I thought I'd give everyone a little update on where our adoption is at. We sent in our forms to USCIS 2 weeks ago tomorrow. We don't have an appointment to get our fingerprints done yet, but most people get those back within a couple of weeks, so hopefully we'll have one soon. I plan to call on Tuesday (since they're not open tomorrow) and see if they can tell me if we have a fingerprint appointment yet.
Once we get the paper with our appointment on it in the mail we'll probably try walking in to the local USCIS office and seeing if they'll do our fingerprints early. They usually aren't busy, and often they'll let you walk in, but not always, so we'll see. Often after you get fingerprints it still takes 4-6 weeks to get approval, but lately a number of people have managed to get an officer assigned quickly and have had their approval in the mail as soon as their fingerprints are done, so I'm hoping we'll be able to do that rather than waiting a month or more. Again, we'll see.
We also sent our first paperwork off to EE at the same time we sent the papers to USCIS. I know they got there. Hopefully they've been translated and submitted to the government there. That would mean we should hear back soon about a date to submit the rest of our paperwork (dossier). That date would probably be about 2 months out.
We have a few more papers to finish for our dossier, but they can easily be done in the 2 months we'll be waiting for our dossier submission date. I'll be starting on the first of those (a different set of fingerprints) at the end of this week.
It's hard to have so much of the process and paperwork out of my hands. I just have to hope (and pray!) that the right papers are going the right places to keep things moving forward. I definitely don't like the waiting. But hopefully we'll have news on both fronts soon!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Questions?
This is going to be a pathetic excuse for a post, but well, um, you get what you pay for? The truth is, I have a few ideas of other things I want to write about on this blog, but none of them felt right today. I even started a couple of posts, but just couldn't make them come out right.
So I decided to take a step back today, and ask something of my readers. Do you have any questions? Anything you want to know about adoption (international, special needs, whatever)? Anything you want to know about our process, or our family? Anything else you'd like to see addressed on this blog? Please, ask away! (And give me a few more ideas to get me through this month of blogging every day, please?)
So I decided to take a step back today, and ask something of my readers. Do you have any questions? Anything you want to know about adoption (international, special needs, whatever)? Anything you want to know about our process, or our family? Anything else you'd like to see addressed on this blog? Please, ask away! (And give me a few more ideas to get me through this month of blogging every day, please?)
Friday, February 17, 2012
Fatherless Friday 1
My friend Julia runs a series of posts every Friday called "Fatherless Friday", where she talks about some of the orphans who don't have a Mom and Dad working to come get them. Some of those left behind. (I don't know if she came up with this idea, or if she got it from someone else, but I got it from her.) I don't know if I'll always run a "Fatherless Friday" post, but I do want to talk about some of the other orphans who have touched my heart sometimes, and maybe it will be every Friday.
Honestly, there are so many of these little ones that I'm in love with that this post could be about a mile long. But today I want to start by talking about two orphans who are living in the same orphanage as our daughter. Meet Carolina and Ryland:
Carolina is 5.5 and has CP.
Honestly, there are so many of these little ones that I'm in love with that this post could be about a mile long. But today I want to start by talking about two orphans who are living in the same orphanage as our daughter. Meet Carolina and Ryland:
Carolina is 5.5 and has CP.
Ryland is 5.5 and is HIV+ and has CP.
They are both precious. I have been blessed to be able to connect with a whole group of moms who've adopted from the region our daughter is in. Some of them have met her, and have been able to share pictures and stories. All of them have been able and willing to share information and anything else they can to try to help the orphans they had to leave behind. Some of them have met Carolina and Ryland. I've heard a few sweet stories and seen more pictures of both of these sweeties. I so want them both to find families.
The truth is, right now they are at a pretty good orphanage. An orphanage is far from an ideal place for a child to grow up, but if you had to choose one to live at, this wouldn't be a bad choice. It's a child's home for kids ~4-7. It's not very large, and has a decent number of caregivers who seem to care about the kids there. There are missionaries who visit regularly who bring the kids toys and give them one on one attention. While I wish our daughter was home with us right now, I'm grateful she's in such a good place while she's waiting.
