Good News is Nice Once in a While

Last week my nagging feeling finally gave way to action and I pulled out my copy of the beloved dossier. As I stood over sizzling pans and cooked dinner, I poured over the dates on each document. Much to my chagrin, our medicals and police clearances were done last March. Our homestudy was dated April 17. So much for being on the ball and getting everything done in a "timely manner." This is the one time in my life that being efficient may have a backlash. I never would have thought last year that we would still be waiting to bring home our kids, ummm, I mean, hear anything of our kids.

Before I freaked out I asked our new family coordinator at America World what this would mean for re-doing stuff. Then I held my breath. She said that it varied state-to-state. Huh? Doesn't Ethiopia care that my paperwork is old? I was meticulous with dates while paperchasing for Ukraine, it was stressed to us many, many times to be careful about the dates on documents because you might end up doing it all over again before you travel. I'm still in that mind-set, I guess. So I didn't believe our family coordinator when she said our homestudy date doesn't matter to Ethiopia. Asking for clarification she explained that our states implement the standards for homestudies so we have to find out the specific requirements for the state. Another family is dealing with the same terror, and she called her social worker. She found out that not only would she have to update her homestudy, but the supporting documents (clearances and medicals) would need to be updated also. Shudder. Really big Shudder.

I left a message with my social worker the next day. Expecting to hear that we should start everything again, that we need to schedule doctor's appointments, fingerprinting, and a visit to USCIS...she surprised me. She left a beautiful message for me on my answering machine. "Your homestudy is good for 2 years."

Huh? So I called her, to clarify. Also, these days, good news like that needs to be heard a few times. She jubilantly told me that, Yes, our homestudy is good for two years. Though our fingerprints will need to be updated in June for USCIS, everything else is good for a while. Hanging up the phone, I did a happy dance and twirled with the nearest kiddo. What great news! We won't need to update things, until June. Screeching to a halt, "June? Are we still going to be waiting in June?"

Drumroll please...

Our dossier has left DC! It's currently in the care of FedEx in Memphis (now the second time it's been visiting Memphis since last week).

Wednesday FedEx redeemed itself (sort of). The FedEx truck pulled up to my house and delivered a document from Virginia. I was pretty confused (seems to be a theme recently) and opened it to find the missing agency recommendation and the authentication from the Secretary of State. So the once lost document has been found, then shipped, then my check cashed, and the pre-paid airbill used. Ick, this visit from FedEx just cost me $30-40 (the vote is still out on that one).

And I didn't even need this anymore--see my previous posting on the "day of chaos" to understand. So I've called FedEx and asked to be reimbursed for the costs of shipping this "lost" package. While I had them on the phone I asked to be reimbursed for the cost of overnighting the replacement documents last week (since I really shouldn't have had to do that), and while I was at it, I wanted them to reimburse my check to the Secretary of State too! Hey, worth a try! Overall, in order to get that document to DC on time I think I spent $70. Ouch--for one piece of paper!

Meanwhile, our months of hard work are carefully packaged up and hopefully flying over the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Addis Ababa.

Tracking my dossier

I mailed our dossier on Tuesday to our agency in Virginia. I've been tracking it for three days and it's only made it to Memphis. I think that since I paid for three day service they are going to make it take three days. I did have to have a long conversation with the guy at the office about insurance, and what happens if they lose my dossier. I made a few threatening remarks (I hadn't fully recovered from spending Monday in the car) and several dramatic statements. Which was all lost on him since he won't be dealing with my package once it leaves his office.

My agency sent a new recommendation and it should have arrived at the Secretary of Commonwealth yesterday. I hope that it gets there, gets done, and gets mailed this week, but that may be wishful thinking.

Plugging away

Our homestudy arrived at USCIS yesterday! So the ticker has started counting down-hoping for mid-May. I feel like the loose ends are coming together and we will have everything ready to go when we get the i-171h.

Seth and I are so excited for our friends, the Waals, who are adopting though our agency. They got a referral yesterday of two girls. Their wait time was a record breaking 5 weeks! I think my jaw actually dropped when I read their news. This is so exciting to see, and incredibly unexpected. Even more surprising because they are adopting two girls, they had expected boys--now they are a family with four daughters. Tracy may have to add a few more bathrooms to the house! I'm sure they are running around in a frenzy today.

