Month or so later

We waited and waited for the state endorsement letter to arrive so we could move a tiny step forward. I began to pray each night that the person whose desk was flooded with paperwork and letting our documents just sit there – that they would realize it was more than just paper. In essence, people’s lives or a portion of their life journey was sitting on their desk. On September 26th Carole called me at work to tell me that she got the letter. She was able to complete the homestudy. With that, she mailed the approved homestudy off to CIS so they could then process the I700A form that would say we were fit to parent an orphan. Do you notice a theme here? Hurry up and get paperwork done so you can wait to get approval so you can hurry up and get more paperwork done and wait some more! And then (as I posted that day) on October 24th we got our letter from CIS. So the ball is back in our court. More paper gathering. We are hoping to have all the documents ready to drive down to Springfield the first part of next week.

So finally I think I have gotten this blog up to speed with the beginning process of our adoption and a whole lot more. It will be MUCH easier to journal these events as they happen. It is on my to-do-list to put a timeline on the side of this blog to document the important dates.

Happy Halloween!

And then

So the rest of July and into the first part of August we got all of our paperwork and education hours done. We were just waiting for the DCFS approval so that we could send the homestudy down to the state for their approval. Finally in the second week of August the letter arrives and Carole is ready to ship off the packet. But – wait!!! Of course it can’t be that simple. Just one week prior to Lifelink finds out that the state of Illinois has raised its hours of face-to-face consultation by 1.5 hours. So before we can send out the packet we have to document the additional time. Any kind of parenting class or anything would work. We didn’t want to drive over to Peoria – plus Carole was leaving for vacation. We called all of the agencies in McDonough and Warren County. None of them were offering sessions until over the start of the school year. Ugh! Luckily there was a very nice lady that works with Catholic Social Services in Macomb that agreed to put together a few things and meet with Justin and I one-on-one for the hour and a half- for free! We did that on August 13th . I faxed the letter she wrote to Carole that night and the homestudy was sent off to the state for their seal of approval on August 14th.

Quick one

Only have a couple of minutes and thought I would upload a few pictures. I have been trying to catch up from being at a conference the past two days. Brady (Brian Urlacher – Chicago Bears) and Madison (WIU cheerleader) had their Halloween parties today. Justin and I have parent-teacher conferences tonight. Brady tells me that conferences make him nervous because teachers talk about kids and that it isn’t fair the kids don’t know what is being said. Sounds like he might have something to be nervous about :o) I am also working frantically to get our registration documents together. I’ll write about that soon. Getting our letter on Friday from CIS started a little whirlwind of activity.

After Naperville

So picking up where I left off, we returned with our rug late Tuesday night. Two days later on Thursday, June 26th we took our medical forms to our doctor to have filled out. We needed them as the last piece of the paperwork for the first stage of our home study. Then on Friday morning, Justin and I were back on the train and headed for downtown Chicago for an amazing weekend. Our friends, Bridget and Jordan, were married that weekend. We took a cruise out on Lake Michigan and through the City; jogged on Lake Shore Drive; attended church at one of Willow Creek’s satellite churches; walked through the Taste of Chicago; attended a beautiful wedding and fabulous reception at the Contemporary Art Museum. We took the train home Sunday night and had to have our house ready for the home visit the very next morning – June 30th.

The home visit was obviously at our home (duh!). Carole came and met with Brady and Madison and spoke with them about their openness to the adoption. She walked through the house checking for things such as fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, medicine and sharp objects out of reach of lil’ ones etc… We are pleased to say that we passed with flying colors. At the end of the visit we went through all of the outstanding documents that we needed in order to send the home study to the state for their approval. We still needed the medical forms, the fingerprint/background check results from DCFS, and our documentation of our adoption education hours.

Yippeeee

I am sooooo excited! We got our letter from CIS today!!!! What comes next? I don’t know. I have to read, reread, and make calls. I am just beside myself though with this little break through. Nothing could move forward without this little letter so we are off and running again. The paper reads “Notice of favorable determination concerning application for advance processing of orphan petition. It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans as defined by (insert lots of legal language)” Yahooooo!

I also want to update this blog by saying God is good! Not only did we receive good news this week, a friend of mine shared news that she is ten weeks pregnant with a healthy little boy or at this point a lil’ gummy bear :o); another friend and her husband confirmed their pregnancy this week after infertility issues; another friend has a ring waiting in a save spot to pop the question soon! There is still lots of heartache in some relationships that I continue to pray for, but there is so much good that is taking place as well.