Unfortunately, Ryland and Carolina won't be in this good orphanage much longer. Soon they'll have to leave. If they're lucky, they'll be able to go to the orphanage for older children in their region. It probably has 200 kids, ranging in ages from 6 to 16. The caregiver to child ratio is very low. I have not heard good things about this orphanage, and if they are transferred there they will be the youngest and smallest as well as being physically disabled. It will not be a good life for them, and the director of the orphanage is not very open to adoptions, so there's a decent chance they'd live there until they turn 16 and are put out on the street with nothing. And this is the scenario if they're lucky.
If they're unlucky, the orphanage for typical kids will refuse to take them because of their physical disability. Both Carolina and Ryland can walk and are pretty self-sufficient, but the fact is, in their culture those with physical disabilities are looked down on, seen as less, and often labeled as mentally deficient. If they aren't allowed at the older kids' orphanage they will be transferred to a mental institution. They will likely lose most of their current skills, including their ability to walk, as they will receive no therapy to keep their muscles from tightening. To see what just a few months in a mental institution did to a little one with CP, you can read Laura's blog. Thankfully, Seth is now home with his family, but he has had to regain so much ground that he lost in horrible conditions. I would hate for that to happen to Carolina and Ryland. I hope that their parents find them soon!
Thursday, February 16, 2012
My Husband
I could pretty much say anything I want here, as I don't think he ever looks at the blog. Luckily for him, he's a pretty great guy, so there's only good things to say. :) Since I mentioned in my last post that we fought, I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain a little more, both about the fight, and about my awesome husband in general.
While Jacob and I have a lot of fundamental things in common (we're both white, middle-class, college-educated, Mormon, etc.) it turns out we're pretty different. As in, it's probably a good thing we didn't live near each other until just before we were married, or we probably would never have managed to get married kind of different. We agree on pretty much nothing. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me too much, since our first conversation ended in an hour long debate about whether the US should have dropped the atom bomb. So fighting for us is fairly common. Luckily we're both also willing to talk things out, work things out, fix the problems and move on. And we tend to balance each other pretty well. He stresses out and I'm able to keep calmer and more laid back. I tend toward laziness and his work ethic kicks me into gear and makes me get things done. He tends toward too much control over things, I tend toward too little, and we meet in the middle at a pretty happy medium for all involved.
One difference that's really come into play during the adoption process is the fact that I tend to start with decisions and then make the plan as to how to get to the desired outcome, whereas he tends to explore various plans and then make a decision based on which one he think will work. An example: how we chose our college majors. When my sister was a college freshman and home on break she talked about taking an anthropology class. I thought, "Hmm, anthropology, I think maybe I should major in that. I should probably figure out what exactly it is." So I did my research about what it was, what it would involve, which schools had good programs, what I could do with it after I graduated, etc. But I stuck with that initial, spur-of-the-moment, lightning-fast decision. Those are kind of my forte. On the other hand, Jacob considered what he wanted to do when he graduated from college (most important: be able to support a family), so he researched salaries of graduates of different programs, weighed their pros and cons, considered which he would be good at, etc, and decided to go into electrical engineering. So, me: decision, then research; Jacob: research, then decision.
I think my method is much easier when considering an international adoption. I decided nearly a year ago that it was something I wanted to do, and that I felt I should do, so since then I haven't ever questioned it. I've spent a lot of time researching what it will involve, possible pitfalls, the steps needed, etc, but only so I'll know what I need to do, not to try to decide whether or not I should do it. Jacob, on the other hand, researches the steps involved, the possible pitfalls, the unknowns, the constantly changing rules and processes, and says, "Do we really think we can do this?" Honestly, if you look at it empirically the answer is probably "No". There are so many problems, from how we can afford this to who will watch our children for the insane length of time we'll be gone, how he'll take that much time off work and not be so far behind he'll never catch up, how we're all going to adjust to the huge changes in our lives, how we'll have time to meet all of the special needs of all the kids, etc, etc. Logically, it makes no sense, and every time Jacob tries to figure out how it will really work he comes up against that fact.
