News from Bulgaria

We just received an email from our adoption agency saying that the Ministry of Justice put a final stamp of approval on our dossier on AUGUST 20th! I know it gets a bit confusing with so many "approval" steps, but what this mean is that we are finally and officially done with everything on our end. We now exist to the government in Bulgaria. All we do now is wait until we get our daughter's picture and information! The time line is still the same 9 - 18 months, but with the new policies in Bulgaria in place and the new ministry members taking a more proactive role in working the children's files, we pray that it will be sooner than later! Our agency is keeping us updated on the progress in Bulgaria as well.

We are so very excited this morning!!!!!!!! Thanks for all of your support and prayers.
Kelly & Josh

Update from Bulgaria

Friends & Family - we received an update this week on our application. The agency reps for our agency who are in Bulgaria approved our app and officially gave it a # on July 23rd. Our app is at the Ministry of Justice pending final review and approval by government officials. There seems to be a bit of a delay in getting this info to the U.S. after approval - so we will keep you posted as soon as we get word on anything from the MOJ. Please keep us in your prayers that we all have patience through the waiting period of the process. Please keep Laidyn in your prayers as well - the four of us feel in our hearts that she is already born - there is no way to explain it other than a feeling... wherever she is and whoever is taking care of her we know God is there with her. Thanks again for all of your support and concern.

Our dossier (all adoption paperwork) left for Bulgaria yesterday afternoon!!!!

Our coordinator will keep up us in the loop on when the docs are received, translated an legalized and when we become part of the pool of waiting families. This part of the process usually take about a month to two months. We are very excited that the papers and whole situation is now in God's hands... now we wait.

We hope everyone enjoys the rest of the summer and we'll be posting again as soon as we get new information.

Kel, Josh, Bren & Noah

Hello Everyone -
Well this week was a big week. We finalized all of our documents with the agency and were able to get everything notarized - thanks to Matt Heinz for getting Tressy to help us out - Tressy you were a huge gift to us this past week - thanks for being so patient with us. We went to the Secretary of State's office today and had all of our documents apostilled. Thanks to our friend Jacques for walking us in and helping out. "We liked knowing people in high places... hahaha" THANKS JACQUES!!!

We made two complete copies of the entire packet and shipped it all off to the agency this evening. It will arrive in North Carolina on Monday morning and should be in Bulgaria by the middle of next week!!!!! Thanks to everyone for your comments, positive words, prayers and for just listening to me ramble sometimes! Josh and I are really overwhelmed at how many people are following this journey with us and again THANKS TO YOU ALL!!

It might be a little silent for a while, but will keep you all posted as we get news. This is the part where we wait. Josh and I keep saying we have plenty to keep us busy, the boys, Kim's wedding, Payton's arrival... and so on. And we know that the time table is in God's hands and that brings us peace. Laidyn Claire will be here when He is ready for her to come home.

We do also have some really encouraging news about the adoption situation in Bulgaria and will share that with you as soon as we get the ok from our agency... hopefully soon!

Love to everyone,
Josh, Kel, Brennan & Noah

We received a call this morning and have been informed that we are APPROVED!!! Our daughter has approval to come to the U.S.! We are so excited about this step finally coming to a close. God has undoubtedly blessed our family and is certainly watching over Laidyn.

Now we can put together all of the final paperwork, compete a few more forms, have everything notarized and apostilled and then off the Bulgaria the paperwork goes!

Thanks for all of your prayers and kind words this past week!
Love to everyone!
Josh and Kelly

June 2009 Update

Well finally an update... besides some additional paperwork and getting our biometric fingerprints done about 2 weeks ago... it's been pretty quiet waiting for the Immigration paperwork to be approved.

I spoke with our case worker at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services department yesterday and she told me that our file is 3rd on her desk and she should be able to finish our "review" by this Friday - tomorrow. She will contact us by Monday to let us know if an additional interview is needed with their department or if any other paperwork will be required. She was really nice and positive and said that she hoped to call me Monday with the good news that our child is approved to come to the US. Please keep in your prayers that no additional info is needed!

Right now, Josh and I are working to get all of the Dossier paperwork completed and emailed to the adoption agency for approval. Once we have all of the paperwork approved and in front of us... we will head to the notary. Everything needs to be notarized and packaged. Then we will head to the Secretary of States office to have it all apostilled at the state level. Then the dossier goes to Bulgaria and we wait...

Noah has once again informed us that God told him that Laidyn was born about a week ago... I am of course writing this all down. As you all know Noah has been our little messenger on this journey and he has such a heart for his baby sister. If Noah is right, the timeframe so far would make sense... if the dossier is approved by Bulgarian Government in July / August that would put us about a year away from the referral (based on what our agency is saying), which would put Laidyn right at a year in July / August 2010... which is exactly when she would become eligible for us to adopt by Bulgarian laws... I know that was confusing for some of you out there, but it makes perfect sense to us... God works in amazing ways!

We again want to thank so many of you for emailing and asking us questions - you all are so involved and love our family so much! I can't wait for Laidyn to meet all of you - she will be so loved! Hopefully we will have some news next week!!!!

On another note... my baby sister is about to have her first baby. Payton is on track to arrive sometime the first week of July. We can't wait for you to get here Baby Payton! We love you so much already! Please keep Jenni, Chase and little Payton in your prayers as well.

Talk to you all soon!

Adoption Update I800 Submitted!

Hello everyone... a few updates for you. We received our official completed home study on April 22nd and the I800A was sent to the USCIS on the 23rd - Wooohooo! Not to seem to excited... but this is a huge step in the process. We received notification today from the USCIS that our application was received and we will be called to get fingerprinted again shortly. The acutual approval of the application should come with 30 to 90 days. Everyone say a prayer it's shorter than longer...

