Chasing Paper?

Caution: This is long!

Well what the heck does that mean? We thought we would share a little about what we have gone through the last 7 months before we were referred Yu-Lin. The beginning stages of the adoption process are often referred to as the "paperchase" because of all the paperwork you need to complete, process, and keep track of. (The paperchase process is required for all international adoptions no matter which country you are adopting from or which adoption agency you are using.) It started with our initial application to our agency. We then needed to each write an autobiography about ourselves and needed to get 4 people to write wonderful glowing reference letters stating what great people we were and what terrific parents we will be. Thanks to our wonderful friends/family (you know who you are) we had excellent reference letters. During this time, we also had to get physical exams, we had to get two types of criminal background checks, we had to get TB clearances, we had to submit tax returns and other income verifications, and apply for immigration preapproval.

Once these were done, we then started the next dreaded phase called the "homestudy". The homestudy is when a social worker from our adoption agency is assigned to your case to review all the above material and to interview you multiple times (both individually and jointly), ask a lot of personal questions about you, your childhood, your ideas on parenting, and does a inspection of your home. We cleaned our house for 2 weeks, dusting everything in sight, cleaning every curtain, buying new decorations and furniture, just so that our house would look great and pass the inspection. Even our poor little mini daschunds Idgie & Ruthie also got the spa treatment so that they were fresh and ready to meet Kanani our social worker. Thankfully, we passed with flying colors and Kanani was awesome through it all. Thanks Kanani!! Through those interviews and materials we previously submitted, Kanani wrote a 10 page final report on us. Wow, didn't realize there were enough things to say about us to take up 10 single spaced pages. This final report was then notarized and sent to our agency to translate to Chinese and be ready to send to Taiwan when we got a referral of a baby.

Also, during this time we had to prepare 4 photopages to document our lives together, our family, and our home (including a picture of the baby room...what?, you need a picture of the baby room and no baby, you gotta be kidding right? No, not kidding). Of course Kristie was thrilled with this requirement because it actually gave her the green light to go shopping (her favorite thing to do) without getting heat from Derek. And yes, for you family out there, your pictures are in the photopages, but don't fret, we made sure we got your best side in the picture.

Once all of this was completed, we were finally on the "official" waiting list and eligible to receive a referral of a baby from Taiwan. We requested a healthy baby, either gender and no older than 10 months.


Whew that was EXHAUSTING! It is amazing looking back at all we did the past 7 months and we still managed to host a Christmas party at our house, celebrate some birthdays and other special days, go on a skiing trip, take a week trip to Montreal & Quebec, a trip to Chicago for Kristie, keep up with our extra-curricular activities, and oh, the most important thing...hold down our jobs to pay for the adoption. Wow!