Adoption Update: Moving Beyond Paperwork

Last adoption (April 2010) -- showering our social worker with flower bouquets to thank her for completing our home study

Today we took an important step forward in our adoption. Our home study is now underway!

This afternoon our social worker, Janette, made the first of three visits. In past adoptions, the home visits have left us anxious as they approached. This time, however, it just felt as though we greeting an old friend at the door when Janette arrived. She was our home study social worker when we adopted Daria, Alexander and Oksana. The photo above was taken on the day we all celebrated the completion of the home study, a big milestone in any adoption. Our nine children (at the time) had each picked out a flower bouquet for Janette. Janette is happy-hearted, kind and generous with her time. She is a real favorite with our kids, probably because she speaks to them as though they're adults and yet hugs them like a beloved aunt.

Janette is also the social worker responsible for doing the post placement reports for our most recent adoption and has visited us twice in that role since the trio became members of the family in November 2010.

After we've completed our paperwork, we'll submit it to Janette. She then uses that information, as well as the impressions she's gathered in the three visits and turns that into a report that's about eight pages long. The homestudy's purpose is to verify for the Russian judge that a qualified professional believes us to be safe and capable parents, ready to add more children to the family.

Janette is ready to move forward at as quick a pace as the combination of our schedules will allow so that we can get those four precious children out of their orphange and into a family. Thus, our next visit is Monday, May 21.

We thank God that we're already this deep into the process!

A Big Day!

Friday was a day long-awaited by Maher-shalal-hashbaaz. After patiently waiting for his baby teeth to make way for his adult chompers, Maher officially joined the Reynolds-Supporting-Orthodontists Club. This elite group is not a small one; in fact, he is the sixth Reynolds to experience braces so far. Despite physical discomfort, a trip to the orthodontist is always welcome in our family thanks to the friendly staff and our skilled orthodontist (who wears awesome Snoopy ties).

Mid-morning the rest of the family piled into Big Momma (our 15 passenger van) and trundled off to the grocery store for a special errand. After meeting up with Mom and Maher (whose shiny whites were now patriotic in red and blue braces), we did a routine grocery run- which ended up being two full carts.

After that, we got down to our original business. Invading the grocery store’s floral area, we each selected a bouquet of our choice and also picked out three fresh roses. The cashier’s eyes widened considerably as she saw us bearing down on her with 10 bundles of flowers. It would be safe to say we peaked her curiosity.

Around noon Dad arrived home and laid out adoption paperwork on the dining room table. Needless to say, all liquids were banned from the area.
He was finished in time for the arrival of our social worker. She had come for a very special purpose-to gather paperwork for our finished homestudy. Yes, that’s right, our homestudy is finished!!! She had worked diligently on the massive document, and together with Dad and Mom had gathered all the apostilles, certificates, and police clearances necessary to complete the homestudy.
In thanks for her hard work and support, we each presented the bouquet we had selected earlier to our social worker. We also gave her three roses to represent our three new siblings. We are very grateful for all she has done to help bring our siblings home! With the homestudy on the way to our international agency for translation, and our dossier well on its way to completion, we are nearing the waiting stage-which we hope will not last long. We long to bring our siblings home soon.

~Lissie