These next 2 months will be spent working on dossier paperwork that needs to be completed, getting everything notarized and apostilled at the state level, and finishing up all of our education.

We did attend a function this past weekend also with LEEAF (Louisiana Eastern Europeon Adoptive Families) - what an amazing group of people... We met some families with similar situations to ours - which was both reassuring and heart warming. One family is leaving in 2 weeks to adopt their second daughter from Russia - they were very excited. They have 3 biological boys who are all in their 20's and now their two little girls. We meet so many others families with amazing stories and just kept hearing that the waiting is the hard part and after all is said and done... there is nothing more wonderful than when your child arrives home.

I would also like to say thanks to all of our family and friends again for your love and support. We have also had amazing support and encouragement from people we have only known for a short time or only see periodically. To all of you, thank you so much - you have no idea how much it means to Josh and I. We love you! Keep you posted on things soon...

April Update

Late March and April so far have been paperwork crazy. We are still working on getting all of our education hours completed... the courses have all been very interesting and some extremely eye opening. Our home study is complete and we should have a notarized copy in our hands by Friday... keep your fingers crossed for that. Once we get the notarized home study we will immediately overnight our I-800 for to Immigration. This process can take anywhere from 30 to 90 days - this basically establishes our daughter's visa and will allow her to enter the US. While we are waiting for the I-800 we will complete the dossier so that it's ready to be mailed out as soon as we get the immigration approval back.

We have been fingerprinted by the police and those have been sent off to the FBI for clearance. That should be back in a month or so.

We also received our passports this week - yeah!

We are still hoping based on the way things have been going - to get our paperwork to Bulgaria sometime in June. After that, we wait.

NAMES: we had a workshop the other day discussing names and how important it is to include your children in the process. We came up with two Leighton & Aidyn. Of course, I was sold on the first and Josh was sold on the second... so we let the boys decide. Josh suggested Laidyn - which the boys screamed "Yes, yes we love it!'' So our future daughter's name will be Laidyn Claire Wilson .... we have been saying it for about a week now and just could not love it more.

Hope that catches everyone up! Love to everyone! Talk to you all soon!

Well the fee and consent agreements are all signed and will go out via FedEx tomorrow. This is a big step forward. From here we continue our Education requirements to complete our home study and hopefully in the next couple of weeks really dig into getting our dossier put together.

Our adoption coordinator has been chosen to attend the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice Conference on International Adoption. Representatives from the MOJ, orphanages, Sofia City Court and other officials will be presenting information on the current and future state of adoptions from Bulgaria. We are looking forward to our coordinator coming back with some first hand information.

One Heart for Bulgaria is an amazing organization that I have come across. This non-profit humanitarian organization is dedicated to improving the quality of life for all ages of healthy and disabled Bulgarian orphans. Check out the site... they do some amazing work. http://www.oneheart-bg.org/index.php

New picture of the boys...

Hello everyone! We took our first online class last night with our agency... very interesting. Everytime we take part in something - we gain so much new information. We received our fees and consent "Agreements" packet yesterday as well. We are working on filling that out and getting back to CAS asap. Also - looks like we should be wrapping up our 10 education hours required by Louisiana - so hopefully the home study will be complete in a couple of weeks. Yeah! See you all soon! Kelly

Welcome to our adoption blog! Most of you are now aware that our family has started the process to adopt a child from Bulgaria. Josh and I both feel that involving our family and friends is important in fulfilling the journey to our daughter. The road to today has been filled with prayer, talks, discussions with Brennan & Noah and our familes, as well as educating ourselves on adoption in general. Making the decision that this was something we felt called to do has been a long discussion that began while Josh and I were still dating... so while we know this might be surprising to some... for us, it's finally happening! We hope this blog will help to keep everyone up to date with the progress of our adoption and open the door to any questions or comments you guys might have. We have already experienced so much love and support from all of you and for that we are forever grateful! Enjoy the blog!

Where are we in the process...

Josh and I are knee deep in the paperwork right now and have been since January. We are working with Carolina Adoption Services and their program in Bulgaria. here is the link to the Agency for anyone interested - http://www.carolinaadoption.org/ Here's what we have accomplished so far:

• Application for Bulgaria with Agency- approved
• Home Study - both visits with our social worker have gone well and we are now working with her to packet all of the documentation together
• Working towards our 30 hours of education required by our agency
• Made contact with a "mentor" family who recently adopted from Russia
• Became Members of LEEAF (Louisiana Eastern European Adoptive Families)
  
• Slowly acquiring passports, certified copies of personal documents, Visa approval for our daughter
• Getting ready for our first "Social Event" with some adoptive families here in Baton Rouge
  

The Process

Here is just a general overview of our adoption process. Each country and agency you are working with can vary the process:

• Apply for Adoption
• Home Study with LA Social Worker- two visits and 10 hours of education
  
• Complete Agreements & Fee packet with Adoption Agency
• 30 Hours of Education
• Visa Application
• Creating our Dossier (the packet of paperwork that will go to Bulgaria)
  
• Dossier Approval from Agency
  
• Dossier - delivery to Bulgaria
• Dossier Approval from Bulgaria
  
• Now we wait... 9-18 Months
  
• Receive a Referral for our DAUGHTER - we will be matched by the government in Bulgaria with our daughter and sent her picture, some videos, medical history, any other info that the orphanage has
  
• Travel to Bulgaria - First Trip (to visit the orphanage, meet our daughter and spend about a week with her)
  
• Travel to Bulgaria - Bring HER home!
• Post Adoption Process...