Bundle Up

Since we are here and hopefully we won’t be here forever, we have decided to try to take some weekend excursions and explore Michigan. This weekend we went to Frankenmuth. They call Frankenmuth ‘Michigan’s Little Bavaria’. It is a quaint town that was founded by German missionaries. There are unique little shops and German influenced buildings. The world famous Snowfest was going on this weekend in Frankenmuth. Teams from all over the world come to participate in ice sculpture and snow carving competitions. So we bundled up, saw some amazing sculptures, and ate some German food (yum yum).

Almost There...

We have been so busy trying to get all our paper work for our dossier done….we are almost there! This past week Giovanni and I went up to Grand Rapids to have our fingerprints taken for immigration (I-800 A). We also had the majority of the documents apostilled while we were up there. Right now we are waiting on three things….our psych evaluation (we have our final appointment Feb 9th), immigration approval, and the photo album we made about ourselves and our family. Once these are completed we will be ready to send in our dossier to CHSFS. Hopefully after CHSFS looks over the dossier, it will be approved to be sent to Ecuador. I pray every night that this process continues to move along fairly smoothly; although at times very tedious and wearying. There are three families who just recently left and traveled to Ecuador to be united with their children. This is great news to all of us families in waiting. I can’t wait until the day that I get to write about getting a referral, preparing to travel, and being uniting with our child.

Back into the Swing of Things

I t has definitely taken awhile to get back into the routine of life after Christmas break. As we have been settling backing into the swing of things we continue to trek along in our journey. Last week we got notice of our immigration appointment time. Next week we will drive up to Grand Rapids, MI to have our fingerprints taken. We will try to kill two birds with one stone and also have the majority of our dossier documents apostilled while we are in Grand Rapids. Giovanni and I have also both had our first psychological appointments. Yes everyone, we have to be psychologically evaluated as part of the adoption. It is something that I think every parent should have to go through. We had to meet with the psychologist and take a psychological exam. It was interesting talking to the psychologist; she had me draw a picture of a house, tree, and a person. She said that she would be able to tell a lot about me from my drawing (I have heard of this before). From my drawing she concluded that I am an open person, with realistic expectation of myself and others. I welcome others into my home/life and have a warm and safe home life. She also pointed out that the way I drew my tree indicated that I have experienced trauma early in life (probably the death of my mother). Giovanni drew a palm tree in his picture, indicating he is looking towards a relaxing future. Maybe we will end up in HawaiiJ. I am interested in seeing the results of the MMPI-2, a 557 true/false question test we took last night. That should indicate if we have any serious personality flaws. We should have the results of that test in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed).
I am loving the fact that we have been able to check off a lot of things on our list….it just means that we are one step closer! We have a few documents to be apostilled, make a photo album about ourselves, and the psychological report then we will be done with the dossier. Soon we will just be waiting on the psychological report, which we were told should be done early February. Once our dossier is completed it will be reviewed and then submitted to Ecuador. Then we wait and pray, pray and wait.