I 800 A

We sent our I 800 A forms in last week.  Can I get a Woot Woot.  Ok, for those not familiar with the adoption world.......after you finish your homestudy, you send in your I 800 A paper work (which the homestudy is part of as well).  This is asking for approval from the US government to adopt.  Once they receive it and process it, they will invite us to get biometric finger prints done.....yes, more finger prints LOL.  After we get our I 800 A approved we can submit our dossier (lots more paper work ) to the country in Eastern Europe we are adopting from.  Ok, I may have some of this wrong......I am still learning too ;-)
But, it is exciting to be making steps in the right direction!

Our Friends Rock

Ok, I am just saying that our friends rock!  We were able to get to our matching grant amount in 24 hours!!  Yes, you read that right......we received $1000 for our matching grant in 24  hours!  It was awesome and we are forever grateful!!! 
Our homestudy is being sent to Colorado for approval.  Once we get that back we can send in our I 800 A.  This goes to our government to approve us to adopt.  Once we receive that back (1-3 months) we can submit our dossier.  This goes to Eastern Europe.  When that gets received we are invited to go meet "Rita."  Woo Hoo!! 

Thank you all soooo much!  You have no idea how much it means to have you all on this journey with us!!

Sooo excited and grateful!

Hi everyone,

We are super excited to announce that we received our own New Year miracle. Some amazing anonymous donors that support arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC) adoptions have offered us a matching grant!!!!! We are soooo super excited and grateful! For those who are new to the adoption world, this is how a matching grant works: A group/person/organization offers a set amount of money to go towards your adoption.......but in order to receive the money you have to find your own donors to match they amount. There is a deadline set. So in order to receive the grant money we have to find matching donors by the end of the deadline.

So here is what these amazing people are offering us: It is a $1000 matching grant that we have until January 31st to meet. So our Reeces Rainbow FSP account would need to read $1125 by 1/31/2013 to receive the $1000. This is such an awesome opportunity for our family. It would really help with some of the costs of this special needs adoption. 

 

We appreciate all of your help!

Merry, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We had a very nice, quiet Christmas.  Sadly, my parents who usually join us for Christmas, were not here.  My mother received a new hip for Christmas, well actually a few weeks before Christmas.  She is doing very well in her recovery and is already off of the walker and just needing a cane.
We were so happy that Rose was done with Basic training for the Army Reserves in time to be home for Christmas.  So it was just the 9 of us for Christmas this year.  Everyone loved their gifts and we had a yummy ham dinner.
We are sooo hoping that sweet "Rita" is home by next Christmas.  At this point it is hard to tell how long the process will take.  But I am hoping to have another little one in the Christmas picture next year.

The top picture is Rose's homecoming at the airport.

The bottom picture is everyone in their Christmas eve jammies.....baby A ran off :-)

So I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and has an amazing New Year!

Getting there....little by little

Well, I dropped off the forms for our medical paper work for our dossier at the doctor's offices today.  Tomorrow I will go back with a traveling notary to get them notarized.  After that, it is off to Denver to get our committment paper work apostilled.   (that is basically notarizing the notary :-)
So I feel like we are getting there, a little bit at a time.  Tonight we have a class that is a web class on the computer.  It is on different cultures and adoption.  I took a little break to put Baby A to bed (shhh don't tell)
Luckily, because we already have 55 hours of training for foster care, we only need this one class for our adoption.  So we can check one more box LOL

It was a sad week on the Reece's Rainbow facebook page.  Three sweet babies passed away.  Two had already been adopted and were home for some time.  They both died from infections.  The other little one had a family coming for him, but he passed away before they could get there.  It is just so sad and makes you realize the urgency of the situation.

So we will keep plodding along to get our sweet "Rita" home to our family where she belongs!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Happy thanksgiving everyone!  We have so much to be thankful for!  Our family is on an amazing journey to bring home a sweet angel from Eastern Europe.  We know that the journey will have many ups and downs but we are so thankful for all of it.  We are also thankful for our family and friends!  We are excited for all of the new friends we are meeting through this adoption.  Thank you all for your support and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pictures

Ok, I am not sure how to add pictures......so I am trying.  Hey I think it worked LOL  We just had our neighbor take this picture the other night for our home study.