FBI Fingerprints

Our day started early. The alarm clock sounded at 5:00 this morning, and by 5:45 we were on the road. We had an 8:00 appointment and didn’t want to take any chances with Atlanta traffic. We arrived about 6:40, so we stopped at a great American institution for breakfast: The Waffle House!

We got in line at the application office at about 7:45 and by 8:30 we were out the door. It would have been even quicker than that, but just like my experience the last time around, mine took a while. Apparently I have very undefined fingerprints, so they have to print me several times before they get what they need. I went in before Zack and he was done WAY before me. But thankfully they use the electronic fingerprint machines so the technician immediately knows whether or not it was a good read.

So I made a short story long, but the result is that one more milestone has been reached! The fingerprint results will be sent to CIS, and they will begin reviewing our file in order to determine whether or not we are approved to adopt. Then we can start the Ukraine-side of the process.

Prayer Requests: Please be in prayer about these items, as well as continued prayers for our Little Guy:

1. CIS/US approval
2. Passports – that they would arrive soon
3. SDA (Ukraine’s department of adoption) – they're going through lots of changes, so please pray that none of this will delay our process

Hope you all have a great weekend!

(And as always, we'd love to see your comments... hint hint)

On Golden Pond

The weather was beautiful this weekend! Atlanta hit a record high of 87 and there was rarely a cloud in the sky. If there is a downside, it would be that the pollen has begun its annual descent in full force. But as long as I’m taking my allergy meds, what’s a little yellow dust in the air?

My mom & step dad live on a small lake in Milledgeville. My grandparents own the place next to them, and last summer we went in together with Zack’s parents & bought the house next to my grandparents. It's very simple and perfect for weekend getaways!

So Friday afternoon, we headed for Golden Pond. That's right, we have a place On Golden Pond! If only our last name was Thayer…

Our friends Eric and Michaele joined us for the weekend, and we had a great time. We went golfing on Saturday morning, trekked around the lake on the boat a little, and just relaxed. We introduced them to 2 critical institutions in Milledgeville – on Friday night, we went the Pickle Barrel. And we hit The Brick on Saturday for some yummy pizza and wings.

Adoption Stuff
Please, please be praying that our passports will come soon. I’m sure you've seen the stories on the news about the delays. It’s been 6 weeks since we applied. At that time we were told it would take 6 weeks, but now turnaround is more like 10 weeks. We have to submit copies of them when we send our dossier to Ukraine. So with everything else going so fast, the passports could cause a holdup if they don’t come soon.

Also, please pray that everything goes smoothly with our fingerprints this Friday. No, we don’t have some wild Bonnie & Clyde past. We just want everything to be processed quickly so that CIS can review and send us our approval! The sooner everything goes through, the sooner we can bring Little Guy home!

We’ll be posting more pictures of Little Guy’s room soon. Our friend Tammy did a great job painting, but we’re still waiting on furniture to be delivered. We want to wait until it’s in place before posting pictures. Until then, we’ll keep you in suspense....

Prayer Works!

We want to thank our friends and family for your prayers. Take a look at what happens when we all pray together...

Based on all the norms of this process, we should've gotten a receipt from CIS 2 weeks after submitting the adoption application, and then the letter for fingerprints is typically another 2 weeks after that, then another 3 weeks before the actual fingerprinting appointment. If that were all true, we'd get our FBI appointment letter around April 5, & go for fingerprinting around April 26.

Well here's a clear example of the power of prayer... we received our appointment letter today!!!! And the even bigger news is that we are going next Friday for our FBI appointment! We are beyond excited at how fast everything is going so far.

Thanks for all the prayers, blog comments, and support during these first couple of months. Keep 'em coming!!

