Home Study Process

My husband and I are stationed at Wright Patterson AFB in OH for AFIT. We will be here until March 2005 and leave (fingers crossed) with our new baby :D . We have finished our homestudy and are just waiting on INS approval, passports and To answer a few of your questions. Yes there is just one background check, but two sets of fingerprints with the homestudy and one with INS. No, you can't use your military clearance. I would definately wait until you returned home to start the process. The only reason I say that is because there are many things that are only good for one year. You don't want to complete some of it and then have to redue it when you return. You can do your research though. We had to research for about two months before we really started. We did it all on the internet, but there are lots of good books out there also. I got information packets and talked with about 10 homestudy agencies along with 20-25 placement agencies. We went with a HS agencies that does not do placements (it seemed to be a little less expensive) our placement agency is in California, since you are doing international adoption you do have the choice of any agency that will work with out of state people. You want to make sure to talk to somebody at the agency, because you can get a real good idea of how you will be treated throughout the process. Good Luck with everything.