It's No Joke

(So, I was going to write this post yesterday for April Fool's Day.  Here is another example of why blogging isn't my strong suit.)


Yesterday was April 1, the day we had planned to begin our journey.  Our adoption journey, that is.  The 'no joke' part is that we're actually about 2 months into the process.  Here's the timeline so far:

Mid-June, 2012:  Send in a preliminary packet to AAC (our agency in Colorado).  Find out that it's really too early to start the adoption process.*

2/5/13:  Email our wonderful counselor at AAC to find out if teaching this fall would cause any problems.  Check to see if we should still wait till April 1...and hear "why not start now!"

2/14/13:  Send off our formal application packet to AAC.  Start looking through the MOUNTAIN of paperwork for our dossier.**

2/22/13:  Submit our application for a homestudy.***

3/25/13:  Submit our completed homestudy package.  And...get more paperwork.  :)

*We're supposed to have at least a year gap between Luke and our next child (we're going to request a girl).  The way the adoption process works with China, we probably won't be able to match with her until she's about a year old.  We've been told 6 months for the paperwork in order to match, so we were shooting to start when Luke was 18 months old.
**The "dossier" is all the paperwork that gets submitted to the Chinese government.  We're getting very familiar with the notary public.
***Our homestudy is part of the dossier, but it's done by an agency here in town.  There's a lot of paperwork for that too, plus some interviews/home visits.

When I do talk to people about the adoption, it's about how many different pieces of papers we have to collect.  We do have our first interview for our homestudy scheduled for this Sunday (something different!), and we've also been taking classes online about adoption.

I'll be sharing more stories this week (in an effort to catch everyone up), but something everyone has told us is to prepare for delays and lots of waiting.  So don't expect this pace or length of posting for the long term!