Jacob is wonderful, awesome, and amazing for so many reasons, but lately the biggest one is his willingness to go forward in the face of all the reasons it won't work, all the reasons it shouldn't work, and all the extra work and stress it's going to add to his life. He's prayed often for revelation about what our path should be, but hasn't received any. In spite of that, he's willing to trust me, trust my certainty, and trust my revelation that this is the path we should be following. I'm not entirely certain I'd have that much faith in him, and today, that's the reason I love him the most.
While Jacob and I have a lot of fundamental things in common (we're both white, middle-class, college-educated, Mormon, etc.) it turns out we're pretty different. As in, it's probably a good thing we didn't live near each other until just before we were married, or we probably would never have managed to get married kind of different. We agree on pretty much nothing. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me too much, since our first conversation ended in an hour long debate about whether the US should have dropped the atom bomb. So fighting for us is fairly common. Luckily we're both also willing to talk things out, work things out, fix the problems and move on. And we tend to balance each other pretty well. He stresses out and I'm able to keep calmer and more laid back. I tend toward laziness and his work ethic kicks me into gear and makes me get things done. He tends toward too much control over things, I tend toward too little, and we meet in the middle at a pretty happy medium for all involved.
One difference that's really come into play during the adoption process is the fact that I tend to start with decisions and then make the plan as to how to get to the desired outcome, whereas he tends to explore various plans and then make a decision based on which one he think will work. An example: how we chose our college majors. When my sister was a college freshman and home on break she talked about taking an anthropology class. I thought, "Hmm, anthropology, I think maybe I should major in that. I should probably figure out what exactly it is." So I did my research about what it was, what it would involve, which schools had good programs, what I could do with it after I graduated, etc. But I stuck with that initial, spur-of-the-moment, lightning-fast decision. Those are kind of my forte. On the other hand, Jacob considered what he wanted to do when he graduated from college (most important: be able to support a family), so he researched salaries of graduates of different programs, weighed their pros and cons, considered which he would be good at, etc, and decided to go into electrical engineering. So, me: decision, then research; Jacob: research, then decision.
I think my method is much easier when considering an international adoption. I decided nearly a year ago that it was something I wanted to do, and that I felt I should do, so since then I haven't ever questioned it. I've spent a lot of time researching what it will involve, possible pitfalls, the steps needed, etc, but only so I'll know what I need to do, not to try to decide whether or not I should do it. Jacob, on the other hand, researches the steps involved, the possible pitfalls, the unknowns, the constantly changing rules and processes, and says, "Do we really think we can do this?" Honestly, if you look at it empirically the answer is probably "No". There are so many problems, from how we can afford this to who will watch our children for the insane length of time we'll be gone, how he'll take that much time off work and not be so far behind he'll never catch up, how we're all going to adjust to the huge changes in our lives, how we'll have time to meet all of the special needs of all the kids, etc, etc. Logically, it makes no sense, and every time Jacob tries to figure out how it will really work he comes up against that fact.
Jacob is wonderful, awesome, and amazing for so many reasons, but lately the biggest one is his willingness to go forward in the face of all the reasons it won't work, all the reasons it shouldn't work, and all the extra work and stress it's going to add to his life. He's prayed often for revelation about what our path should be, but hasn't received any. In spite of that, he's willing to trust me, trust my certainty, and trust my revelation that this is the path we should be following. I'm not entirely certain I'd have that much faith in him, and today, that's the reason I love him the most.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
30 days
I've been contemplating for a while doing a 30 day blog challenge, and trying to write every day for a month. I'd decided on Sunday that I should do it, and that I should start this week. Then on Monday night Jacob and I were talking about things and ... well, okay, we were fighting. We're both kind of stressed out right now (Jacob especially), and with frayed nerves our tempers flared and, well, it wasn't very nice. So I knelt down, crying, and poured my heart out to God. I asked for help in a number of areas, but I also asked what I could do. What can _I_ do to make this situation better? I don't know, so please let me know how I can help things. A lot of my questions and pleading went unanswered (at least for now), but one thing I felt strongly was that I should fast from facebook. For 30 days.
