Confused

Jason was the one to be on the phone and computer today with AGCI. It worked better with his schedule. They basically went over information that we had received in the mail the other day. I'm so totally confused on things. We have to file a I600A application. This is the “Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition” form. At this point, this feels like our biggest hurdle. However, part of the feeling I have comes from not really knowing anything. We need to send a letter requesting an appointment to be fingerprinted. This gets sent to an office in TX. They pass the information to the office in our area. They give us a date and time to be there for fingerprinting. This whole time, I've been thinking we will have to go to SF for this. Well, after much research today, I wasn't able to find anything in SD. When I typed in our zip code to see what office "served" us, it came up with The Twin Cities. Really? Needless to say, I'm freaking out a bit. I also do not know for sure when we can apply for this. It takes MONTHS for this background check to be completed. One place I read that our Home Study needed to be completed before we applied. Another place said that we would be sending them our Home Study in 4-6 weeks. Well--that makes a big difference as to when we do it. This part really makes me nervous. I don't want to do something wrong that will cost us time and money. I emailed AGCI and asked them about it. They are going to be calling us tomorrow as a follow up for the call today, so we will talk about it then. Hopefully, we are home to answer the phone. I thought it would be so awful to have to drive 4 hours one way for fingerprints. Now, 4 hours one way sounds great!!! Time will tell. Also--we needed to have our Power of Attorney letters certified by the Secretary of State. I didn't understand what that meant. So after more phone calls, I at least have an answer to that. We have to have that piece of paper notarized. Then we mail it to the Secretary of State in Pierre. They will put something on it saying that the notary is good. Then they will mail it back to us. WOW! It is one thing to have lots to do. It is another thing when I know I have lots to do and have no idea how to do it.

Dossier packet in our hands

Well-the next big step has been delivered to our house. This is called the Dossier packet. This is all of the paperwork we need to compile for the International part of it. We have a "Dossier Run Through" conference call appointment scheduled for this Wednesday at 11:00am. We had 3 days to pick from and this was the time that fit best into our schedules. It will take about an hour and I guess it is via computer. We did get all of our information via UPS today. So--after the kids go to bed, I will start reading. I'm excited b/c the Home Study and Dossier are the biggest components to this whole thing and both processes have been started!!!

Baby steps

We welcome all steps that progress us forward...even baby steps. We have doctor's apppointments made. Our first Home Study office visit is scheduled. 4 out of 6 reference letters have been mailed to Catholic Family Services. Now, we wait for our dossier paperwork to come in the mail hopefully at the beginning of the week.

Agreements to be mailed

We will be getting all of the "legal" documents ready and mailed tomorrow. There are about 8 documents that need to be signed in front of a notary. One of the documents we need to sign is the agreement b/t AGCI and ourselves. There are about 3 spots that need to be signed and notarized just in that one "booklet." Really? 3 on one "booklet?" Wow! All of these important papers as well as a nice big check will be sent in tomorrow. We have to sign 2 of everything. They will sign a copy and send us copies of everything back. Fun stuff! Glad we only have to pay the postage one way. :) Then they will send us our dossier packet. This is the information we need to gather for the actual country. As far as I know, this will include things like birth certificates/marriage license/etc...HOPEFULLY all of the super time consuming stuff (like the 20 pages of questions we filled out) is over. I'm updating you on this BEFORE we mail this big/thick/heavy envelope b/c I have more time tonight to write on here. I looked back at the journal I have been writing about our adventure. It is so hard to believe we have only been in the actual process for about a month and a half. Seems like so much longer when there is so much to do and so many things for my brain to keep track of.

Reference letters

I am very impressed with Catholic Family Services. She received our information on Thursday. Yesterday (Saturday) our references had their letter requests. I know she is pushing the process along as she wants to have everything completed by June 1st as she is going on maternity leave. That is totally fine with me. I'm sure it will be frustrating to me to have this pushed through so fast and to have our dossier stuff take awhile. (Dossier is the paperwork we have to compile for the country itself. So far we have done stuff for our Home Study and for our agency...nothing for the actual country yet) We will be out more money as we pay these references to say something nice about us. :) Thank you to those of you reading this that have to complete a letter on our behalf. It is truly appreciated!!!

