Home Study Update

It has been a little over a month since we saw our daughter for the first time.  In that time we have been collecting everything we need for our home study update.  A home study update is exactly what it sounds like: anything that has changed since our home study was originally written is updated with the new information.  This could include anything from changing jobs or moving, to something simpler such as updating that we have all become another year older.  :D Other things that are updated include all child abuse clearances, criminal clearances, and general medical health for all members of the family.  Since our original home study, our state has also begun requiring FBI clearances.  We were fingerprinted on Monday at the local police department, and we mailed the fingerprints and the official form that is required to the company that will process it to the FBI.  (We are using a third party company to process our request to the FBI: it is much faster than going directly through them.  A third party can get results for us in about two weeks, but it can take up to four months to get results directly from the FBI.)

We also needed to have a face to face visit with our social worker, which we had today.  It lasted about twenty minutes,  and it was done. Our social worker will rewrite and update our information for us to send in with our immigration paperwork.  We have done this before...just about exactly a year ago.  We received our first immigration approval a few days before Thanksgiving, 2013.  We hope to have our second approval before Thanksgiving this year.  Once our FBI clearances show up (they should be here late next week), we can get our information out to USCIS for approval to adopt from Poland (instead of Hungary like our original paper states).

One round down, a few more to go!  See this post under "When Will We Travel" for more information about what still needs to happen for us to be ready to travel.

This is how we have felt for the last month.  :-)