Naperville – here we come

So my mom and I drive to Arkansas with Brady, Madison, my niece Alexis, and nephew Trevor for my cousin’s high school graduation and for the Underwood family reunion. We left the night of June 20th and returned the afternoon of June 23. Justin and I had train tickets to Naperville and left Macomb around 6:00 p.m. on the 23rd. The rest of this entry was supposed to be super easy to write because Justin actually wrote a journal entry about the entire event. Unfortunately, someone decided to spill coffee on her laptop a week and a half ago and fried the hard drive of the computer. You would think that since this person is a technology director that she would have all of her files backed up. But no, of course not!!!

So we get to Naperville in the evening; grab a cab; stay at a less than stellar hotel; arrange for a cab to pick us up by 7:00 a.m. for our 8:00 a.m. appointment. The next morning we got up, check out of the hotel bright and early and were off with our backpack to spend the day in Naperville. So the first moment of panic was that our cabbie was clueless how to get to the CIS office. We had the street address so you would think that that should have done the trick. He was calling back to his home base to get help and no one seemed to know what he was talking about. My heart was pounding. We could NOT miss that appointment! Finally after we told him to keep driving and get us to the block where the building was 'supposed' to be, we found the CIS office nestled in a strip mall. We were in line right at 8:00 a.m. So the entire fingerprinting process took a whopping 30 minutes. Seriously we were back outside the building at 8:30. We had the remainder of the day to backpack through Naperville. Luckily there was a mall right across the street from the CIS office. As we headed that direction, I noticed a large tent set up in the far corner of the lot with rugs. I jokingly said to Justin, we should get a rug to take home. Ha Ha. We spent the entire day in the mall. We needed to be back at the train station by 6:00 and wanted to grab a sandwich for the ride home. So we headed out of the mall with our backpack and few bags in tow. Off through the parking lot we went - straight toward the rug tent. Ohh, we have some time before we have to get the cab, let’s just take a peek right??? Wouldn’t you know it. I found a rug that would be just perfect for the house. The salesman tried his best to get us to take it, and we explained that there was just no way that we could carry the rug on the train and get it home. We told him why we were in Naperville and walking around with a backpack, and he was moved by our story. He made us a deal that we just could not refuse. So after laughing hysterically at ourselves, Justin packs this rug on his shoulder and off we went down the streets of Naperville. We took it into Panera to order our sandwiches, and we called a cab. When the cab arrived we discovered that the rug would not fit in the trunk!! This was getting more and more ridiculous. Luckily we got it to fit in the back seat with the window rolled down. And we were off. We were able to get it on the train with no problem at all.

I am pleased to report that the rug fits nicely in our office. It will always bring back the memories of our Naperville fingerprinting excursion.

Whirlwind of Activity

Ok so I left off with our first visit with our caseworker. The month of June was a flurry of activity. Before I lay out the timeline of how things went let me first explain a little about the fingerprints I mentioned several entries ago. We sent our I-600A form to Citizens and Immigration Services (CIS). They then send you a letter assigning you a location and time for you to get your biometric fingerprints taken. People in our area are either assigned to go to Naperville or to St. Louis. We couldn’t believe our ears. Keep in mind that we just had had our FREE biometric fingerprints taken at WIU 5 minutes away from our home just prior to this. Unreal! On Friday, June 13th we get our letter from CIS stating that we are assigned to get our prints taken on June 24th in Naperville at 8:00 a.m. Why is it that the people the furthest away are assigned an 8:00 a.m. time? This is beyond me. So Justin and I decide that we would have to go up on the train the night before, stay at a cheap hotel, and get the prints done. Not so bad right? Well here is how things went – Letter received on June 13th; Next meeting with caseworker in Peoria on June 19th; the kids and I to Arkansas June 21st – 23rd; drive like crazy on the 23rd to get me back to Macomb for the 6:15 p.m. train on the 23rd; Naperville on the 24th; I was supposed to be in charge of VBS registration that entire week; June 26th get physical form to the doctor; back to Chicago June 27th – 29th for a fabulous wedding; June 30th our home visit/inspection; July 2nd leave for Disney. Not to mention I am supposed to be getting a lot done at work including deploying an entirely new phone system. Things were seriously insane!!!

