PAPERWORK

I'm beginning to realize how hard it's going to be to keep the blog updated now that the PAPERWORK has started!  We started working on what Gladney calls "Group 1" of the documents to be submitted as part of our formal application.   This includes a description of each of us, our marital history, members of our household, our education, religion, criminal records, our finances, our home, employment history, mental and physical health, and five references.  A "child preference profile" was also a part of the "Group 1" documents.  This is where we were able to give a detailed description of the children we would like to adopt such as, their ages, gender, and overall health.  We agreed to accept a sibling group of up to 3 children, of either gender, 8 years old and under.  We also stated that we would be willing to discuss accepting a referral of a child with correctable medical issues.  We were encouraged to consider doing so because, what is often considered correctable medical issues are things like developmental delays and the results of malnutrition.  

Next on the agenda is completing the "Group 2" documents.  This will include employment verification, a physician's report on the both of us, verification of health insurance, and a few other miscellaneous documents, most of which have to be notarized.  We anticipate that it will take a few weeks to have everything completed.  Although this paperwork is anything but exciting, we know that with each document completed, we are one step closer to our little ones. :)