Almost a month has passed since we filled out the application to adopt Fu, KangChao. I've been busily completing documents, including the financial statement, the medical forms, the letter of intent to adopt, the nurture plan and our autobiographical histories. The autobiographical history takes the longest to write, in my opinion. Last week, David and I had to go to Rochester to have our finger-prints taken. For the life of me I can't figure out why we have to have our fingerprints done yet again. Both of us have had our fingerprints done at least a dozen times. When a criminal leaves prints at a crime, the police look-up a database of prints and find a match. I can't figure out why they can't just re-run our security check using the prints they have on file. However, my role is to follow the directions for the home-study, and new prints were required. We also have to take courses to prepare us for the adoption. These courses were not necessary the first time we adopted because we had taken the Department of Social Services MAPP class (30 hours) within a year of the home-study. We also have to participate in a webinar on Jan 18th, and then our first home-study visit is scheduled for Jan 23rd. If the social worker is really fast with her report, and she can get three more visits in within a month (last time it took 2 months to complete), then we can have our home-study into the US government's hands by the end of Feb. The US department of immigration needs our home-study, along with our I800A application, before we submit any documents to China. Adoption is a long and tedious process, but it should be faster this time because we have most of the documents we need already. It took me months last time to even gather our birth certificates, marriage certificate etc. etc. Even our medical reports took longer because we had to get tested for HIV and TB; with China reusing our dossier, we don't need to have those tests redone. Hooray for progress!