So the meeting with the Carole, the caseworker, on June 19th was a full day ordeal. She interviewed Justin and me together for about 3 hours. We went through all of the paperwork we had turned in; discussed parenting styles; our relationship; feelings we have about people who give their children up for adoption; awareness to cultural differences etc… We had a short lunch break and then she interviewed each of us separately for about 1.5 hours. This was to get a feel for our upbringing; more conversation about our marriage; our parenting styles; etc… I think she was trying to find out if we are nuts or not. Luckily that day we appeared to be somewhat normal :o)

Random thoughts

I haven’t had even a second to get back to this blog! I thought I’d squeeze in a few updates between duties. First of all, for all that requested the Cat Litter Casserole recipe – just click on this link and it will take you to the recipe. We used ground sausage in ours. Secondly, I did take the bedroom pictures. So they are ready whenever we get ready to send our packet to CHI. Third, we had a very fun weekend. My friend Bridget and her husband Jordan come down from Chicago for the weekend. (Now if I could just get a friend to come visit from North Carolina and one from Pennsylvania to come visit I’ll be happy!) It was great to hang out with them and to get to know Jordan better. I am pleased to report, the more we got to know about him the more we liked him! Lol. It was also WIU’s homecoming and Madison walked in her first WIU homecoming parade with her Dazzler dance team. We took the city slickers out to the farm to ride in the combine and tractors so they could see what harvest is all about. Unfortunately the tour was cut short when the combine decided to breakdown and throw sparks on the ground lighting a little section of the field on fire. It didn’t do much damage to the field. Thankfully there were plenty of feet to stomp it out. I told Justin and Lisle that they didn’t have to put on a show for our guests!

On a more serious note. I have been praying for many relationships lately. If you pray, I would ask that you partner with me in asking God to lift up families that are struggling right now. It seems that there are a lot of strained relationships. There are couples that are considering divorce, there are couples that are trying desperately to get pregnant, there are couples that are pregnant and they are on pins and needles because of some risk factors, etc… I know that these are regular life issues, but for some reason I feel like they are more prevalent right now among the people I know. It really is weighing heavy on me that I can't figure out a way to make things better for each of them.

Ohh and at 6:28 we found Squirmy dead in his tank :o( Madison was sad until I told her she could pick out a new fish since I obviously picked out one that was sick!

Bedroom pictures

This entry is way out of order, but I wanted to ‘vent’ just a little. I have really got to get this blog up to date so this makes more sense. Anyway… yesterday we sent pictures to our social worker to include in our dossier (again – I’ll get to that later). Children’s Hope said to include 2 pictures of Justin and I, 2 pictures of us with Brady and Madison, a picture of the front of the house, one of the back of the house, and then a picture of each of the rooms in our home not including bathrooms. So I took pictures of all of the rooms, but I chose not to take one of our master bedroom. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t want to share that with the bazillion of people that will be looking at the documents. Honestly, there is nothing special, weird, or anything else about our master bedroom. It is simply a bedroom. So anyway, I get an email from our social worker yesterday afternoon. She said that she noticed that we did not include a picture of our master bedroom. She was wondering if I forgot that picture?!?!? No, I didn’t forget! I shared with her briefly that I had intentionally left it out. She is so sweet and of course said that it was my decision whether or not to include the picture. Ugh! I told her that I would include it. If she noticed right away that is was missing, that means that as the paperwork works its way ‘up’ for approval it is bound to come up again. I would rather just include it now then run into a road block later. I know this sounds so petty and silly. And to be honest, I don’t really know what the big deal is. It just bothers me. Guess I’ll have to suck it up, make our bed, and take the picture!

Two scary forms

So in the last entry about the adoption I said I would tell you more about two additional forms we had to fill out for our home study. On the first one we had to put down our preferences of sex, age, and number of children. The easiest part for us was the sex of the child. We do not have a preference. We are open to either a boy or a girl. In Russia, there are more boys waiting to be placed than there are girls. The next questions to deal with were whether or not we were open to more than one child (aka a sibling group) and in what age range. Much discussion, thought, and prayer went into answering both of these questions. Children in Russia must be in their database for at least nine months before they are available for international adoption. So in reality the youngest our child would be is about twelve months old. Determining the upper end of the range was difficult for us. Time spent in an orphanage can/will lead to development delays. We had to decide at what age we felt confident we could accept the child’s challenges and be able to help him or her make up for those delays. There is no magical number. This decision is different for each family. So in the end this is what we came up with. Our home study reads, “Justin and Heather would like to adopt a single child from Russia, either gender, 30 months of age or younger, with no or minor correctable medical needs. They are also open to adopting a sibling group, of either gender, 36 months of age or younger, with no or minor correctable medical needs.”

