What We've Accomplished So Far

Although it's October, we went to our first adoption orientation in April. We already knew we wanted to adopt, specifically international adoption, and we knew we would most likely go through WACAP. We witnessed two great adoptions through this agency and liked what we knew so far about their programs.

We went into the orientation sure we wanted to adopt from Russia. India was also a possibility...oh and then there's Thailand....or what about Vietnam? Obviously we had some research to do. I had been doing research on Russia and the more and more we read, the more and more it didn't feel right. I'll go into why at another time, but basically, we no longer felt that maintaining Shawn's Eastern European heritage was critical.

Shortly after a visit from Shawn's cousin Troy, his wife Shannon and their little boy Alex, from Korea, we made the decision to change countries. Ironically, we didn't consider any of the countries listed above. It was unanimously China. The more research we did, the more it felt right.

In June, we sent in our agency application to start the process. Now it was real! Could we change our minds? Maybe we could just get another dog.

Summer of 06 was quite the whirlwind. Shawn traveled much of the time, which meant that we needed to put the progression of our plans on hold for a few months. After his trip to the Philippines and our trip to Hawaii, we felt ready to move forward. At this point, our family still had no idea what we were up to and only a few coworkers knew about our plans. Telling them meant we really couldn't turn back. Dog 2 was sounding pretty safe at this point.

The next step was a weekend class at our agency offices that kicks off the homestudy. Homestudy is basically that, a study by a social worker of whether or not we can provide a stable home environment for a child. Sounds easy, but this is when we're really under the microscope. FBI checks, fingerprints, home visits, taxes, net worth, medical scrutiny, etc. Is it OK to have nothing in the pantry but martini fixings and a boboli shell?

So, we're in the midst of this process and the "paperchase" that goes along with it. This will be the boring part for everyone, including us. Next weekend, we will be revealing the news to our parents. I'm sure there will be a huge story to tell.