Watching the adoptions of our friends makes our adoption more of a reality. We are at a place now where I feel like we are caught in a wave and being swept along. Yesterday our social worker called and had some questions before she finalized our adoption approval. We had mentioned adopting special needs, but had not gone into detail so she wrote our homestudy for two "healthy" children. Neither Seth nor I know what to do, we are adopting two kids, and that may be enough to keep us on our toes. I hate to make this decision flippantly and then wonder... As it is, I'm praying for two special kids in Ethiopia constantly throughout the day. I'm wondering if they are still with their family, if they are being cared for by loving people, if they have enough food to eat. I pray that we get there quickly to bring them home.

Movin' right along

We just got an email and our homestudy is DONE and on its way to USCIS. Hopefully we will get our 171 (approval for adopting internationally from US government) in three weeks. I'm guessing on this, time estimates are so fun irritating. Paperwork is slowly trickling in from various places around the country. We recently had a strange experience with the USPS. We have a document from our agency that has to be certified in Virginia. I mailed it to the Secretary of the Commonwealth over a month ago. Last week I received a letter from them, with all of my documents enclosed. I had inadvertently forgotten to enclose the payment! I honestly don't know how I manage! I recall putting the check in there..I think. In addition, the envelope had been burned on its way to VA. Not completely burned UP, but burned enough that we would need a new document from our agency. So weird, but stranger things have happened. Today I fed-exed the new documents, with a check to VA. I think their turn around is about 3 weeks also. Everything seems to be going smoothly, then these little hang ups come along.

I know that God is in the hang-ups too though. He can see the whole picture and knows when we NEED to arrive in Ethiopia, so I'm trying to just trust that He will take care of paperwork. Whether He's expediting it or burning it! Trusting Him to do things perfectly and to control the adoption from beginning to finish is much easier.

I got shots today for yellow fever and typhoid. I'm not up to a barrage of emails about immunizations (you know who you are). It's done, I'm innoculated against these critters and I'm still alive and functioning. Though my checkbook is short $150, thankfully Seth found out that he can get these vaccines though work for free. Unfortunately, he didn't decide to check into this until 7:30am today (we have had these appointments for 6 weeks). The gal at the health department was not pleased with his lackadaisical attitude about keeping his appointment. I told her to let me have it and I'd happily pass it along to my procrastinating spouse. At that point I thought I was getting a vaccine in my tush, and was very displeased that I didn't have him there for moral support. Alas, my sources are outdated and I didn't have to pull down my britches, just lift up my sleeves (sighs of relief).

Watching the clock

One of the things I find myself doing right now is timeline guessing. I have various scenarios going through my mind for referral dates and travel dates. I just got news from our social worker that she hopes to have the rough draft of our homestudy done this evening. That set off a series of "What ifs.." IF we get our rough draft tonight, then our final done by the end of the week, we could have it in the mail to INS next week. If they take three weeks to process, then that means our dossier will be done mid-May. Give it a week or so in DC, then off to Ethiopia. We just got an update from our family coordinator (aka agency helper) stating that the past two referrals have been very fast (last one was 9 weeks), but the agency expects that most of us will still wait 3-7 months for a referral. Soooo, that means we would be waiting for a referral until August or (latest) December. After the referral we have to wait for a court date--hopefully a few weeks later but it could be 6 weeks, could be much more. Then we would travel. So, best case we travel in the fall to bring home the kids, worst case we travel in the spring.

This latest hobby is an obvious waste of time. Without even putting any thought into it anyone could say, "Well, I'd imagine you would travel anywhere from fall to spring." I'd give that person a look, shake my head and walk away thinking, "What do you know?"

