So now what? Shouldn't you be done by now? Not quite.

Some of you have heard our announcement that we have gotten our USCIS approval. We were really excited about this because it meant that we don't have to re-do any of the paperwork we have already done. Basically our U.S. paperwork is done and approved. Praise the Lord this was a HUGE answer to prayer!

This is not the final stage by any means. So what is next? International paperwork! We needed approval from the U.S. before we could even start the international paperwork, which is called our dossier. This paperwork we just completed yesterday and sent to our adoption agency. There it will be notarized, approved, and sent to the foreign country we are adopting from. This paperwork will be translated into a foreign language and we will be officially be waiting to adopt a child from that specific country! 

From there there are two ways it can go, we will either wait to be matched with a child which can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. The other option is that we will find a waiting child that we feel we can parent and apply to adopt them. Waiting children in our country of choice are children who have already been available to be adopted within the country for 6 months and have had their paperwork presented to potential parents, but for whatever reason the parents chose not to adopt them. These children's information is given to adoption agencies to advocate for them. Some children are represented by multiple adoption agencies. Most waiting children both domestic and internationally are over 8 years old or/and have medical or developmental special needs or delays. We are hoping to adopt a child under 7 with minor medical needs and some developmental needs or delays. Some people are surprised by this thinking we will adopt a healthy infant. Although we are looking for a young child we are not looking for a baby. In fact within the adoption world, children over 3 are considered "special needs" because they are an older child.  Each adoption agency is given specific children to advocate for. I regularly check these lists of waiting children for children that we believe we can care for. If we are able to find a waiting child we wish to adopt we may have to wait 1-2 months for our agency to acquire their file from the country, if the child is currently being represented by another agency. If the child is still available, our adoption agency can request their file. From there we decide  to pursue the specific child for adoption. From there the process is much quicker: 6 months to 1 year! We would make travel plans to meet the child, decide to adopt them, return home for several months and wait to be given official custody of the child. Once we have official custody we travel back to the country to pick up our child and bring them home. From there our real journey begins, our journey as parents 24/7.

So yes we still have quite a ways to go, but we celebrate each small step on the way there. In the meantime we are doing our best to save and raise funds and learn more about parenting vulnerable children. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive, your prayers, encouragement, and gifts mean so much to us!