Tonight we completed our 2nd home study visit with our social worker. Only one more visit to go and she'll be able to finalize her report!! Today she interviewed Rob and me separately and it was more like an informal conversation than a tense interview. She said that we had been so thorough in our answers on our autobiographical form that she already feels comfortable approving us. She is just the nicest person you'd ever hope to meet. We can't help but feel God's hand in all of this. Throughout this entire process, it's as if He's directing our path and putting us in touch with the right people.
We only have a couple more documents to turn in to our social worker and those are the septic tank inspection letter, our certificate of completion for our online adoption course and Grandmother's medical report form (still haven't heard if her doctor’s office is gonna try to charge $25 to fill out that form....THE NERVE!!! I'm holding out hope that it will miraculously arrive in the mail. We'll see). We meet with our social worker again in two weeks and then we can cross the home study off the list. WOOHOO!!
This week we're also submitting our I-600A form which is required by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in order for us to be approved by the U.S. government to adopt children internationally and bring them back to the U.S. The fee for that is $755.00 ($545 application fee plus $70 per person for FBI fingerprints) so "ker-ching" [that’s the sound of more money flying out the window].
After sending in the I-600A, we’ll receive a letter in a few weeks telling us the day of our FBI fingerprinting appointment. Every person living in our household will have to be fingerprinted so that means Grandmother too. Not sure how that will work just yet. On long outings we usually take her wheelchair which makes things easier in some ways but more difficult in others. I'm not the best at navigating that contraption and have even come close to dumping my poor Grandmother out onto the pavement whenever there's the slightest bump in our path. A lot of it I’m sure is my fault because I walk really fast and push her a million miles an hour. I admit I need to work on that, but it's partly the chair's fault too. Even the tiniest pebble in our path will jam the wheels, causing the chair to come to an abrupt stop while I'm pushing her at warp speed. Not a good situation. Grandmother is a good sport though and just goes along for the ride, however bumpy it may be. :-)
Yesterday, we scheduled dental appointments in July for Rob, me, Olegs and Kristine to get our teeth cleaned. One thing we learned about Latvia is that most dental offices don’t use novocaine. Can you imagine getting a filling without novocaine??!! Since the kids are most likely frightened of the dentist, we thought it would be a good idea if we all went together so they could see us get our teeth cleaned first. They’ll probably need a filling or two so we’ll have to coordinate a translator to explain to them that things are much different here and it won’t be painful. Luckily, our dentist, Dr. Stephen Hutchins in Canton, is extremely gentle so his fillings are never painful at all. If you live in our area and need a good dentist, he is WONDERFUL! Once the kids learn about laughing gas, I have a feeling they’ll be wanting to go to the dentist every day. I know I love that stuff. I even tried to schedule an appointment for a “laughing gas treatment” but unfortunately they wouldn’t help me out with that. Oh well. LOL!
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