I'm not planning on waiting until spring to bring those kids home. I'm planning on having five kids screaming down my stairs on Christmas morning, so I better bring two home before then! Which means that my social worker needs to get the homestudy done and INS has to process quickly, nothing slips through cracks and all arrives safely in Ethiopia. I feel my mind getting cranked up and whirring at the endless possibilities. I'm also completely disregarding God's plan. He could be planning for us to go very quickly or wait until next spring. After all the mind whirring, I have come full circle. I know what I need to do and can focus on that. I pray about the timing of this adoption, knowing all too well that God has these children already chosen for our family. I'm praying that they are still with family, they are well cared for and being loved. I'm trying awfully hard to trust God with the timing, but I still find myself asking for this to go quickly. I'm terribly impatient when it comes to paperwork, agencies, and the government.

A friend of mine once told me that she doesn't ever ask God for patience, since she's afraid of what it may take for her to learn the lesson. She asks God, instead, to let her learn patience from watching the trials of others. We laughed at the time, but it seems to have a little truth to it. I'm praying that I don't need a lesson in patience right now.

I'm doing an elated, blissful, dance of "almost being done" joy

I just stuffed an envelope for our social worker. This was almost the last bit of paperwork we needed for our homestudy. We are waiting on physicals for the kids (happens next week and I'm dreading it).

As I'm writing I realize that it doesn't sound so hot, but I'm excited. This is the light at the end of the tunnel! I was so busy sightseeing in the tunnel I didn't notice that we were nearing the end. Most of the paperwork for our dossier is the original of what I just packed off in the mail for our social worker. So my beautiful stack is growing. I looked at the handy, dandy checklist and jumped for joy. Skipping into the living room with glee I sang out to Seth and Everett, "Look at this envelope, its full and we are alllllllll-most done!" Seth stopped his game of go-fish to express his disbelief. I had to actually show him the ragged checklist before he would believe me. He's been out of town and hasn't seen me in action. He's responsible for one document (the aforementioned employment letter), and I guess didn't notice that I was a little bee, gathering all we needed to get this done. So I'm twirling myself to the mailbox right now!

How stuff works

I thought it might be helpful to clarify what is expected to happen with our paperwork. I realize that some of you (though I have no clue who is actually reading this blog aside from a few friends who mention it), may be completely in the dark as I'm writing about what we are doing. So I'll try to be brief and to the point (as if that has EVER happened in my life):

1. Apply to agency. Get stacks of paperwork requirements.
2. Start collecting various paperwork for Ethiopia (called your dossier, say dah-see-ay). Certified birth certificates, marriage license, employment letters, proof of insurance, etc. Everything needs to be official and notarized.
3. Apply to INS (aka bcis) for approval to adopt an international orphan.
4. Begin homestudy. Our social worker will also require much paperwork, most of it the same as what is required in our dossier. The social worker's job is to make sure that we are decent parents and have a safe home. This requires (by our agency) four visits with her. Two of them must be in our home (so she can check it out) and with our children.
5. Get fingerprinted A LOT. State has to clear us, the FBI clears us, and INS...well, I don't know why they are fingerprinting us, I guess to clear us there too.
6. Social worker finishes our homestudy. We get approved by the state to adopt. She sends a copy to INS.
7. Hopefully, collect all of remaining paperwork required for our dossier. Wait on our INS approval (I-171).
8. We are required by our state to have county seals, verifying that the notary is really a notary in that county. So we will take our notarized forms to the county seat and get them done. Doing this now will give us time to work on any mess ups.
9. I-171H arrives, make a copy, notarize it, take it to the county seat. Take the ENTIRE dossier to the state capital to be state certified. There they get a pretty seal. Then we make 3 copies of everything.
10. Mail the paperwork to DC to get authenticated by the US government.
11. Paperwork is shipped to Ethiopia for translation. Everything is processed at the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs.
12. We wait. And wait some more. One day 4-6 months (who knows?) later we get a referral (pictures and information) for our children.
13. Make plans to travel 6-8 weeks after we accept the referral.

Right now we are inbetween 5 and 6. Still quite a way to go, but you can never tell how these things will happen.

