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| Our Adoption Story - Page 1 |
| Friday, December 7, 2001 = As I mentioned on the previous page, when we first started looking into adoption, we had planned to adopt a little girl from China. However, during the time that we have spent researching agencies, there have been changes made to the China adoption program. Since it is such a popular adoption program, China has been overwhelmed with applications and people wanting to adopt. As an attempt to try to limit the number of applications, China has implemented a quota system limiting the number of applicants from each adoption agency. This has caused many agencies to close their China programs, since they already have more people in the process than they will be able to place children with for the entire year of 2002. We were afraid that this would greatly lengthen the time it takes to bring home a child from China, so we decided to see if there was another country whose process is just as accomodating with the process, price, etc. After a little more research we have decided to adopt a child from Peru. The only thing keeping us from starting the process immediately is the cost. We would like to know where most of the money is going to come from before we start the paperwork process. It would be so disappointing to get a referral of a child and not have the available cash to accept the referral and get our child. With Gods help, we know we can work this out somehow. We just have to put it in his hands and trust him for the answers. Friday, January 25, 2002 = Wow! I have some much to tell you all since my last update on this page. First of all, we have chosen the agency we want to work with through this adoption process. We have chosen Christian World Adoption (CWA) from Henderson, North Carolina. We have been so pleased with our choice. The poeple there are wonderful. Secondly, God has been doing amazing things. With His help and guidance, we have been able to obtain most of the money we are going to need for this adoption. We are still short most of the travel expenses at this time, but we will have about a year to raise the money we will need for travel. Since we have been so blessed, we submitted our application to CWA at the end of December. Thirdly, we have once again changed countries. Once we started investigating Peruvian adoption a little closer, we were discovering many problems with the program. An out of the blue, God led us to CWA. One of the only agencies in the United States who still had their China program open. So, we are back to adopting a little girl from China. We are both so very excited about it and can't wait till we can travel to China to get our precious little girl, whom God has chosen for our family. Friday, February 15, 2002 = We were able to get both our local background check letters from the Berne Police Cheif today. Cheif Crider has been wonderful, he even made a special trip up to the bank for us so we could get both of the letters notarized. Wednesday, February 20, 2002 = Steve received the letter from Dr. Fallon that we need for our dossier. We already have certified copies of both of our Birth Certificates and our Marriage License that we also need for the dossier. Thursday, February 28, 2002 = In the past 6 weeks, we have been able to get quite a bit of our paperwork put together and notarized. This morning we had our first meeting with the social worker who is doing our homestudy. Our social worker is Kathy Gallup from Lutheran Social Services in Fort Wayne, IN. We had a very nice time talking with her for nearly 2 hours. She is such a nice lady. I am so glad we got some references for her that led us to call her about our homestudy. Thursday, March 7, 2002 = I received the letter from Dr. Beyers office (Marisha) which describes my diabetes, that we need for our dossier. Tuesday, March 19, 2002 = Steve and I were both able to get our employment letters today. Wednesday, March 20, 2002 = This morning we had our second homestudy meeting with Kathy Gallup. In our first meeting with her we discussed our childhood with her as well as information about our families and our parents. During this meeting we mainly discussed ourselves and our marriage and then we each took a temperment test. Monday, March 25, 2002 = Tomorrow is our fingerprinting appointment with the INS in Indianapolis and the weather is getting very bad outside. We have already had freezing rain. There is ice everywhere. They are calling for the weather to be even worse tomorrow, so we are going to go to Noblesville tonight and spend the night with Dale and Diana. Then we will just have to make it downtown Indy from Noblesville tomorrow morning and be able to make it home afterward. Tuesday, March 26, 2002 = We got the the INS office about 10:00 am and by 10:40 am we had both been fingerprinted and on our way home. They weather was terrible on the way home though. I think we ended up with nearly 5-6 inches of snow with ice underneath. We saw several cars in the ditch on the way home, but with God's help we made it home safely. Monday, April 15, 2002 = We have both had our physicals and all required blood work has been completed. We are so lucky we live in a small town. One of the nurses was able to get a lady from the license branch, who is a notary, to use her lunch hour to notarize our medical reports for us. We are both so thankful for her help. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 |
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