Valentines Day and Fingerprinting

Micah and I spent our 3rd Valentines Day together this year and what a memorable one it was! First I got 3 Dozen Roses Delivered to my work....2 dozen the day before Valentines Day and one dozen on Valentines Day ~ So needless to say I felt like the most special girl in the world! And the 2nd thing that made our Valentines Day so Memorable was that we got to drive up to Centerville, VA and attend our first of four Adoption Classes that we need to attend, prior to being an approved adoptive couple. It was a very appropriate way for us to spend our Valentines Evening together this year. We also got to meet 2 other great couples who are in the midst of the adoption process, so that was fun too!

One nice thing we learned from the attorney at our meeting was the importance of taking pictures and documenting each step of the process. So the next day as we headed to the Greene County Sheriff's Department to get our fingerprints done we had our camera in hand!

The deputy that was doing our fingerprinting was gracious and happy to have us take pictures! It didn't sound like that was the attitude he usually got when fingerprinting:)

As far as the latest update.....all of our reference checks are back to the agency (thanks to everyone who filled those out!) and now we are waiting for our LAST interview with our case worker and our criminal background checks to be returned so that we can be an APPROVED Adoptive Couple.

In the interim, we will be working on our letter to birth parents and composing a collage of pictures to submit to the agency, so that those who are looking for a couple to adopt their children will get to see a few clips of our life and decide if they feel their baby would fit into our family! We get more and more excited with each new week! And we are glad to get to share some of our excitement with you through our blog too! Don't forget to leave comments! We LOVE them!

The Home Inspection and More!

Friday, February 8th, was the big day for our one-on-one interviews and our home inspection! We wanted to include this picture of our cute little house! We are glad to report that our home passed the home inspection and it's in fact safe enough to house a baby!!!! Good news, huh?

So, here's the report......our caseworker met me at the house first, for our 1 on 1 one hour interview! I was really nervous at first, but as the questions began to unfold I began to be a little more comfortable! It all went well, we talked about families, goals, aspirations, it was a very inspiring meeting!

Then Micah came home to meet us for the home inspection. Our caseworker, Ryan, just wanted to make sure that we had things like a fire extinguisher (which I went out and bought the night before, apparently our old one wasn't up to code....not even sure it had a code!), working smoke detectors, a room for the baby to stay and where that room was in proximity to ours! All kinds of fun stuff:) We also had to give him a copy of our marriage license and of course he came with more paperwork to fill out:)

Then I left Micah with Ryan for his one-on-one interview. Micah said he was asked about his family and the values that he learned from his parents. He was also asked about his relationship with me! :) Apparently we both agree that our marriage is doing GREAT!

Things seem to be going well. He gave us our papers for our fingerprinting and criminal background checks. He said that they wait until this point in the process because they are only good for 90 days, and they have to be good when we are approved to be adoptive parents! So, what that means is within 90 days we should be approved and on the list as adoptive parents! Which means a birth mom can then choose us to take care of her baby! We are so excited!

Now we just have classes to attend and videos to watch, to help us learn more about the adoption process, get our fingerprints and background checks!

We are going to watch our 1st video segment from a recent "Families Supporting Adoption" conference that was held recently and continue to work on our letter for the birth parents tomorrow night for Family Home Evening!

Well, it's a long post again, but so much is happening and we want to make sure we document it!

So, Micah and I have finally decided that it is time for us to start "blogging." All of our friends and family have been doing it, or at least talking about it, so we thought we might as well give it a shot.

We wanted to start this blog for more reasons than just because "everyone else is doing it", we also wanted to stay more focused and write things down more frequently about our lives, so this is just as much for us as it is for any of you who decide to read it:) This is our first attempt, so we hope you enjoy it enough to keep checking back.

As a lot of you already know, we have begun the adoption process through LDS Family Services. It has been an amazing learning and testimony building experience so far and we hope it continues that way! So we wanted to start this as a way to keep you all informed as well as to keep a record for ourselves and our future children!

The Adoption process.....well I waited for Micah to give his "okay" before I started researching adoption. But the morning that he did I went straight to the computer and looked up LDS Family Services and (little did either of us know how quickly this process could get started) that same night I came home with the first round of paperwork for Micah and I to sign! Being the great husband that he is, he shook his head a bit first (as he was reminded that when I get my mind set on something I have a hard time letting it rest) and signed where I asked him to. And the next day the papers were in the mail.

By the end of that week we had a Caseworker and had set up our first appointment to meet with him. Our first meeting was on January 18th. It went well, he gave us more paperwork and some goals to accomplish before we could set up our second set of meetings. So over the next few weeks we were busy with doctor appointments, picking references, telling our parents, making a fire escape plan, and of course....filling out MORE paperwork.

That brings us up to speed. This week is also going to be another exciting one. We meet with our caseworker again on Friday February 8th at our home. Micah and I each have 1 hour interviews and then a house visit, where he checks to make sure our home is suitable for a baby:) I am sure part of the process will also include MORE paperwork:) So, that is the latest and we will keep you posted as things continue to progress. We are very excited about welcoming children into our family and we are looking forward to every moment between now and then too, to learn and to grow stronger both individually and as a couple!

So, I guess this officially ends our first post, sorry it is so long, we will do better next time! Let us know what you think by posting a comment, it is SUPER easy to do!