Timeline so far

I "found" Uzbekistan on approximately March 26th. Between March 27th and 31st, I asked Victoria (of About a Child) nearly a hundred questions! On April 1st (no, I'm not kidding) we signed the application and sent it in.

Tues., Apr. 3rd - Posted to the Texas International Adoption group trying to find an agency that would be willing to travel to our "little town" and complete our homestudy.

Wed., Apr. 4th - Found someone from the Dallas area that was willing to travel... AND was actually going to be in town for Easter. She said she could do the home visit the very next Saturday. WOW! I compared it to not telling our oldest son he was getting shots until we were walking into the clinic. You know it is inevitable and it's best to not have to worry about it for a long time prior. We still cleaned like crazy and tried to find all of the required paperwork.

Fri., Apr. 6th - Signed and mailed the contract to About a Child along with our first check. Now we were financially committed!

Sat., Apr. 7th - Met our social worker and had our home visit. Wrote a second check. It was not as painful or white-glove-test-oriented as I thought. I'm really glad that I didn't have a month to worry about it. We had warned her that we had not discussed the adoption with our sons yet, and asked that she keep her questions general in nature when interviewing them. After the interview was complete, we were once again reminded that our oldest doesn't miss ANYTHING. He told her all about how we were trying to adopt a little baby girl for them! So much for the secret. We sat them all down that evening and discussed it. Matthew didn't seem to be too overly fazed by the idea, he just kept telling us he was hungry and asking about what was going to be for dinner. LOL

Sun., Apr. 8th - Wed., Apr. 11th - Wrote our autobiographies for our home study. Let me just warn you that a home study is a combination of a personality test, mortgage application, geneology assignment and essay test all rolled into one. Be prepared to open your life, home and financial records!


Tues., Apr. 10th - Mailed our I600A application in to USCIS.


Thurs., Apr. 12th - Mike and I applied for new passports. We paid extra for the expedite option as they told us it was taking 10 weeks to receive a passport.


Tues., Apr. 17th - I got my TB test which is required by Uzbekistan.


Wed., Apr. 18th - Mike got his TB skin test and had his physical exam.


Thurs., Apr. 19th - Got my TB test read and also had my physical exam. Was also fingerprinted for my Texas Criminal History Record check.


Fri., Apr. 20th - Mike was fingerprinted for his Texas Criminal History Record check. MIKE'S TB SKIN TEST IS POSITIVE!!!! That was our first major hiccup. My afternoon was a panic of "is Mike okay?", "can we still adopt?", "who's ever heard of a positive TB test????" Mike was given seven days to get the kids in to be tested, but I had them there in less than seven hours. I'm a mom... I needed to know NOW if my kids had been exposed too. Thankfully everyone else's test was negative. Mike is on a nine month course of serious antibiotics as a preventative measure. His chest x-ray was negative and it should not affect the adoption. First crisis.... over! (except for Mike... he can't have alcohol or Tylenol for nine months)

Mon., Apr. 23rd - One year from today our first document will expire. April 23rd is our "Pumpkin Day". Our physical forms were dated Apr. 23rd by the doctor, so the clock is now ticking... twelve months until we have to start redoing documents if the adoption is not complete!

Wed., Apr. 25th - (or possibly the 26th), we received our Criminal History Records from the state of Texas. Ironically they were also dated April 23rd... that just re-emphasizes the importance of that date as our deadline.

Sat., May 5th - Rough draft of our home study!

Sun., May 6th - Home study is approved by About a Child.

Mon., May 7th - Home study is sent overnight mail by our social worker direct to USCIS. We sent her the cover letter and prepaid overnight envelope to make sure the home study went direct to the USCIS as fast as possible.

Wed., May 9th - Received our fingerprint notice via fax. I had e-mailed our USCIS service center and inquired about getting either notice either by fax or overnight mail. We needed to make a trip to Dallas the following weekend anyway and wanted to accomplish the fingerprints on the same trip. Again, I think a higher power was at work here. Everything is just falling into place perfectly and amazingly fast!

Sat., May 12th - Mike and I are both fingerprinted at the Dallas Application Support Center. I'm a little nervous because the tech didn't think the quality of my prints were very good, but I'm a mom who washes her hands about a hundred times per day.... my skin is going to be dry and cracked!

Tues., May 15th - Completed the 10 hours of online adoption education required by About a Child.

And now we wait... on our I171, passports, etc. I have a couple of miscellaneous forms that we need to complete, but should be easy. Once we have our other documents in hand, then it will be off to the notary and Austin for the state certification of our documents. We are also going to be getting a new copy of our home study that is notarized by the same notary that did the other agency forms. Otherwise we have to add another "bundle" to our documents which is going to cost us an additional chunk of $. Won't have that until after our social worker returns from her vacation after Memorial Day. The end of May/beginning of June could be very busy!