The Tuesday Ten

10 things you might not know about Jenn:

1. Has stood in the Oval Office
2. Has a guitar autographed by Steven Curtis Chapman & all 5 guys from Third Day
3. Had cancer 12 years ago
4. Met Hillary Clinton in the First Lady's Garden at the White House
5. Does not have an appendix
6. Has been on several TV shows, including Good Day Atlanta & Good Morning America
7. Is currently working on her MBA
8. Was once involved in a hold-up at a K-Mart
9. Repelled off a mountain in Colorado
10. Laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Adoption News:
There has been some shake-up at SDA (Ukraine’s department of adoption) this week. While we believe the changes will be a good thing in the long run, it could create a temporary slow-down in activity. Please pray for a quick resolution, and that the decisions made will be beneficial to those of us seeking to adopt. Also, please continue to pray that our FBI fingerprint appointment letter will arrive soon, as well as our passports.

Lots of Green

Happy Belated Saint Patty's Day!!

We celebrated Zack's favorite non-major holiday with some of our favorite activities: golf and hockey!


Despite a very cold start to the day, we played golf in Winder and had a fun time with Josh. And Zack shot his best round ever, but he won't let me tell you his score because he claims it's still too bad.

Then we went to the Gwinnett Gladiators game with Josh & Kim. They made the ice green for the game, which was pretty cool. (It doesn't show up well in photos, plus these were taken after the game, and the ice was pretty worn at that point.) They won pretty big, which made the evening even better!


We also went to the Gladiators game last Saturday with our friends Corey & Paulabeth. They won a silent auction that included 4 tickets and a trip to the locker rooms after the game.


This first picture shows us standing in front of our favorite player's locker (Blue Bennefield).

And right after that, he walked up, so Zack asked if he'd mind having his picture made with me. Check out his smile - I think the missing tooth is such a nice touch!

Thanks again to Corey and Paula for asking us to this fun evening!!


ADOPTION NEWS: On Friday we received our receipt from CIS!! This was actually a couple of days sooner than my estimate, so it was a nice surprise. Next up will be our appointment letter to have our FBI fingerprints done. We hope to receive it in the next couple of weeks.

By the way, I added a timeline on the right side of the blog, so you can see our progress date by date.

The Tuesday Ten

In order to keep all of our readers interested and coming back, Zack & I plan to continue to post even during the 'down time'.

We thought it might be fun to post some TOP 10 lists about us and about this experience.

So here's today's Ten...

10 things you might not know about Zack:

1. Has a degree in Religion
2. Is a Michael Bolton fan
3. Met all the members of Aerosmith
4. Plays guitar
5. Has 4 tattoos
6. Loves the movie Mean Girls
7. Played basketball in college
8. Met Tom Cruise & Paul Newman
9. Scared to touch anything made of terra cotta
10. Has bungee jumped

And I think he's going to make a great dad! :)

Before signing off, I wanted to mention that Zack jokingly threatened to shut down the blog if we don't start getting some more comments. Well I know we'll continue to journal, for our parents if nothing else. But come on readers - we're not asking for a novel here! Just let us know you're participating in this journey.

And one more thing... we'd like to wish a Happy Anniversary to Zack's parents, Ben & Barbara!

We love you guys and we know you are going to be wonderful grandparents to our Little Guy!

Starting on his room

In celebration of the first major milestone, Zack and I purchased a comforter set for the little guy's room. It's a pretty loud pattern, but I think it will definitely be a fun look for our kiddo!

After church, we spent the afternoon painting his room. We picked out a color called Asparagus. I think it looks really cute so far. Definitely a big change from the way it looked before!


I'm not sure if it's showing up accurately in the photos, but the wall color is the same as the green dots on the comforter. We haven't actually gotten his bedding totally on there yet; we just threw the pillows and comforter on to see how it would look. Please just disregard the old dust ruffle.

Our neighbor Tammy is incredible with paint, so she's going to come over sometime in the next couple of weeks and do something creative on the walls to tie in the other colors.

We also found furniture for the room, but of course there's no rush on that. So right now it's fairly empty in there.

