Our Big Day in Montgomery

Ok...so we're not good at blogging everyday. Sorry, but we do have an update finally, and a big one at that! Our adoption agency is located in Texas. So, in order to complete our home study, they have assigned us to a local social worker. We received the information from our social worker last week. The information we received includes all of our paper work for our doctor visits, passport information, financial statements, letters of employment, and a TON of other fun stuff to fill out.

We decided that we needed to get going with this paperwork, so we woke up Tuesday morning and quickly went to the Doctor's office. We had to go get a statement saying that we were fit to be parents and HIV negative. Once we finished at the doctor's office we were off to Montgomery to get fingerprinted! Ok, we are aware that we didn't have to make the long drive to get fingerprinted. However, Montgomery is the only place in the state that has this "live scan" deal. In essence, going to Montgomery and using the live scan saves about 4 weeks on the home study.

We got to Montgomery at about 2:00 and went straight to the Montgomery County Courthouse. (Oh yeah, I had Milo's on the way down. Just thought that I should mention that.) We successfully complete, or so we thought, the task of having our fingerprints made. However, Holly got a little suspicious when the lady did not take our money. We called our case worker, and sure enough, we were at the wrong place. We got instructions and left the courthouse and headed over to where we were supposed to go: ABI, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. It's a little intimidating to go to ABI. I have never seen such thick steel doors and bullet proof glass in my life. The people there ended up being really nice though and we had no problems getting the information completed for our fingerprints and background check. We finished our adventure at ABI at 4:30 thus, were not able to complete our passport information. We do have the forms filled out though, and if you know me, that's most of the battle right there.


Now for the fun part. After getting through with ABI we headed over to Wetumpka to catch up with our friends Kim and Tony. We found out Tuesday night, that our journey to adoption would not be the great experience that it is without the support of our great friends. We had dinner at Ruby's and then checked out the Church where Tony is serving as youth minister. Holly and I would just like to say thanks to Kim and Tony and all of our friends that are reading this blog. You are incredible friends and have enriched our lives greatly. Thanks for sharing the journey with us.

- Shalom