Done!!

We had our last Home Study visit on Friday!!

I didn't post yet about our third visit, which was Monday March 18. For that visit we had to complete all of our Hague training and our "Connected Child" book. Wow....this was a TON of helpful information. It was a little overwhelming in parts...It definitely helps you to think through everything that could possibly be difficult in the transition period and after, and things that your child may have experienced or had difficulty with during their time in the orphanage.

That for me is so hard to think about - I hate that we cannot have her from birth, that she has to spend time without a family. When thinking through all of this and preparing for how to handle different situations that could come up, it is hard not to worry....about how she will be feeling in the orphanage, about whether she is being loved and taken care of well, about whether she is bonding with a nurturing worker there, about how she will react to us when she meets us, about how to make her feel less scared coming home with complete strangers to a completely different place and hearing a completely new language even in a completely different time zone - new food, new bed, new people and places, new dynamics in relationships, etc etc etc....about how she will adjust to all of this, about whether we will handle it right, about when she will attach to us and feel like part of our family, about how our other kids will feel during that adjustment period....as you can see my mind has been working overtime!!! Throughout this I started to get anxious about these things and God gave me peace. Our little girl is in His hands, not ours. She will be in His hands in her mother's belly, in whatever place she is left to be found, in the orphanage in China, and when she is finally with us...she will be in His hands and we will too. And He will equip us to handle anything that He puts in front of us. He is in control. Thank You, God! I am so thankful that we as believers have this HOPE!!!

Our third visit was mainly questioning us about our parenting style, discipline, etc. Our fourth and final visit, on Good Friday, was focused more on travel to China, cultural issues, handling discrimination and adoption issues in the future, etc. And besides a few last ends with paperwork, we are finished with our home study!!!! Yay!

After this, our social worker will compile all of our documents, interviews, and everything we have done so far, and send those along with a 20 page paper she writes describing our family, to a number of places that require the Home Study. As far as I understood, after this we will need to file for our 1800a, which gives us permission to bring an orphan into our home to become a US citizen. Then they will compile everything for our Dossier to send to China after authorization. Once we are DTC (Dossier to China), we wait to be Logged In (LID) and at that point we are able to be matched with a child and will be waiting for referrals. I'm sure I missed several steps in there but those are the basics to that point!

Happy Easter everyone!