Home study Part 2

A lot has happened in the last few days!

 We got the information we needed to start our dossier. I will do a separate post on that. It made the home study paperwork look like a kindergarten assignment!

We have also been assigned a social worker!! Hooray!  We have actually already been in contact with her. She is the representative for Raleigh families who are working with CAS. She is also the coordinator for their Kenya program. Super nice lady who was very helpful to us when we first got started. We will be meeting with her four times. The first visit will be in our home. Then we will meet with her separately and then again together for the last visit.  We were able to schedule our first meeting for Thursday, July 14th. We are really excited to get started. Her goal is to get to know us as a couple and as individuals. She will discuss our reasons for wanting to adopt along with our parenting plan.(and probably a bunch of stuff in between!)

On another note I had my physical on Thursday which went great. I just have to go back for a TB test on Monday and then they will check that on Wednesday. Scott has his appointment for Monday. So we can check this off the list!

Small surprise...we also have to get clearance from the SBI for our home study. We found this out on Thursday on our way to Hilton Head so we haven't had a chance to follow up on this yet. From what I understand we have to get one of the local police departments to finger print us.(all ten prints!) We would then mail that to the SBI with a bunch of paperwork. We plan to try and tackle this Monday...or at least try and figure out were we need to go to get fingerprinted.

We have also been working on our ten hours of online education for our home study. We are about a fourth of the way done. The classes are not that bad and reiterate what we have reading from our suggested reading list.

It seems that things are moving along at a good pace!!

The Rileys

Fun tidbit:  We have read many times in several different books that it is common practice for everyone to wear hats when they are outside in Russia. BUT, not baseball caps! Apparently if you take your child outside without a hat it would not be uncommon for an elderly lady to stop and scold you for taking your kid out without his hat! Guess we are going to have to find some hats for him while we are there! I am not looking to be yelled at!

passports part II

Scott's passport came in the mail yesterday!! We can now officially leave the country. CAS(Carolina Adoption Services) has already received two of our reference letters. Which is AWESOME!! We really appreciate everyone being so prompt turning those in. We had to have seven reference letters in total.
2 family
2 personal
1 neighbor
2 employer (one each)

We are now waiting to be assigned a social worker...which should happen this week.

Here is a picture that makes me smile.

Savannah was so exhausted after a day of playing at the beach she decided to take over one of the lounge chairs.

And lastly a few pictures of Scott working on the babies room...only a sneak peak. Not ready to reveal too much yet!

AND YES...that is Carolina Blue on the walls! Lowes actually has paint choices that are specific to your college of choice.

passports

My passport came in the mail yesterday!!!! After only 3 weeks which is AMAZING! They had originally said 4-6 weeks, so I was counting on like 7 weeks. We are still waiting on Scott's renewal to come in. We applied for them the same day so it should come very soon.

Just to give everyone some more details on the process:
Question we get asked the most:

How long does the process take? We expect/hope to finish the adoption in about one year.

Will you be adopting a boy or girl? We have requested to adopt a boy! He will probably be between 1-2 years old when we finalize the adopt and come home.

Do you have to travel to Russia? YES. We will be making two trips to complete the adoption. Our first trip will be between 4-7 days. The last trip is up to 24 days.

Fun tidbit: There are more boys readily available for adoption. Reasons we have been given are: women feel that a daughter would better care for them in older age. Men in Russia are less accepting of a son from a previous relationship then a daughter. There may be other reason? But really who cares??? The wait for a referral for a girl is up to two years. We chose to request a boy because if we put either on our application they explained there is probably a 99% chance you will get a boy. We wanted to prepare the babies room this summer so we just went ahead and checked the boy box!

Contract Submission

Another day of progress! Our contract came in the mail today...we finished it tonight and it will go out tomorrow. Also, on another positive note, we mailed our homestudy packet today.

Now we wait for a social worker to be assigned to us. They should call us in about a week.

Fun fact: there are 9 time zones in Russia. Moscow is 8 hours ahead of us. so its 4:43 am...remember this fact when we come home with a child that has to make this transition! According to all the literature a child can adjust about 1 hour every day. Which I find to be pretty remarkable!

The Rileys

Homestudy Part 1

The homestudy packet came in the mail Saturday!! Whoop whoop...finally something to do! Can I just say WOW! We worked for about 8+ hours on Sunday to get as much done as possible. Let me give you a sample of what they want:

individual autobiographies

financial statement form

photocopy of federal tax return

marriage certificate

birth certificates

color photo of each of us

color photo of exterior of front and back of house

proof of life insurance

proof of health insurance

proof of health insurance for adopted child

guardianship letter

sworn statement

background check release

Also, they give you about fifteen questions to answer. About a paragraph for each answer. For example just to name a few:

What is your parenting philosophy?

How are you preparing for this adoption?

What are your hobbies/interest?

The list goes on...

We also set up a fedex account. Which allows our agency to send documents to Russia and back. Don't even want to see those shipping charges!!

Lastly, they asked for several references.

The GOOD news is it is done!!!! We can mail it back to our agency tomorrow!! Scott gets most of the credit! He has worked sooo hard on making sure we have all the documents we need and stayed on the phone until it was done!

Once the agency receives this information we will be assigned a social worker. They will do 4-6 interviews with us. At least one of those will be completed in our home.

While we are waiting for those interviews we will also be working on getting complete physicals and 10 hours of education online.

Whew...so much information!!! We are making great progress, lets hope it continues!

We have a much anticipated trip planned to Cedar Island this weekend for our anniversary. We hope to get as much accomplished as we can before we leave!

So next up appointments for physicals!

Oh quick note, after we finish the homestudy we file our I-600A. The I-600A is the application for advance processing of orphan petition. But we dont want to get ahead of ourselves, there are many hurdles to jump before we get there. Then up next is the completion of our dossier(this post is already too long for me to explain that so we will save it for later!).

Fun facts: current population in Russia is 138,739,892.

This puts Russia 9th on the list for population even though it is the largest country.(China is 1...duh!)

Moscow population is 10,500,000.

The Rileys

BIG NEWS!!!

Big, big news in the Riley house! We are ADOPTING!! Today we got the official approval from our agency(Carolina Adoption Services). We feel that international adoption is the right path for our family and have chosen the Russia program.

This blog has been created to keep our friends and family updated during this process. At times this could be the most boring thing you read all day. A great deal of this journey requires A LOT of paperwork. Some days we may ramble on about how excited we are our I-600A is completed or that we successfully had our documents notarized. BUT when we travel to Russia you will want to tune back in. That's when the story will become a page turner.Our goal is to document this journey. The triumphs and the bumps in the road.

Happiness, excitement, and anticipation!! We are ready to become a family of three!

Over the next few days, weeks, and months we will explain the adoption process in more detail and possibly some fun facts about Russia.

The Rileys

Did you know Russia is the largest country in the world? 6.5 million square miles(about 1.8 times the size of the U.S)