Big Changes

Well, ALOT has happened over the last five and a half months!  Right after we finished all of the paperwork for DRC, got USCIS approval and all of our dossier documents ready to send, the US State Dept had a conference call to catch everyone up on the exit visa stoppage in the DRC.   We ended that call feeling very uncertain and called WACAP to see what ideas they had.  DRC has a law on the books that an adoptive family may only have 2 children in the home.  This has always been interpreted as it was meant for Congolese families and many American families with 3 children in the home already, have adopted.  Now the Congolese government is only approving adoptions for families that meet ALL of their requirements, including not more than two children in the home. :-(  Sadly, that took us out of that program (In our eyes).  WACAP thought they may issue us a letter of exception, if we chose to stay in the program or we could transfer to another program.  At that point we began to dual with the China program.  In July, we decided to officially transfer to the China program.  Sadly, this meant that we had to start ALL over again!  New home study agency, new paperwork, new documents and the list goes on and on and on.  We have just now finished our homestudy and today mailed our dossier documents to WACAP.  Next is our I-800A approval and getting our dossier translated into Chinese.  I'll be better about keeping you all up to date on our journey, now that we've found the path that we were meant to follow.  Until then..

How it all got started

Many of you have asked how we came to this decision and I decided that my first post should be how this all began.  Well, surprised as some of you may be, Aaron and I have always had the idea of adoption in the back of our heads.  I told Aaron from the very beginning that my dream would be to give birth to 3 children and adopt a 4th.  Through our years of infertility, we did contemplate the idea and then were blessed with our three biological children and decided that God was saying, "Not yet."  BUT, then Christopher started kindergarten this fall and I heard the call loud and clear, "Now is the time!"  Aaron and I began researching agencies and countries and decided that Africa was calling our name.  So in December 2013 we began our journey by sending our application, to WACAP, and in January 2014, we began meeting with our social worker to complete our homestudy.  Two visits at her office, one home visit and ALL of this paperwork, which included birth certificates for all 5 of us, marriage certificate, medical clearances on the entire family, letters of reference, State and FBI criminal background clearances and 10 hours of parenting webinars. 


For our Home Study Agency

We were onto part 2!

Along with ALL of that paperwork, we also needed to send ALL of this paperwork (duplicates of above plus copies of our passports and an 18 page Family Resource Plan) to our agency as part of their homestudy file.


More Home Study paperwork for our Adoption Agency

And now for part 3!

Once this was approved by our agency we submitted our USCIS I-600 to the local Immigration & Customs Office and waited.  Once that is approved (in 2-4 months) and we have collected ALL of this paperwork (Letter of why we want to adopt for the DRC, Local police clearance (State & FBI wouldn't do), certified copies of birth certificates and marriage license, more finances and medical clearances) for our Dossier, our agency will put everything together and send it to Africa and we will officially begin waiting for a little girl to be matched with our family!




Paperwork to be sent to the DRC government

So that's how it all began and where we are now.  Just waiting! :-)