My head is spinning

Lots to update about, but yet nothing really too exciting.

HOME STUDY:
I heard from Catholic Family Services today. As soon as she gets our information (hopefully today) she will send letters to our references. In about 2 weeks, we will have to go to Aberdeen for our first meeting. We will have 2 meetings in Aberdeen before the actual Home Study. I'm guessing the Home Study process will be quicker than normal due to the fact that our case worker will be going on maternity leave on June 1. That works for us. I'm all about pushing to get stuff done.

FINGERPRINTING:
We went to Selby to get our fingerprints taken. That was quite the experience as we went to the jail to have it done. They got a new machine which is really neat. No ink. It is heat based and is kind of like a scanner. You still did each finger at a time, etc...Kind of hard to explain. They weren't super sure how to do it and didn't know if we needed something different b/c of our reason for fingerprinting. We were there for probably an hour. Yuck! It wouldn't have been so bad, but we needed to make sure we were home for our Orientation Call. So--fingerprinting round #1 is done. I know we will have to do it again for some immigration papers. I just did it not too long ago for work. I'm going to be a pro soon, but hopefully not too much of a pro. HA!

ORIENTATION CALL:
AGCI called us at 6:00 pm our time. Their home office is in OR. It is sooooo nice to have 2 extra hours to get a hold of them after we get home. She went through some of the "Orientation Packet" with us. It only lasted about 30 minutes. Nothing too exciting. This is some of the legalities such as agreement with them for services and fees, what is expected from all parties, etc...Nothing too exciting. We need to get these papers signed and notarized and mailed back to them with a bigger chunk of money. We will be waiting a week or two before mailing these in.

All of these things are steps that needed to be taken. It wasn't a big deal, but it sure is time consuming and gives us another thing to think about and another thing to do. My head is just spinning. No wonder I can't remember my name. :)

Home Study application mailed

We dropped the Home Study application in the mail today. It was nice that we were able to use Catholic Family Services as that is the packet that we spent 4-5 hours completing one weekend. We knew if we didn't get to use CFS that we would have similiar questions to answer so we wouldn't be out too much time. Also the lady from CFS didn't see why we wouldn't be able to use them. Of course we didn't know for sure we could use them until we had official approval from AGCI. All we HAD to mail today was the actual application. (along with payment of course) We turned in all we could get finished. Why not do as much as we could in one mailing? We need to get copies of our birth certficates, marriage licenses, income tax returns, kids' shot records, and cats' shot records yet. We all need physicals. However...I'm waiting to get those done until we get our other paperwork from AGCI. We need some doctor "stuff" from them too. That way we can hopefully only have one appointment and get all we need done. We sent our 20 pages of questions in. I'd think that would help to get things moving. Time will tell.

Orientation packet

We received our Orientation Packet today from AGCI. I haven't taken the time to study it. I have only browsed it. Lots of stuff of the legal stuff. It has the contract that we must sign to send back to AGCI. It tells us about the steps we will have to complete in order for the adoption to be finalized. It told us many facts about Ethiopia. It won't take too long to look over stuff, sign it, and get it in the mail. We have to wait until our Orientation call on Thursday. Sorry this is boring, but all part of the process.

A bit more about the changing of requirements

I've learned some more about the changing of requirements. We know that the reason behind changing to have the adopting parents make 2 trips to Ethiopia now is all for what is best for the children. It is to protect them from not being left high and dry after thinking they were going home with their new family. As this does cause some extra burdens with taking off of work for an extra week, childcare for our girls for a week while we are gone, and the extra money for plane tickets...we do now it is for the best. We have to say that stumbling blocks appear often in this adoption journey. However, there is some positive things that come out of these changes that I have recently found out about. I thought I should share. Before this change, the newly adopted child would be granted an IR4 visa. This means the child is not technically a US citizen until you go through the re-adoption process in the US court system. Now that the first trip is when the parents go to court instead of the agency acting for us, the newly adopted child travels to the US on an IR3 visa. This mean as soon as they step foot off the plane they are a US citizen. After reading some blogs from people that have adopted a child on an IR4 and an IR3...they say that an IR4 is way more headache (not to mention lawyer's fees, additional time, etc....) to try to get them readopted once we return. It is confusing to me, but hearing from people that have gone through all if this say that an IR3 is much better makes me feel better about all of the additional extras.