Now, any of you who know me at all know that this is a _big_ _deal_. I spend a lot of time online, and particularly on facebook. It's where I have support groups for adoption and various other things. It's how I commiserate with others going through the same things, and it's where I ask for advice. More than that, with the amount we move around, it's how I stay connected to most of my friends, and many of my family members as well. The thought of not getting on facebook for a month nearly had me in tears again.
But, I asked God for help, and I'd specifically asked what I could do to help things, and when I ask for revelation and then get some, I feel rather obligated to listen to it (especially if I want to receive any more!). So I got back on facebook long enough to set up a few things and tell everyone I was taking a break (and post my e-mail address so people would know how to get a hold of me, since facebook is generally the best method to reach me), and then I shut it down. I'm on my second day of the facebook fast, and so far it's easier than I thought it would be. I guess maybe if it's something God wants me to do He's willing to help me do it.
Also, maybe this is just what I needed to get this 30 day blogging challenge off the ground. After all, I need somewhere to share my thoughts, and if facebook is unavailable... So, stay tuned over the next month for a post every day! And since my usual computer/blogging time is after a lot of my friends go to sleep, I'm going to try to stay a day ahead, and write the posts at night to post mid-day. So keep an eye out for them! Hopefully you can all help me make it through the next month, and hopefully this will help my marriage, my husband's job, and our adoption process!
Now, any of you who know me at all know that this is a _big_ _deal_. I spend a lot of time online, and particularly on facebook. It's where I have support groups for adoption and various other things. It's how I commiserate with others going through the same things, and it's where I ask for advice. More than that, with the amount we move around, it's how I stay connected to most of my friends, and many of my family members as well. The thought of not getting on facebook for a month nearly had me in tears again.
But, I asked God for help, and I'd specifically asked what I could do to help things, and when I ask for revelation and then get some, I feel rather obligated to listen to it (especially if I want to receive any more!). So I got back on facebook long enough to set up a few things and tell everyone I was taking a break (and post my e-mail address so people would know how to get a hold of me, since facebook is generally the best method to reach me), and then I shut it down. I'm on my second day of the facebook fast, and so far it's easier than I thought it would be. I guess maybe if it's something God wants me to do He's willing to help me do it.
Also, maybe this is just what I needed to get this 30 day blogging challenge off the ground. After all, I need somewhere to share my thoughts, and if facebook is unavailable... So, stay tuned over the next month for a post every day! And since my usual computer/blogging time is after a lot of my friends go to sleep, I'm going to try to stay a day ahead, and write the posts at night to post mid-day. So keep an eye out for them! Hopefully you can all help me make it through the next month, and hopefully this will help my marriage, my husband's job, and our adoption process!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Progress!
So, I'll admit it. I'm a terrible blogger. There's a reason why I've pretty much stuck to group blogs before this: then when I don't post for an entire year (true story) there are others around to pick up my slack. Not so much here, so I'm determined to be better. Don't get your hopes up too high; I doubt I'll be able to change my stripes overnight. But I promise to be better! (Okay, so that's not too hard, considering I only posted once in the entire month of January. One more post this month and I'll already be doing better!)
With that said, let me update you on our progress! We've made it from the "New Commitments" page on Reece's Rainbow, through the "Homestudy in Progress" page, and are onto "Compiling Dossier". That's right -- our home study is done! The kids and I went down to the TX Secretary of State on Monday and got it (and a lot of other documents) apostilled. We sent the home study off to USCIS with our application to adopt a foreign citizen, and we sent our first paperwork of to EE to get submitted to the government there! It's kind of crazy how excited I was to know that the papers I had in my hand just a couple of days before had arrived in the same country as my daughter!
We still have a few more papers to prepare for our dossier, and then we wait for USCIS approval. I have a lot I've been wanting to say about the adoption process, our daughter, our families, and all sorts of other things, so I promise I'll post again soon!
