Officially Registered with Open Arms!

I received a letter in the mail today from Deborah at Open Arms to International Adoption officially welcoming me into the adoption process with her agency acting on my behalf! Yeah! Another step ~ check! :o)

Each agency handles the adoption process differently. With Open Arms I was not required to officially register with them and pay the registration fee until I'd received 'The Call' advising me that as a single, it was my time to begin my adoption process.

Sidenote: Couples can normally begin as soon as an agency accepts them whereas singles have a bit of a wait. Thankfully for me this wait was very, very short! Other singles in Canada and the US are sometimes being given an estimated date of 2009 when they will be able to begin their adoption process!! This may change in time but for now it is the current situation due to China's restriction on adoptions by singles. Approx. 3.5 years ago China restricted it's adopions by singles to 8% of it's babies so therefore I needed to wait my turn in a line of singles considering adopting. I praise God that He allowed me to receive my call in such a short period of time!

So, even though I'd orignally been told by Deborah on May 30th that I could begin my home study and paperchase I had not registered with them until I mailed my form in last week. As mentioned previously, (see A New Adventure...My Adoption Blog) I'd put the adoption on hold in mid-June, seeking God's confirmation to proceed or not. It was, and continues to be, all in His hands. Daily I commit my adoption journey to Him, seeking God's Will in this process. It is only with Him that I can do this.

'In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. ' Psalm 5:3

Praying and trusting Him as I move forward 1 step at a time.

We Have the Prints!

I'd better be good now! My fingerprints will soon be winging...err...motoring their way to Ottawa to be logged and checked by the RCMP. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police for my American friends.) A good friend from church works for our local police department and kindly offered to take my fingerprints for me. It was so much nicer having them taken by him rather than in an office at the police station! Pat took the prints, his wife Cathy took the pictures and then we sat down for a cup of tea afterwards. Yes...much nicer!

Currently, the turnaround time for fingerprints seems to be somewhere in the area of 90 days so I knew I wanted to get them done sooner rather than later. (I'm hoping that in 90 days my file will almost be ready to go to China!)

I called Pat and asked if I could set up an appt. with him to take the prints. He was happy to help me out and we set a date and time. Because he was able to do them at home he mentioned that he would be using a portable kit...the one he normally used in the morgue! (What a story that would have been!) Alas, tonight when he went to pick up the 'morgue kit' another officer had it out so he used a small ink pad to do mine. I teased him when I first got there that unlike many of his other clients, my fingers would still be warm! :o)

I have the envelope addressed to the RCMP and a stamp on it. All I need now is to get a money order and I can mail off one more piece of paperwork. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that I'm actually doing things that are helping the adoption to progress! Currently when people ask me when I anticipate getting the baby I say probably September or October of 2006. With September just hours away I'll soon be able to say, 'Next September!' Wow! In a little more than a year I'm going to be a Mom!

Police Check......check!

Happy to say my local police check returned today with a totally clear record. (Phew! ;o) Having the clear record wasn't the question...just how long it would take was the unknown. A week is a really good turnaround time! Some of my friends in larger cities find this check can take 4-6 weeks which seems like forever when you're paperchasing.

I've spoken with the friend who is going to do my fingerprints this week. Just need to call him back and set up a time. Sending fingerprints to the RCMP for their check seems to take a little longer so it's my goal to have them taken and in the mail before Friday. I'll keep you posted.

A few days in the big city

This week has been a week in the big city! After not having been to Toronto for a month or so, I was in 4 days this week for 3 different reasons. Tuesday was the big trip to the EX for Deb and I; Wednesday was a meeting with my coworkers and then Thursday, Friday were spent at a course called, 'Dynamic Presentation Skills.' It was a great course and I learned a lot of useful skills that I'll be able to put into practice immediately. What a nice change. Some courses are informative but trying to incorporate the lessons learned can be difficult. It won't be this way with what I learned in this course. Over the 2 days we each prepared a presentation to give to the class. We were allowed to choose any subject matter we wanted. Hmmm...work topic? Nah. I chose to share about my adoption journey as it is so close to my heart. Some people chose to present information that they will be able to use at work so our class was a great dry run for them. Others chose topics such as BBQing Tips, How to Prepare for Retirement and What It's Like to Sing in a Barbershop Quartet. The presentations were great and I often forgot to look for the items we were working on in our class. After each person's presentation we shared what we liked as well as some helpful hints of things to work on. It was great!

My topic was a little different from the others in that it was most likely something they would never actually do themselves so I invited them to take the adoption journey with me that I am taking over the next 14-18 months...and then for a lifetime. I was so absorbed in what I was sharing that I forgot some of the techniques I'd been shown. Oops! Oh well, maybe next time. As I prepared to wrap up my presentation I noticed tears in the eyes of a couple of my classmates. It was exciting to see them share in my joy and anticipation of the journey God is taking me on.

Today 1 more piece of paperwork was checked off. I mailed my formal application to Deborah at Open Arms so that I will be officially registered with them!

1 small envelope to the agency, 1 more big leap towards the baby!

The Paperchase has Officially Begun!

It's official...the paperchase has begun! After signing the line of credit papers on Saturday I was all set to officially begin my paperchase.

This morning I walked over to our local police station and filled out the paperwork for the police check. I was shaking so badly I could hardly hold the pen! Uh oh! The officer behind the counter laughed at me as she reminded me this was only the beginning of many papers that would need to be filled out. Yup....but this is one of the FIRST since hearing God's answers to the prayers of myself and many others! Gulp! It's really happening! And I couldn't be more excited!!!

The other form that I had already requested in the spring was my long-form birth certificate. I was able to do this earlier as it is not a document that can 'stale date' before going to China as some others can. When that arrived via registered letter, I was not prepared for what I was going to see! What I saw immediately gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes! I was looking at a copy of the form my Mom had filled out 39 years ago when she and Dad registered my birth! I hadn't expected to see her familiar hand writing and when I did it was such a wonderful moment! As I try to imagine how Mom and Dad felt when they filled out that paperwork is overwhelming. Mom had had difficulties (to put it very mildly!) having children so I was her first.

As I begin this journey to mommyhood myself I understand more and more about the longings of a woman's heart to be a Mom! Thank you Mom and Dad for persuing having a birth child and then for adopting my great brothers when another birth child was not what God had planned for you. God had David, Ken and I planned for you from the very beginning and for that I am so thankful! I am thrilled to be able to continue adding to our family through the amazing priveledge of adoption!