The second form to tell you about is one that is several pages long, and it is a checklist. You have to go through and mark will accept, will consider, will not accept for a wide variety of medical conditions. It ranges anywhere from near and farsightedness to cleft palate, cerebral palsy, etc… This was completely agonizing. First of all Justin and I had to google several of the terms because we didn’t know what they really meant. Then we felt like we were being judgmental and shallow. We are talking about a child. How can you say you ‘won’t accept’ any child? When you give birth to a child you take all that God gives you packaged in that little bundle. With adoption, you will still be taking on all that God gives, but it is like you are putting parameters on it. It was really a very humbling process. Justin and I both finally told ourselves that we had to be realistic. What do we really think our family can handle? We know that no matter what, there will be challenges that we have not prepared for. Isn’t that the case for parenting in general though?

Learn to expect the unexpected.

Columbus Day

Well I had big plans for today since I didn’t have to work. I thought for sure I would make tons of progress on this blog, email friends back, work on bills, etc… and wouldn’t you know it our internet connection was down. So instead of having time to get a meaningful entry put together, I am now tired and worn out from the day’s activities. Can I just tell you though that I am in love with another man right now??? His name is Christopher Columbus! What an awesome holiday! There are really no obligations on this day for us (perhaps I’m not being patriotic enough). Brady, Madison, and I were productive around the house – thanks again to no internet access. We also took time to play a game together. This is a game Brady’s friend Grant gave him for his birthday called Banangrams. I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids old enough to spell four to five letter words. We had a great time and even challenged Justin to a game when he came home from the fields. All four of us agreed that we would not play with Grandma Cindy. Brady says she would spank us! The coolest thing for me though was a realization that I had in the middle of our second game. I was playing a game against Brady – for real. Not Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land where everything is about luck. This was actually a game that required strategy. Granted I had to help him a few times and tell him he could NOT spell wiz and poo but still. He is just getting to be so big and mature! While it is exciting on one hand, it is scary and disheartening on the other.

I also thought I would share a couple of pictures with you. On Sunday nights we host a small group in our house for a book study which of course involves food as well. This week we decided to do Halloween themed food. On the menu was Cat Litter Casserole, Beans and Wormies, Mummy Dogs, Creepy Peepers, Spider Cookies, and Scardy Cat Cheese Ball.

We got such a kick out of the Cat Litter Casserole. (I hear we're glad Steve wasn't able to make it!)


Madison got her ears pierced this weekend for her birthday!

Paper pregnancy begins

The paperwork that must be gathered is really quite phenomenal for adoptions. The process has been affectionately called the paperwork pregnancy to help you keep in mind that behind every document and signature the end goal is a child. The first meeting with Carole on May 29th was pretty much to make sure that we fully understood the paperwork that is required, the risks that are involved, etc… We left with tons of information and a list of documents that we needed to gather. Justin and I did not waste any time getting started. I’ll give you a rundown of what was required. Keep in mind that this is only about half of what is needed in the end. Many of these documents have to be notarized, and several of them we will have the pleasure of redoing since they can not be dated more than a year old when we travel to Russia! Sooo here is a partial rundoen of the list…

Autobiography written by each of us – very detailed
Birth certificates, marriage licenses, passports
Medical reports and physicals for all four of us
Blood and TB test for Justin and I
Financial statement prepared by CPA, tax return, and employment letters
Guardian information – in the event that something happens to Justin and I
Background checks from the police department
Mandatory reporter paper
Pet records (yes, we had to prove that our dog Annie is vaccinated)
Well water test (do they think we would be drinking the water if it was unsafe!)
Proof of education (this is adoption education)
Floor plan of our home
Corporal Punishment form
Several other forms as well in which you write your address a hundred times

Then there are the two 'whooper' major forms. These are the ones that I feel are the most important. Justin and I prayed about the content of these forms before we allowed our pen to even touch them. The first is where you determine the age and sex of the child you are open to adopting. The second is called the Child Checklist. I’ll tell you about those in the next posting.

