Completed Homestudy Visits & Docs!!

We reached a major milestone today. We met with our social worker for the last time and gave the last of our homestudy documents to her. Take a look at "My Timeline" to the right if you want to see all that this entails. It's quite a process.

When you adopt internationally, there are two components to the paperchase. The first half is the homestudy. This is a series of documents, background checks and social worker visits to evaluate the fitness of the adoptive parents. Basically, the requirements of the homestudy are dictated by Ohio and U.S. law. So, even if we were adopting domestically, we would go through these same steps.

The second half of the paperchase is the dossier. This is a collection of background checks and documents required by the country from which the baby will be adopted. Every country is different. The picture above is needed for the Kaz dossier. Among other things, they want several pictures of our home, neighborhood, and family. This is the picture of "the adoptive parents with the immediate family." Brian is missing, but I think that is ok. I don't think that Kazakhstan requires the entire family to be present. I also have to send pics of Ed & Judy, Jason, and Brian separately. A few years ago, we Stanskis went to a pro and had some family portraits taken. We can use those for Stan's side of the family.

Anyway, now that our social worker has completed her visits and we have turned in all of our homestudy paperwork, we now just wait a few weeks for the social worker and her agency to write up their evaluation of us. Once this is complete, the entire homestudy document (several inches thick) is sent to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services office where it is matched up with our record already on file. (The USCIS has already collected our I-600A Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition and will take our fingerprints on 1/22/08 at the Federal Building downtown.)

Once our homestudy reaches the USCIS, they can issue to us the coveted I-171H form. This is the piece of paper from the U.S. government saying that you can bring a child into the U.S. and citizenship will be granted. Our baby will be an immigrant! That is pretty cool. The I-171 is also coveted because it sometimes takes a long time for it to come in the mail and can hold everything up while you wait. Hopefully, that will not happen to us.

So tonight, I'm opening a bottle of champagne and plan to actually speak to my husband. He is growing very jealous of this laptop! We will have a few weeks without any major paperwork to worry about. Before "round two" begins, I plan to crack open some of the books I received for birthday and Christmas presents and just enjoy the free time.