It all begins...

After many weeks of research and a lot of prayers we decided that we were ready to select our agency that we would be working with. So we began to fill out the mountain of paperwork. I called Heaven Sent Children, as well as about 10 other agencies, and set up some meetings.

January 26, 2010 was a hopeful day. John and I went to Murfreesboro to meet with Heaven Sent Children. Once we left I had that nice calm feeling (trust me....it is rare for me) and I knew that we had been matched with our agency and social worker. Her name is Stephanie and she is not just a social worker, but a mother of 2 beautiful children adopted from China and Korea. We had looked into different coutries to adopt from, but wanted to hear what she had to say. Within 10 minutes of being in her office, we were led to Korea. Her children came in and the light in their faces made me know that what we were beginning was right for us. Her youngest child, Noah is from Korea and I immediately said, "where do we sign up?"

If you have ever looked into international adoption, there is a lot of red tape and hoops that have to be jumped through. I had researched countries, and many require both parents to be 30 years old, many countries are closed, etc...

We gave Stephanie our first load of paperwork and a scrapbook, and got the list of 28 things to complete. We scheduled our first meeting for our home study for the following Thursday.

By Wed. of that week I had all 28 items completed. Some of these things were police clearance, vet letter for Oscar, letters from bosses, insurance, home insurance proof, life insurance, last 3 years of taxes, physicals (included blood work so I didn't think I would ever get John there!), etc....

Stephanie came to our home at 4 pm on Thursday, January 29th to begin our homestudy! I was so excited and thought this was the 'hard part' HA! Little did I know.

She stayed 3 hours and then needed to get home to her little ones. She gave us another list and more paperwork and we set up the next date.

We had a snow day and I emailed Stephanie saying how I wish we could meet that day because I knew she had a busy weekend as it was her daughters birthday party. Within 2 hours we were meeting with the next list of things completed and paperwork completed. I learned at this point that we not only use HSC but also an international agency. Stephanie said that Children's Home Society and Family Services was our best bet and explained that most of the children we will see are 'special needs.' We were also told that to only expect a BOY. Koreans typically have boys available and if you don't have any children in the home that is what is expected. We could care less the sex because we are of the mind that ALL children are a GIFT and who are we to be choosy?

A few weeks went by and I was checking the CHSFS website daily/hourly hoping our little one would pop up. We saw a few and thought we found a little fellow that was just perfect. Low and behold, we learned that we were not eligable for him and to continue to wait.

Stephanie continuously reminded me that we have not been at this long and that typically people aren't even done with the HS process! We were really moving!