With that said, let me update you on our progress! We've made it from the "New Commitments" page on Reece's Rainbow, through the "Homestudy in Progress" page, and are onto "Compiling Dossier". That's right -- our home study is done! The kids and I went down to the TX Secretary of State on Monday and got it (and a lot of other documents) apostilled. We sent the home study off to USCIS with our application to adopt a foreign citizen, and we sent our first paperwork of to EE to get submitted to the government there! It's kind of crazy how excited I was to know that the papers I had in my hand just a couple of days before had arrived in the same country as my daughter!
We still have a few more papers to prepare for our dossier, and then we wait for USCIS approval. I have a lot I've been wanting to say about the adoption process, our daughter, our families, and all sorts of other things, so I promise I'll post again soon!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Home Study Visit and Our First Dossier Paperwork!
I suppose I should start with a brief explanation for my friends who don't know much about the adoption process. I'll summarize here, but I'll try to go into more detail later, and if you have any questions, please ask! The first thing we need to do to bring our little girl home is to get a home study, which involves gathering a bunch of paperwork and then having a social worker visit your home and interview you. This home study is then sent to USCIS to get approval from the US government to adopt. Then we have to compile a lot more paperwork to send to our daughter's country to show them how we are able to care for her so that they will eventually give us permission to adopt. That said...
We had our home study visit yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. At least, our social worker made it sound like she was going to recommend we be able to adopt rather than shutting down our plans right now. (Honestly, I knew that was unlikely, but that didn't keep me from worrying about it. After all, I've never had to get permission from someone else to be able to parent my other children, so this is all new (and kind of scary) territory for me.) I have a total of 4 things left to do and send to our social worker to be all done with what we need for that part of the process, and none should take long. I have to finish up 2 adoption training classes (online, and hopefully I can finish them tonight), I need to measure the rooms upstairs and finish drawing up our floor plan, Jacob needs to write his autobiography, and we still need one letter of reference. But hopefully all of that will be done by the end of the week! Then I just have to wait for our social worker to write it all up so I can send it to USCIS! (I think she'll be fast.)
I'm also starting (slowly) on the paperwork for our dossier. The first thing I did was order marriage certificates, because they were the only thing I had to do by mail, and I didn't know how long that would end up taking. The answer: not long! I ordered them and they came just a couple of days later, and then I sent them back to the East Coast to be apostilled (apostilling basically means a state official putting a pretty gold seal on the paper to say that the official who notarized the paper was, in fact, a valid notary). Less than 2 weeks later and they're back in my hands with pretty gold seals all ready to be sent to Eastern Europe! One paper down and only 30 or 40 more to go...
I promise I really will do a blog redesign so you can see our little girl's cute face all the time sometime soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with another picture of it here:
We had our home study visit yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. At least, our social worker made it sound like she was going to recommend we be able to adopt rather than shutting down our plans right now. (Honestly, I knew that was unlikely, but that didn't keep me from worrying about it. After all, I've never had to get permission from someone else to be able to parent my other children, so this is all new (and kind of scary) territory for me.) I have a total of 4 things left to do and send to our social worker to be all done with what we need for that part of the process, and none should take long. I have to finish up 2 adoption training classes (online, and hopefully I can finish them tonight), I need to measure the rooms upstairs and finish drawing up our floor plan, Jacob needs to write his autobiography, and we still need one letter of reference. But hopefully all of that will be done by the end of the week! Then I just have to wait for our social worker to write it all up so I can send it to USCIS! (I think she'll be fast.)
I'm also starting (slowly) on the paperwork for our dossier. The first thing I did was order marriage certificates, because they were the only thing I had to do by mail, and I didn't know how long that would end up taking. The answer: not long! I ordered them and they came just a couple of days later, and then I sent them back to the East Coast to be apostilled (apostilling basically means a state official putting a pretty gold seal on the paper to say that the official who notarized the paper was, in fact, a valid notary). Less than 2 weeks later and they're back in my hands with pretty gold seals all ready to be sent to Eastern Europe! One paper down and only 30 or 40 more to go...
I promise I really will do a blog redesign so you can see our little girl's cute face all the time sometime soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with another picture of it here:
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