Prison and Paperchasing

Today we had our last in-home visit with our social worker. Then we took a family field trip to our county jail. We had to have a form stating that we don't actually BELONG in jail, and in order to get this, you have to go there. I guess it's a precautionary way that the sheriff, if you belong there, can grab you right then. When we got to the door, Eli backpedaled some (I was a little intimidated too) and said, "I'm not going in there." But I pulled him in and we walked past some bars, screens for viewing incarcerated loved ones, and into the records hall. The woman in there, God bless her, was so kind! She gave all my kids treats then went to the trouble of getting our forms notarized in triplicate without making us return for an appointment (which normally is required). So we got to check that little box off, but the rest of the afternoon didn't go as well. The employment letter has a notarization on it that expires next week. Good for our homestudy, bad for our dossier. It took us approximately 2 hours downtown to get the employment letter notarized. I'm hoping next time there isn't a soda shortage in the office that causes the admin guy to go on a FOUR HOUR soda run without leaving any clue to his whereabouts. I guess it wouldn't be much of a story if I said, "Seth got his employment letter today." AND wouldn't be much of a story for my kids if they didn't get frightened out of their wits and sit like little soldiers in the depths of the county jail for 30 minutes. I think I'll remember this the next time they misbehave at the doctor's office, "Do we need to go back to jail so you can remember how to behave yourselves?."

Request for ChildREN

This is something, so far, I have waited to comment on. Seth and I have the nasty habit of putting off big decisions. We talk, chat, pray some, and then just wait. I don't know what we are waiting for, perhaps to get the right decision in the mail? Or maybe a phone call? But, nonetheless, we wait and then discuss our options again and again. We have done this with our child request for this adoption. Timidly Seth mentioned that maybe we should adopt two kids. "Yipes," I thought, "Two kids?!"

Where is the guy who was fine without any more kids? But the idea had some merit. So we talked about it...for a few months. We waited until our social worker asked us last week what we wanted in our homestudy. We didn't have an answer for her. We talked about what we'd like to do, which took about 5 minutes to explain. Our oldest is only 6, youngest is 4, we have two boys and a girl. We'd like one girl, but understand that girls are more requested, so we would like to adopt a boy, but then Ella would be the only girl in a family with four boys...you see where I'm going?

When you are pregnant with a child, God doesn't ask for your input. You get what He gives you. Period. In adoption, God doesn't ask for it, but you get to put your input in official documents. Then you get what He gives you. When we adopted Ella we expected to come home with a Ukrainian baby girl. When we came home, we had a 2.5 year old Korean-Ukrainian girl. We were surprised that we were so off in what God had planned for us. With that sort of history, we aren't too sure what our request should be. One thing we became certain of though, is that we do want to adopt two children. Moving on from there, this is what our family coordinator said we should put (this gal, she's got some skills to condense what we said into this statement):

"We are requesting two healthy children and are open to either siblings or a non-related pair. We would like to request an infant boy between the ages of birth and 12 months and a girl between the ages of birth and 3 years, understanding that if siblings are unavailable that there needs to be a 9-month age gap between the pair. If twins of either gender are available at this time, we are also open to adopting twins."

Yep, she said twins. Now wouldn't that be fun?

The Amazing (paper) Race

I've seen The Amazing Race maybe twice. It spurned a conversation between Seth and I about whether we would be able to compete on the show. This morning, as I was planning through my day I realized that we would spend the day racing around. This is what it looked like:

By 8:00 am-Seth out the door to a doctor's appointment. Two documents in hand to be filled out, one for notarization. A list of possible immunizations in hand also. No directions for doctor's office.

By 9:30 am-All three children dressed, fed, cleaned. Apryl dressed, fed, cleaned. House tidied. Begin meager amount of homeschooling with children. Sing some songs, read Bible, pray. Everett practices his Chimpanzee report for a trip to the zoo this afternoon. Backpacks packed with lunches for afternoons at friend's houses. Leave the house.

At 10-Drop Everett off with friends (who will take him with them to homeschool trip to the zoo).

At 10:30 Drop Ella and Eli off with other friend.

*Now the schedule falls apart* Seth is still at the doctor's office. We miscommunicate and end up falling behind in our race.

At 11 (30 minutes late) Leave for BCIS fingerprinting. Drive for 2 hours in icy conditions, praying most of the time. Seth studies for Greek and History tests he will take tonight.

At 1-Arrive at our destination with time to spare. Run up steep, icy hill just in time for appointment.