2 BIG hurdles crossed! :)

2 BIG hurdles have been crossed today!! First of all, our application was approved. :) Yippee!!!! Secondly, we got approval to use Catholic Family Services for our Home Study. :) Praise God!!! What a huge relief both of these approvals bring! We can now proceed with our Home Study stuff. As far as the adoption process goes, they will be sending us an "Orientation packet." We need to read through the stuff in it. We are scheduled to have our "Orientation call" next Thursday. Both Jason and I will have to be on the phone. We will go over some of the papers they will send and we can ask any questions we have. Like I'm going to wait to ask my questions until then. :) I'm good buds with Tiffany at AGCI. It seems like I always have some question for her that I email. I'm sure she is sad when a day goes by with no email from me. HA!

Along with this journey comes many highs and lows. Last night, we had a low and then today turns to a high. The requirements for adopting from Ethiopia have just changed. We will now have to take 2 trips there. We will get a referral for a child. Then we have about 3 weeks before we need to be in Ethiopia for a court date. We will get to spend some time with our new child before leaving her/him for 2-3 months. We will come back home without him/her. :( We will travel again after more stuff is completed to actually bring our new child home. This is quite the blow. Needless to say it is a lot to soak in. We will need to take an extra week off of work. We will need to find a place for our girls for another week. We will have to pay for 2 more plane tickets. (Too bad we don't fly more often...frequent flyer miles would come in handy here) We know they are doing this for the kids and that is what we have to remember. From what I know, about 40 kids were ready for their families to come and pick them up only to be told they weren't wanted. How horrible!

We knew this road wouldn't be easy, but we knew we had to accept the challenge. Many times we have questioned why it has to be so hard. 2 steps forward and 1 step back. We still are TOTALLY trusting God that this is going to work out. This was placed in our hearts for a reason. God brought us TO this and He will bring us THROUGH this!

Thanks to all of you that have faithfully checked our blog for updates. Thank you for all of the prayers. Thanks to those of you that are buckled in the seat next to us and helping us on "our ride." It is with all of your love, support, and prayers that we will be able to make the difference in the life of a child. We can't wait for that day! :)

Quote

Those of you that know me well know that I love quotes. I came across one the other day that I thought I should post on here. "Adoption may be God's way of bringing a particular child to a particular couple."

Getting closer.......

I heard from AGCI today. They had a few things that they needed me to clarify for them. It is so hard trying to prove to complete strangers that we are good people. Hopefully I answered the questions correctly! Catholic Family Services sent an agreement to All God's Children today. As soon as AGCI gets the agreement from CFS, the lady I have been talking with this whole time will take all of our stuff in to the social workers one last time for final approval. Too bad the mail has to go from SD to OR. I don't know how long that takes, but long enough. :) So---HOPEFULLY by the end of the week, we will have news. We hope and pray for approval.

A step in the right direction

You haven't heard anything from me b/c there hasn't been anything to tell. Today, however, brings good news. First of all, all supporting documents have been mailed. So, our application is officially completed. Now--we get to wait again. :) Also---Catholic Family Services sent some stuff to AGCI. Hopefully that will all be okay and we will get approval to work with them. Now the hurdle of actually getting approved. The lady I have been working with at AGCI has tried to think of any and all possible things they might want more information on. HOPEFULLY all things will explain things enough and we will get approval. I am not sure how long we wait now. Between needing approval to use Catholic Family Services and having our application in the process of being approved, I hope we will know SOME news by the end of next week.