So....what have we been doing for this adoption??

So far we have spent ALOT of time researching agencies. ALOT of time. When adopting you do not need to use an agency within your state. You do, however, need to use an agency approved by the Vietnamese government. And every agency is different. They all work in a different way and they work with different orphanages and in different provinces of VN. They have different timelines. Some agencies have a waiting list of a year or more for a referral of a child. While some agencies have no wait. No wait is not neccesarily better though. The ethics of the agency in the past and present is a HUGE factor. Because of corruption in the past Vietnam adoptions to Americans were closed in 2003. The two governments finally signed an agreement mid 2005 and started reliscensing agengies in January of 2006.

Because there are no adoptions agencies in our state that are liscensed in VN, we then needed to find a homestudy agency. This was not as easy as I expected. The fees for these agencies vary greatly. And you also want to find an agency that you feel a good rapport with. After all, they are literally looking into EVERY nook and cranny of your life and "judging" you. For the homestudy Pat and I have had physicals & criminal checks and child abuse checks. We have to prove our finacial stability by turning over 2 years worth of 1040's and stating all of our assets and liabilities. We have had to ask D's and O's teachers to fill out forms on their emotional stability and to state that we do not neglect our children's education. We have had 3 dear friends write letters of reference on our behalf. The funniest thing to me was that we had to have a vet fill out a form on Penny. Saying that she was not a danger to the children. You all know Penny, the killer attack dog, right?



Yeah, the one that rolls over to the submissive position to anyone and everyone that enters the house. LOL! Ah well...I understand why, but considering Penny, it seems so funny.

We have had one homestudy visit so far and are waiting for a few more. It really isn't bad though. We have a great Social Worker, Bev, who makes it seem as though she is a friend who really does want to talk all about you! LOL!

We have most of the paper work completed too. We are just waiting for our DR's to fill out the physical forms.



We applied to our placement agency as well. We sent that application, (plus the appropriate fees) in last Friday. We are awaiting a mew package from them with all the things we will need for our dossier (pronounced daw-see-aye). More about the dossier some other time.

I have also changed my name, finally. Untill this year, I never legally changed my last name after Pat and I got married. So to avoid complications while going through the adoption process, especially with the VN government, I added Pats name to mine.

All four of us needed new passports, so we also got those.