Tag Archives: Peru Adoption

Family Friday: U.S. Approval

I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I last shared an adoption update with you. So much has happened since then. Which is really kind of crazy because typically the whole adoption process takes FOREVER!

God works outside the boundaries of “typically” though and He has been blowing us away with his timing. Ok. Now that you are probably completely lost let me back up and explain what all has happened.

When I last left you we had recently turned in our home study to the U.S. Department of Immigration for approval. Typically, approval takes around ninety days and then the next step is to submit your dossier to Peru for approval. Since, ML and I haven’t exactly been Speedy Gonzalez with this whole adoption process we set a goal of having everything finalized and ready for our dossier within one month.

We met that goal… partially because we were still running off of a high from actually finishing our home study. It was tough though because it really is amazing how much paperwork and gathering of information actually goes into the adoption process. It will wear you out!

All our hard work paid off though because February 1 we found out we had been approved by the US for the adoption of one girl between the ages of 0 – 4 years from Peru! That was sixty days quicker than we were anticipating. We are thrilled and got the green light from our awesome social worker, Beth, to go ahead with round two of our physicals for our dossier. All that was lacking on our part was compiling scrap book pages of our family, house, and extended family to be sent to our little girl some day in the future.

(I’ve included all the pages for you to see except for the extended family page. Just in case some of them are a little shy or uncool with their pic being shared out in blogland.)

I had so much fun decorating these pages… thinking about her reaction to them when she sees us for the first time. Thankfully, I had plenty of time to pray over them and for her as I worked on them.

Last Thursday, Valentine’s Day, I turned all our paperwork into Lifeline Children’s Services, our adoption agency!

It was so exciting to have it all out of our hands and to be do it on Valentine’s Day… the official day of LOVE!

Once everything is apostiled (I’m not really sure what that means) our dossier will be sent to Peru. Beth, our social work is shooting for that to happen on Friday.

(Update: Peru will be receiving our dossier today!)

From there it will be a three to six month process of waiting for approval from Peru. Everything has to get translated, questions get asked, and who knows what else before we receive the final approval. God isn’t bound by time though. We could be approved much earlier or later. Whatever He feels is best… and we can’t argue with that now can we?

In the meantime we have started Spanish lessons through Rosetta Stone. I am still just a few lessons in but enjoying it so far. We will see though!

If you are still reading after all these words and so little pictures…. thank you! Again, we appreciate all your prayers through this process, for our family, and for our little girl (possibly already in Peru).

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Family Friday: Adoption Update and Gender Reveal

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Earlier this week I told you I would be back to share the most recent update to our kitchen renovation… our refrigerator. Well, all the pictures are edited and loaded, but the post just didn’t happen. Why? Because Noah is teething right now, and that means our normal schedule has been temporarily interrupted.

It works out perfectly though because this is Friday, and Fridays are Family Fridays here at Color Transformed Family. So I thought I would bring you up to speed on our adoption process and some exciting news… the gender reveal.

For anyone who might have missed the previous posts on our adoption from Peru, I have created an Adoption Story link at the top of the page. Just click for a list of all the posts about our adoption.

In our last update, I told you that we had just completed our home study. This was finalized just a few days before Christmas. Next, we submitted the 800A form for immigration, so that we can be approved to bring an adopted child into the U.S.

photo-46

This is typically a 90 day process, but it looks like ours might be moving a little quicker because we have our appointments for our fingerprints next week which could put us being approved by immigration in as little as 3-4 weeks. That’s almost an entire month ahead of schedule!

That would leave us with an estimated 3 months for our Dossier approval from Peru. Once approved we would be able to start looking at children. We’re talking late Spring people! #ItsAllMovingSoFast

Searching for our child is the big time variable though because there really is no telling how long it might take us to find our child. You would think it would be easy because there are so many orphans, but in the end it can end up taking possibly over a year. Mainly because Peru only releases a certain number of children to our agency Lifeline Children’s Services and because we will be searching for a child that meets our “child desired form”. One of the biggies on our form is that we hope to keep the birth order, meaning Noah will remain the oldest sibling. This might delay us some because practically all children on the list currently are two or over.

Now for the exciting news! Last month, while reviewing our home study report, Michael Luke and I found out that we will be adopting a girl.

its-a-girl

Yep! Noah will have a little sister! We are thrilled. So how did it happen and we not know up until this point? Well, basically our social worker recommended to Peru that we adopt a girl because Noah and her little sis will be sharing a room. The whole time we had been open to both genders and felt that God would decide for us just like with pregnancy, but little did we know he would let us know before we actually found our child. It’s like getting to see the gender-revealing sonogram during pregnancy!

It’s so much fun to at least be able to picture the gender of our child… and to know that Noah’s somewhat feminine nursery can stay as is. We look forward to sharing the rest of the process with you plus the transformation of Noah’s nursery into a room for two (I already have the furniture plan laid out).

Thanks for all your encouragement and support through our adoption process so far. We definitely appreciate your prayers as we continue to seek God’s guidance through this whole process.

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Family Friday: Homestudy… Check

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I have been wearing this bracelet since May.

adoption It is a reminder of our child.. our child we are in the process of adopting. Today I wear and rejoice in the fact that we are one step closer to bringing our child.

We FINALLY finished the homestudy for our adoption!

Clocking in at a little over nine months, we took a little bit longer than the average 3-4 months most people complete it in. We weren’t really in any hurry because the older Noah gets the better since we are trying to keep the birth order. Plus, we also had a minor set back when we found out we wouldn’t be adopting from Colombia. Which is where I last left you.

So last time I shared, I gave you the news that we were no longer pursuing Colombia as the country for us to adopt from. At the time we didn’t yet know which country God would have us adopt from.

Well, now I am happy to say we are pursuing adoption from Peru!

What lead us to Peru? Several things. First, we definitely have a heart for Latin America and feel that is where God wants us to adopt from. Second, it was the only other country that we met all the requirements (age, length of marriage) for that our agency, Lifeline Children’s Services, works with. Third, in country stay is estimated at twenty-eight days! Which we are ecstatic about… especially ML.

Even though we are finishing up the homestudy part of our adoption process we still have a long way to go. Time wise the earliest we could match and head to Peru to bring our child back is still ten months away but realistically it will probably be longer than that. I’ll be back after Christmas to explain the whole process in further detail and let you know what our next step is.