How do you chase papers?

We are now in the "paperchase" part of our adoption process. This means we have dozens of papers to collect (or, apparently, "chase") as we get ready for our home study and our dossier. The home study consists of four visits with a social worker to determine if we will make fit parents. For her, we have to have copies of our vital documents, references, background checks, police reports, and autobiographies for each of us. At the same time, we have 20 separate documents to collect that will be sent to Russia. Each document has to be notarized and apostilled (the Secretary of State verifies that the notary is actually a notary in the state...yeah, I'd never heard of it before either). As you can imagine, it's a bit time-consuming, and will require multiple trips to see the notary at our bank (who also adopted internationally!), and lots of visits to the post office. But it's all part of the very worthwhile process to bring Baby Nugent home. So we are doing our best to enjoy every moment of it!

We're accepted!

Yikes, I just started this blog, and already I'm getting behind. :-) On Monday, January 22, we found out that our agency, America World, had accepted us as clients! Woo-hoo! We were thrilled to find out about this while we were back in Colorado visiting friends. When we got back to Florida, there was a packet of info waiting for us. We had several agreements to fill out, sign, and mail back to them. We should be getting more in the mail from them in about 10 days or so. The next big step will be our home study. This involves a social worker visiting our home four different times (scheduled, not surprise visits!), and evaluating us as people, a couple, and our home. It will be a big milestone to get that finished, as we will then be able to apply for various grants, as well as complete our paperwork.