Saturday morning we met Jonathan & Heather Powell for breakfast. They've been serving as missionaries in Ukraine since '99. They're here on furlough & will be returning in May. My grandparents' church supports them and my grandmother got us in touch with them. They told us a lot about Ukraine, and now we'll have someone we know when we get there! It would be great if we ended up at an orphanage close to them, but even if we don't they said they could get us connected with other missionaries & a church in whatever area we end up.

It's in the mail!

We've reached a very significant point in the adoption process. Everything went in the mail Thursday afternoon, so we've now applied with the US government for approval to adopt!!

Sometime in the next few weeks we'll receive receipt from CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services) confirming they got our payment & application. Then we'll receive a letter with appointments to go for our FBI fingerprints. Those results take a while and will be sent to CIS. Then they begin reviewing our application. Once completed, we should receive our I-171H (approval). Total time could be 2 - 3 months, our first big wait.

In the meantime, we'll begin working on putting our dossier together. There's lots to do, so we won't have too much time to watch the calendar (which is a good thing!).

As always, we'll keep you all posted!

(PS. Don't forget - we'd love to know who's visiting our site, so please click on Comments below and say hi!)

Finally

Our fingerprints came back!!!!!!

We had a minor setback on Monday when we learned there was a problem with a code we had entered on our fingerprint cards. But God was watching over this process (just as He is watching over every part of our journey). The lady at GBI recognized the error and corrected it herself so that we didn't have to start the whole thing over. We praise God for having His hand in this.

So Tonya is now putting the finishing touches on the home study, and we will get the completed notarized version tomorrow, and then we can send everything off to CIS.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly in the next 24 hours, and that we can get the package in the mail tomorrow!!

Random Q&A

How long will this process take?
There are a lot of variables that can affect the amount of time it will take to bring Little Guy home, but the best estimate is a total of 6 – 12 months.

Will you have to go to Ukraine to complete the adoption?
Yes, both Zack and Jenn will be traveling to Ukraine for approximately 5 weeks.

When will you travel?
That’s one of the MANY unknowns. Once we submit our paperwork to INS and get approval, we’ll submit our dossier to Ukraine. They will then assign us a travel date – we’ll probably get 1 - 2 month’s notice, but there are certainly no guarantees on that (or anything else, for that matter).

What’s a dossier?
A dossier (pronounced DOSS-ee-ay) is the set of legal papers that must be submitted to Ukraine in order to adopt there.

Will you know which child you’re adopting before traveling to Ukraine?
No, Ukraine is what they call a ‘blind referral’ system. We will travel to Kyiv (Ukraine’s capital) and will go the SDA (The State Department on Adoption and Children's Rights) and will view several children’s profiles. We will choose a child to meet, and will travel to see the child in his orphanage. We will then decide if we feel this is our child. If so, the adoption process begins. If not, back to the SDA to choose again.

You keep talking about a little boy in the blog. Do you really get to choose?
Yes, you can indicate gender and an age range that you PREFER. There are never any guarantees. However, there are a lot more boys available than there are girls. Apparently a lot of people want to adopt girls. So we’ve requested a boy under the age of 5.

Why did you decide on a boy?
Zack has always wanted a son, and Jenn was leaning that way as well. Plus, it’s almost all girls on both sides of our family, so it will be nice to bring a guy into the fold.

Do you have a name picked out?
Yes, but we refuse to tell. Try what you will, but we’re not giving it up. You’ll find out once he is on American soil.

Little Guy's Room, the Beginning

Our fingerprint results haven't come back yet, but we figured they'd show up this coming week, so no big surprise there. We are anxious to get them back though, so that we can get our I600A and home study submitted to the U.S. government. Once we get all of that sent in, we'll feel like we're really starting to make progress!

We decided not to start decorating Little Guy's room until this first big step is completed. So hopefully that can happen this week! But we've done some window shopping, to start getting some ideas.

The photo here is a picture of Little Guy's room, as it is right now. We've ordered some paint samples and they should be here in the next day or two. We'll throw them on the wall and see how they look, then make our final decision on color. We'll be posting progress pictures along the way.