Adoption Process So Far

So, I wrote here about how we officially decided to start adopting in September 2010.

9/17/2010 - Mailed off the preliminary application & preliminary application fee.11/5/2010 - Attend Bethany's Informational Meeting

Pics of us driving up to Columbia. We had to get up REALLY early.
Basically, it was just them giving us a bunch of information about the adoption process.
(Most of it we already knew from all of the research we had done before.)

Highlights of the meeting:
-the whole thing starting to feel 'real'
-confirmation for me that Domestic is the way to go this time around (I had previously been wrestling with wanting to do an international adoption.)
-realizing that we can really get started

November 2010-April 2011 - Work on Formal Application

This stage was a lot of work. Thinking through lots of questions. Some of which I highlighted here. And also signing a lot of Release Forms, Background Checks, Financial Checks. Getting Fingerprinted. Getting Drug Tested. Finding copies of Birth Certificates, Vaccination Records, and our Marriage License. (Thankfully, due to our travels and visa requirements, we had all of those last things handy.)

Driving to get Fingerprinted. 4/13/11

Getting our Physicals & TB Test Shots 4/13/11

4/18/2011 -- Mailed off the Formal Application & Formal Application Fee!
We had definitely intended on completing the Formal Application much earlier, but other things kept becoming more of a priority. We could have forced it and done them on our original time frame, but I don't believe we would have been honoring the Lord. Though it was almost 5 months later than we expected, we can move on to the next stages knowing that we have done all of this in the Lord's timing. The child He has for us is not affected by whether we had the Formal Application completed in December 2010 like we originally planned or now.

Next-- April 29, 2011 Bethany Training Meeting, all day in Columbia

P.S. It may seem weird that I took pictures of all these things (Matt think it's weird.) But I decided at the beginning that I wanted pictures of all of the major stuff since this is our "Paper Pregnancy". We don't have belly shots to show our future child, but we will have pictures showing him/her how special he or she was to us through this process.

We Love You, Baby Flagler!