Adoption Update Part 1

We thought we better update everyone on the adoption of baby Sinclair.
First of all, we want to say thank you to all of you who have been praying for us. Your prayers have been a source of reassurance and they have helped us tremendously. We know that we cannot make it through this process without the Lord’s hand being involved. Thank you to all of you who have let us talk your ear off about our adoption. And thank you to everyone who has donated money to our adoption fund. We are so encouraged by your support and cannot thank you enough for investing part of your time, emotions and money into the adoption.
One of the major blessings we have received so far is that we have not had to take out a loan. Donations and the fundraiser have met most of the adoption costs thus far.
We submitted our application to the adoption agency and they approved us in June. We were then given a list of items to obtain for our application to the country, Colombia. Some of the things we did not expect to encounter were an FBI clearance, multiple finger printings and a psychological evaluation. We honestly thought the paperwork would never slow down – document our birth, health, income, life insurance, marriage, intentions of parenting, our motives for adoption and why Colombia.
We were very blessed in our psych. evaluation, although we had some trouble with the first psychologist. When the first “psycho” (no exaggeration) had us come in we knew we were going to have to take a test, but we were told we would have to take it in an additional session because it had to be completed in his office due to copyright laws and they were getting ready to close for the day. He also said that we would need another 1 or 2 sessions to discuss his findings. How he determined we would need another 1or 2 sessions is beyond me as we were only in there about 30 minutes. He also said some very discouraging things and was not very sensitive to our situation. I don’t know if he was looking for a reaction to what he was saying or if he just wasn’t thinking. Needless to say, we cancelled all future appointments with him and found a new doctor who was able to meet us after work, let us take the test home and the test the second doctor gave us was only about 175 questions (the other guy was going to give us about 500 questions). Everything was completed in one session, which saved hundreds of dollars.
Upon obtaining all of the information we needed, we had to make sure it was all notarized, then we had to send each piece of paperwork back to the state from which it originated to be Apostilled (verification that the notary really is licensed).
We also applied for our passports (yes, we think our pictures are the worst of anybody’s). Paul applied in Kansas and got his in about 2 weeks. Chris applied in Missouri and about four weeks later got a notice saying it had been sent to the processing office in New Orleans and due to Hurricane Katrina would likely be delayed. We called the number on the card and they said that it was sent to us the day before. What a blessing!!! We are just going to count our blessings as we go here.
See Part 2 for update continuation......