A cute lil side note. We surprised Madison for her birthday this morning with a little Betta fish. She absolutely adores all animals, and Justin and I thought a Betta was the most manageable pet we could handle right now (a lil pathetic I know!). She was soooo excited. Below is a picture of her cute tank. She named the fish Squirmy. I promised her I’d post his picture. Brady however was a little less excited for her and has nicknamed Squirmy the No Fair Fish. In fact he told his teacher, grandma, and aunt that Madison got a No Fair Fish today. Boy he sure has it rough! lol

CIS not CSI

CIS is the department of Citizenship and Immigration Services. On May 24th we sent in our application to CIS (I-600A) along with our fee and payment for biometric fingerprints (more on the fingerprinting saga later). This is basically a paper that says to the government that at some point in time we will be adopting a child from Russia. We don’t know their age, sex, or any other information, but we know that the government takes forever for approval so we are doing this pre-paperwork so that when we do the REAL paperwork it won’t take so long. This part gets really complicated. Anyway I wanted to get that date on the blog.

On Tuesday, May 27th we got a call from our new social worker from LifeLink. Her name is Carole Willadsen and we adore her. She is so friendly, knowledgeable, and understands our need to keep things moving. For those of you that know Julie Nuss (Russell) she reminds us a lot of her. She wanted to know when we could meet her and start getting our visits in. Ummm how about tomorrow I thought?!?! I didn’t want to wait at all. Well she needed us to get fingerprints before coming to our first meeting. This would be for DCFS approval even though we weren’t really going to be approved as foster parents. What?!?! This is so confusing. First of all these fingerprints are different than the ones we just send money to CIS for and what was she talking about DCFS for? Well it turns out that in the state of Illinois in order to get your homestudy approved for adoption you go through the process as if you are going to be approved as a foster parent and then your name is withdrawn at the last part of the process so you aren’t actually on ‘the list’. Ok, so where can we get these prints done? Well low and behold God opens yet another door for us! The very next day in Macomb, on WIU’s campus, they were going to have their last fingerprinting station set up. They usually do this for pre-service teachers and whoever else needs them. How cool is that?!?! So Tuesday we were introduced to Carole on the phone, on Wednesday we were fingerprinted for DCFS approval, and then on Thursday we had our first meeting in Peoria with Carole. The ball was really rolling fast ---- for awhile….

Happy Birthday Madison

It seems unreal that Madison is 6 years old already! She shares this birthday with my sister Glennda and my cousin's daughter Caitlyn. Happy Birthday ladies!

Homestudy

The purpose of this blog is to document the adoption journey for ourselves, friends, and family. I also think that it is a way to educate people about the Russian international adoption process through our experiences. So here we go…
I had mentioned earlier that we had to find an agency other than CHI to do our homestudy. A homestudy for adoption is the same as the homestudy for being a foster parent. You basically meet with a social worker, provide a billion documents, and have your home inspected to make sure you are fit to be parents (never mind the fact that we have two healthy and happy children in our home currently). So any way you hope to have a social worker that is not only competent but one that is also friendly and trustworthy as he/she will know more about you than many of your closest friends. After making some phone calls and speaking with a family in Macomb that recently completed an adoption from Vietnam, we decided to use LifeLink which has offices in Peoria and the Quad Cities. We sent our application to them on May 19th. As a quick side note, on Sunday, May 18th Justin and I contacted the people that would be asked to write letters of reference for us. It was fun and surprisingly emotional to share our news with close friends, but it is a good thing we did. Three days later on May 21st our references got forms from LifeLink to fill out on our behalf.

Telling Grandparents

To continue with our story, Justin and I decided it was time to tell a few people of our decision to adopt. On Mother’s Day, May 11, we told my parents and the following day Justin told his parents. Their reaction was not quite what we had expected. I guess since we were so excited we just thought they would be too. Well they were taken back a little by the announcement. My parents are always supportive of our decisions and just trust that Justin and I will do what we think is best for our family. They hadn’t quite expected international adoption to be in our plans, but they knew that we would probably expand our family in the near future. Justin’s parents are also supportive. They had lots of questions for him. I guess we should have expected that. After all we also had tons of questions, and we had a couple of months to wrestle with our thoughts. We were expecting them to be completely accepting of the idea in less than five minutes. This probably wasn’t to fair of us. I have no doubt that while our parents worry about our decisions, they will love their new grandson/granddaughter in their own unique way.

Great Weekend

I hope to have some time in the next day or so to continue with our adoption story. I really want to get this blog up to speed so that it isn't so overwhelming of a task updating it. For now, I thought I would share a couple of photos with you. We had an awesome weekend. Friday was Macomb High's Homecoming and Brady's birthday so you'll see Brady and Madison decked out in their orange and black in the pictures below. The birthday parties were a blast on Saturday as well as the wiener roast at night. You will see in the bottom picture that Brady and a couple of his party guests enjoyed a special moment with a huge frog during the party. I was not too impressed.

