Sent!

Our adoption application is in the mail! We're really doing this! I thought that once we had the marriage certs we'd be all ready to send them....but then I realized we still needed 2 things: a copy of tax returns to verify income, and a copy from our health insurance book stating that the adopted child would be covered by our policy. The first one was easy, the second - not so much. We don't have an insurance booklet! And when we went online to the Blue Cross website, they don't have their whole book on the Internet. So we waited until Ian went to work yesterday and he was able to log in to his company's benefits website and find the right information - which he printed and we sent off our application Priority Mail this morning!

Here are the contents of the envelope:

Application
Application and training DVD fee(check for $200)
Training DVD choice form(we chose the <4 yrs old video)
Family Photo
Tax forms
Health Insurance print out
Copy of Marriage Certificate

I also chose a Homestudy agency - International Child Foundation, Inc.
I had called AAI and requested some homestudy referrals. They gave me 3, 2 of which I found websites for, and 1 which seemed better than the other. I called that organization and left a message. A very nice woman(Jackie) called me back and said she'd pass my phone number along to a social worker who serves the Phoenix area. She also emailed me some forms to fill out, fax, and then mail to her with our check for $1300($300 application fee, $1000 homestudy fee). I did some looking around and found this to be a fairly average price. So I've printed those out and need Ian to come home so he can sign them and fax to ICF tomorrow morning.

Lastly, I printed out my passport application. I need to call the babysitter so I can go do that next week, along with finally changing my name on my drivers license!!

Altogether I feel really good about everything that has happened today. And to top it all off...I was able to share our news with someone! We decided we should call Ian's mom and tell her about our decision to adopt since we put her name on our adoption application...not to mention the fact that I've been dying to tell her ever since we made that choice!

Ian's parents adopted a set of twins from Layla House last year, Mikyas and Tihune(Miki and Tuni). They are the real reasons we chose to adopt at this point in our lives, and from Layla House.

Ian and I had always talked about adopting in the future. He served his mission in Thailand and was blessed to serve in an orphanage for a short time. He even has a picture of one of the sweet babies strapped onto his back. I love that picture. So we knew we'd adopt, long before we even got married. But, for us, it was always somewhere in the distant future.

Then, Ian's parents chose to adopt. Ian's parents have always been amazing examples to us of faith, selflessness, and humility. But when they made the choice to use the extra money from the sale of their home towards adoption - instead of the house on the ocean that they'd always dreamed of, you can imagine how much that touched us. But we still had that "distant future" opinion about adoption.

The final push was when we went to visit them after this last Christmas. Ian's mom had received an email from Layla House. It was just a bunch of pictures of the orphanage's Christmas. There was one picture in it that has stuck with me forever. It was of all of the babies spread out all over the floor in their Christmas whites. There were so many of them! And they were so tiny. And so absolutely gorgeous. It made my heart so sad, but at the same time, it was just such a beautiful picture. I have imagined that picture many times in the past 7 months.

And then there was the night that started this whole journey. (read my first blog post)

And now it just feels right. I know, someday we'd like to adopt older children, or possibly children with poor health, or other limitations. But for now, I know that what we have chosen is best for our family. So, it was so exciting to share all of this with Ian's mom, the woman who really gave us the push to get this thing going.

So today was a great day!