Paperwork, Paperwork, and more Paperwork!

It has only been two weeks since we received pre-approval for Annabelle, and we have already accomplished so much.  Because we have been through all of this before, we already knew what things we were going to need to get done.  We are working with two agencies - one in our state to do our home study and one that is out of state that works specifically with the Philippines and will be our placement agency.  We contacted both and were able to talk them into sending us all the paperwork at once and ahead of time, so we could get as much accomplished as we could while Jason was on vacation.  They usually have an order that they send it all in so you don't get too overwhelmed.  Plus, they usually like to have money first before they will send anything.  Luckily our agencies were very understanding and accommodating.  We already knew which things would take the longest, so we got started on those right away.  We have definitely felt the Lord's hands in this process helping to move things along at a much faster rate then we would have been able to do alone.  It just reaffirms to us that we are doing the right thing and have made the right choice in adopting Annabelle.  After just two weeks we pretty much have everything done to complete both sets of documents that we need for our home study and our dossier (the set of documents that our placing agency will send to the Philippines for us).  The only things we have left now are all outside our control, and we will just have to sit and wait for those things to start coming in.  For those who are curious as to what is involved with an international adoption, here is a list of the things we have done or are getting done:

-criminal and child abuse checks from every state and country we have lived in since we were 18
-an FBI background check which we needed a set of fingerprints to accomplish
-had to order certified copies of birth and marriage certificates
-every member of our household had to have a physical/medical report done
-the couple adopting has to have a psychological evaluation done which includes two specific tests.  The first test was 567 questions and the second was 172 questions and took about 3 hours total, including a third test our psychologist added.  We were also interviewed separately for 2 hours each.
-we had to complete a 10 page questionnaire for our home study
-have a home visit from our social worker that lasts a minimum of 4 hours, where she interviews each family member separately and checks out our home (we are having this done on wed.)
-find 3 people to write letters of recommendation for our dossier and 4 people to be references for our home study

That's all the big stuff.  There are a bunch of other papers we had to fill out and/or sign, but those were all pretty easy compared to the things I mentioned above.  Because we have been able to get so much done the last couple weeks, it looks like we might be able to have our home study done by the middle of January and maybe even everything we need to have our dossier sent to the Philippines.  I'm not sure how quickly the Philippines is processing dossiers right now, but they are typically approved around 1-2 months.  Once we are approved we will receive our official match with Annabelle.  After we send them our match acceptance we start all the immigration paperwork.  Depending on how quickly all of that paperwork goes through, it will be between 3-6 months before we can travel to go pick Annabelle up.  If everything continues to go smoothly, then it looks like it will be early summer that we will be able to get her.  That still seems so far away, but I know that the time will go by very quickly and she will be here with us before we know it.