Up Next: Visas, Apostilles, & Dossiers - May 20, 2006

As Monica posted yesterday, we received the amazing news that our Home Study is complete!

Now the Home Study needs to be sent off to Immigration so that we can get the pre-approval for an Immigration Visa for our child. This could take as little as 3 weeks or as long a 2 months, hard to say. Each state has their own office that processes these so it's just a matter of how fast they are and how much is on their plates.

The only other big thing we need to do to finalize our dossier is to send all of our documents to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia to have a certificate attached to it called "Apostille". We need this attached to each of our documents as a means to make these documents legal internationally for countries who are part of the Hague Convention , which Colombia is.

We are so amazingly happy about the progress we have made so far and how much closer we are to being united with our child. OMG, we have so much to do to get ready for a baby!!!!
Exciting, no?

Completed One Stage... On to Another - May 1, 2006

On Saturday Monica and I had our final session of our Pre-Adoption class that our agency requires all prospective adoptive parents to take prior to beginning the actual Home Study interviews. This class focuses on some of the particular needs and challenges that are often a part of the lives of children that were adopted. This class was an excellent requirements as it made us truly think about the life of adoptive families. This could not have come at a better time then now as we have been focused on process, process, process and of course the amazing day that we will meet our child.

Also Saturday marked another happy day for us; we completed every last document and paperwork requirement to begin our Home Study Interviews. This was the deadline that we had set for ourselves and we met it. Having now completed all of the pre-home study paperwork, and the pre-adoption classes, we are able to proceed in to the next stage.