Selections

We took a really long time making our agency selection. We felt this decision was as important as selecting the country we wanted to adopt from and almost as important as the child selection process. We looked at several agencies and narrowed it down to three. We finally chose Children at Heart out of Mechanicville, NY. We had read some adoption blogs that really praised this agency and we liked the size of it, not too big. They had an impressive list of references and we felt we 'clicked' with them on our initial contacts. They have been very responsive since. Some of the larger agencies seemed inflexible and impersonal. We went to NY on February 8th to attend an informational meeting they were hosting and got to meet the co-founders and staff. We also met a couple whom returned from Kaz only 3 weeks beforehand with their precious 10 month old daughter. They were wonderful and answered all the many questions everyone had, while their daughter crawled around and was very interested in Andrew. It was an invaluable experience and meeting the couple and hearing about their great experience with Children at Heart, clinched the deal for us. We pray with the help of Children at Heart, we will be lead to the baby that is meant to be in our family.

We thankfully had the recommendation of a homestudy agency, International Children's Alliance (which is separate from our placing agency - Children at Heart) by our friends, Susan and Kelly. They used ICA, in Columbia, MD for their adoption of Connor. We need to have separate agencies since our placing agency is in NY and we have to follow homestudy rules by the state of MD and use a agency licensed in MD. They have been fabulous as well. We had our first homestudy visit last Friday with their Social Worker, Susan. She put us at ease and the visit was much more informal than we expected. She had recently adopted a little boy from Guatemala who was born on my birthday. She will come or a second visit and meet with us and Kelly, who will serve as our reference. Then she will write our homestudy, so that the officials in Kazakhstan will get a picture of who we are and what we have to offer a child of their homeland.

On another note, we had and passed our fire and sanitation (health) inspections last week. We also sent off our I-600A to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This allows advance processing by a US Citizen who plans to adopt a foreign-born orphan and enables USCIS to first adjudicated the application that relates to the qualifications of applicants as prospective adoptive parents. WE were also informed by ICA that our FBI and Police background checks are back, so we are just waiting for our Child Abuse clearance to come in now. So we are moving along!