At 1:05-Fingerprints done. Meet sister (she works in the Federal Building) for quick trip to cafeteria for lunch to go.

At 1:25-Leave for home, 2 hour drive in slushy conditions.

At 3:30-pick up children from assorted houses and race home.

At 4:00-Arrive home, brew pot of coffee. Smooth clothes and welcome social worker into home for first in-home visit for homestudy.

At 5:30-Social Worker leaves, planning to see us next week. Apryl realizes that she doesn't want to cook dinner.

At 5:40-Apryl runs to the van, screams down the road and gets a "Hot-n-Ready" for dinner.

At 5:55-Seth hugs all goodbye, smiles at his pizza and leaves for his tests at school. Apryl smiles at children, and pizza and finally takes a deep breath.

So...at the end of this day-we haven't really got anything to show for it, but a few checkmarks in the little boxes on the long list of things to do. I am truly convinced after all of it that we wouldn't want to be on the Amazing Race. I couldn't do this for a million bucks, but I'll try to for a child.

Life with five

We got home last night from a weekend away visiting my sister's family. We were greeted by loads of mail, included were the letters from INS requesting our presence to have "our biometrics taken" (ie fingerprinting done). The appointment is set for March 19, too bad as we would be in town the next week for another visit with the same sister. I'm not about to send the form back requesting another appointment! We will happily spend 4 hours in the car to avoid being lost in the shuffle. We also had a message from our social worker trying to schedule our first appointment with her.

On a different note-
My sister has two kids, 3 years and 8 months. Over the weekend I got the wonderful opportunity to watch my nephews (and my three kids) while while the other three adults vacated the premises. WHAT A HOOT! My mom called while the hullabaloo was in progress. She asked me how I liked five kids under the age of 6, and then laughed her head off. What a show of support! That leads to something I haven't really mentioned in detail. Seth and I are planning on requesting to adopt two children. I don't know more than that. I don't think he does either. As I'm thinking about this, it lends itself to another post since I can feel myself getting ready to be long winded :)

By the way, five really wasn't that bad. No one was (seriously) injured, they all ate lunch, they took naps, and I got about 30 minutes to myself. Pretty successful experiment I'd say.

Seth "the stamp nazi"

I'm officially overwhelmed! I have a little confession to make: I figured that the paperwork for this adoption would be cake. When we adopted Ella we didn't use an agency. Ukraine is funny like that, you hire a translator and Ukrainian facilitator and go at it. You CAN use an agency, but we figured for the thousands of dollars we would save, it was worth the sweat. My ego has officially been crushed! We received our package from the agency detailing what is needed for the dossier, which is so helpful! They even included a handy-dandy checklist with space for dates, so great! "Wow!" I'm thinking, "This agency thing is really cool." Good for a second then I look at the list and start to feel a creepy, yipesy, feeling. Then the next day, we get more mail. This time from our social worker--piles of paper for our homestudy. I sat down, looked at it, *sighed* and felt pitiful.

Tiny bites at a time, right? I did the easy stuff, figuring our homestudy needs to take priority. Oddly enough it took me two days to sign 4 papers (because I kept forgetting to tell Seth to sign them--how did we ever manage this before?). Now this batch is done, but one thing holds me back from putting the date on my little chart and mailing it. I don't have any stamps.

Seth buys them, hording them in his wallet until I come and beg for one. I rely on him because the post office is a place I try to avoid. I don't know why. I don't even have to stand in line to buy stamps, but there is something about the trip that makes me shudder. Hauling three kids into the car, buckling them into seats, driving 5 minutes, unbuckling, corralling into the foyer of the post office and then repeating the entire procedure in reverse--merely for stamps? We are not even in there long enough for me to recover before we turn around and leave. So I trust Seth to be my "stamp daddy". Unfortunately, his well has run dry recently and he's been too busy to refill it. Out of sheer disgust with myself for waiting so long I will make the treacherous trip to the post office tomorrow and buy 15 books of stamps so I never have to go again.

On a brighter note: we received confirmation that the CIS office has our i600a, now we wait to hear about getting fingerprinted. I did get to put the date in the little box on that one!