Lesson learned.

After returning from training that day, I was anxious to call Justin and read the email from CHI to him. I still had to send the email to our rep since that was the decision we had made the night before. But I hadn’t talked to him all day so I thought that I would just give him a call before logging in to the computer. When I went to get the phone, the red light was flashing that we had a message. It was a message from our rep. Keep in mind we hadn’t spoken or corresponded with her for a couple of weeks. Her message was very simple. It just said, “Hello, Justin and Heather. I just wanted to touch base with you. I know how difficult this process can be and how overwhelming it can make you feel. I just wanted to encourage you to be patient and to hang in there.” I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud. God knows how thickheaded Justin and I both are. He was not going to let us take the easy road out. This is HIS plan and he was going to see to it that we stuck to it. I had to call Justin and tell him all of this! When he answered, I said I have sooo much I need to tell you. He cut me off and said, well I have something I need to tell you too. Ok – fine what is it I asked cause I really need to tell you something. He told me that as he sat in the tractor all day he just couldn’t help but to think that we had made the wrong decision the night before. It just didn’t feel right in his heart that we wouldn’t continue on. WOWZA! This was getting to be unreal. It was as if God was hitting me on the head, asking “Do you get it now?”

That night Justin and I vowed that we would be faithful to this calling. It is sometimes hard to know when something is the right decision, but you KNOW when a decision isn’t right. Deciding not to pursue this adoption was definitely the wrong decision. We know now that we have made the right decision for our family, and we are not looking back. While the road ahead is full of unknown twists and turns, we know that this is exactly the direction we are supposed to be headed.

8 years old already

Happy Birthday Brady! We love you!

Another coincidence? Nope – don’t so!

The next day, May 2nd, I took a group to a training in Edwards, IL. During the lunch break, I logged in to my email to send off the message that Justin and I had discussed. In my inbox was an email from the executive director of CHI. We had received emails from CHI before, but they all dealt with logistics, stats, program updates etc… and I had never gotten one from this man. I decided to read the message before composing my email to our rep to let her know that we felt that we needed to change our minds. Here are a few of the lines from this unexpected email…

“Over the years we have seen changes and cycles in the wonderful world of adoption. It is one of the noblest works of this worn and weary world for a family to open their hearts and home to a child who is going to be as their own flesh and blood. This special world is filled with special people – who sometime need to be encouraged to stay to the course and believe for the highest help when the wait is long and the spirit is weary. This is about a CHILD. A child who waits just as you do – waiting through many cold and lonely nights with no mama or daddy to cuddle and comfort. That child needs you – but it can never happen without courage and patience. I used to say to parents at the beginning of their adoption journey: “There are three things you need. The first is Patience. The second is PATIENCE. The third is…" well, you know. A noble work requires nobility and perseverance and I hope that you can draw on those resources however you find them.”

My heart skipped a beat and my eyes filled with tears. The things that Justin and I were so worked up over had nothing to do with a CHILD. We were worried about the financial aspect, the long process, the paperwork, the logistics. I decided that I needed to wait to send the email to the rep. I had to pull myself back together for the remainder of the training. I could always send the message later that night from home right?

What had we done!?!

After sending in our first payment and days began to pass, doubt started coming back into our minds. We began to immediately hit roadblocks and things started to get complicated once again. We needed to find another agency to assign us a social worker that would work with us to do our home study (I’ll explain later) since these require face to face visits and CHI is out of St. Louis. Macomb, IL isn’t the most populous area so we had to start with who would actually come to Macomb to help us out. We read how important it was to have a qualified social worker assigned to your case. How will we know if a person is qualified? We kept moving forward, but for each step we took forward we took about two more steps back. Did we mention that many of the agencies charged extra for Russian adoptions because of all of the paper work involved. Could this be real? Anyway, bottom line was that on May 1st Justin and I sat at the kitchen table and asked, if this is meant to be why is it sooo hard? Why, God, did you lead us down this path and then put up these monumental roadblocks that filled us with doubt? How does this faith stuff work anyway? What were we doing wrong? Well lucky for us (we thought), CHI has a small window of opportunity for couples to change their mind after sending in their first payment. If you change your mind within the first so many days, you can get your money back and you don’t have to move forward. With heavy hearts, Justin and I went to bed that night thinking that the next day I would send an email to our CHI representative to tell her what we had decided…