this to complete the processing and it got it out of the way. Also, for so long we have worried about this part, as we are currently in the process of renovating our 83 year old house and it has taken us a few years to get it to a point to even pass a homestudy!! That, I'm sure we will cover at a later date, as it is a subject in itself..... Oh, and yes, it went well and we received a favorable report by the end of that week and they let us know that they had sent it along to CIS to join the rest of our stuff.

So, now we finally have received the long-awaited fingerprint appt. to go to Charlotte to get our fingerprints taken, which is the last piece of the pie that USCIS will need from us (hopefully) and we will just be waiting (this is the theme, as you can tell! :)) until our turn comes for them to process. Which I am told will not be until the end of October or early November!!!! Yikes! What we are waiting for exactly is the coveted I-171H form--this is formal approval for us to bring a foreign orphan into the US to be ours forever and ever :) and at this time I think I will consider myself "paper-pregnant"! You really can't do anything else until you get that piece of paper ! So that's it for now, I think! We wait....I know some of you may not be quite as knowledgeable about the process we will have to go through, but I will leave that for another time..
Until next time!
Kim