The last official thing....

Michael, Zorka, and I got ourselves up out of bed at oh-my-gawd-early this morning to be in Dallas at 8am.  We all had our fingerprints taken at the USCIS office with no problems.  So now all that's left is to wait for the approval letter from Immigration!  Oh yeah, and to wait for a call with our referral!!

The Timeline

The most common question when I tell family and friends about our impending adoption is, "So what happens next?  When do you go get him?  How long does the whole thing take?"  So I thought I'd give my readers an idea of the adoption process.  It goes something like this:

1. File initial application with agency.

2. Begin chasing all the papers -- original birth certificates, marriage license, statements from banks, references from friends, verification of employment, letters from doctor stating that we are healthy, criminal clearances from police department, proof of medical insurance, past years' tax returns, as well as documents that we will need in Ethiopia, such as an adoption petition to the government and post-adoption agreements.

3. Everything must be notarized.

4. Have a homestudy done.  This is the part where a social worker does a VERY thorough background investigation, interviews us, and visits our home.

5. All notarized documents must be sent to the Secretary of State to be certified in the state in which they were notarized in the first place.

6. All documents go to our agency, International Adoption Net, in Colorado for approval.

7. Once approved, the documents, now called our "Dossier", are sent to Washington, D.C. to be authenticated.

8. The dossier is sent back to Colorado for one last triple checking of contents and to make sure there are no errors or typos.

9. The dossier is sent to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where it will be translated into Amharic and sent to the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA), the agency in Ethiopia that oversees all adoptions.

10. We are placed on the waiting list!  (This is where we are now).  While waiting, we must complete 10 hours each of parent training that covers a myriad of international adoption issues.  We also submit a form to U.S. Immigration called an I600A, which is a petition to adopt an orphan.  We are fingerprinted and background checked yet again, and approved by the U.S. to become adoptive parents.

11. The phone will ring with our coordinator telling us of our referral for our son!  We take all the information that we are given -- photos, medical history, social history, and any background information -- to a local pediatrician who specializes in International Adoption Medicine (yes, there is such a thing!) for an opinion of his overall health and any problems to be on the lookout for.

12.  We make the decision to accept the referral or not.  Assuming we accept it....

13.  We wait until we are assigned a court date.  The time frame can vary for this, but the average wait to get one assigned is about 2 months.  Then we wait for the court date to come.

14.  Ethiopia requires that the child be proved to be an orphan, so any documents such as death certificates must be presented in court.  If not, we do not "pass court" and wait for another court date.  If the child has been relinquished, a birth relative must show up to court to testify as such, and that they are placing the child up for adoption.  If this person does not show up, we do not pass court and must wait for another court date.  Michael and I do not appear in court at this time.  We have a facilitator in Addis who does this for us.  Here's the wrinkle -- the courts in Addis Ababa close completely for the rainy season, which is August & September, and sometimes part of July.  If we get a court date before that, great.  If not, we wait until the fall.  Ouch.

15.  When we pass court (it is not uncommon to have 2 or 3 court dates before a family passes court), he is officially our son!  Families usually travel 3 to 4 weeks after passing court to go get their children.

16.  We arrive in Addis Ababa and meet our son!  We are there for 7 to 10 days, during which time we have to attend medical appointments in order for our new son to get a visa to travel home.  We also have to appear at the embassy in Addis as a family.

17.  Ethiopia asks that adoptive families not travel within the country with their new child.  Ethiopians are a very proud and nationalistic people, and it is difficult for some to see their country's children "exported".  So, while in country, families usually hang out at the orphanage, getting to know their new child with the help of a translator, and play with the other kids there.  Also, most adoptive parents have made online "friends" with other adoptive parents.  Even though we have never met, we root each other on through this difficult process and celebrate each other's progress, as well as weather the downturns.  It is not unheard of for medically fragile children to die before their new parents can bring them home.  Others have their adoptions fall through for other reasons.  We consider each other extended family.  Most traveling parents bring gifts for other parents' kids who are still waiting.  Some bring much needed supplies like formula.  We take pictures of the kids still waiting to pass on to their parents who are at home waiting on ANY information about their kids.

18.  We come home!!  3 post placement visits by our social worker are required -- at 3 months home, six months, and 1 year.  The Ethiopian government gets these reports, and we are also required to send photos of our adopted son in his new family back to the government.  They really do care about their nation's children, which is wonderful to see.

So, that's it in a long nutshell.  Our agency quotes approximately 12-18 months from submission of our dossier to adoption completion.  It's an amazing amount of work, but I haven't heard of one adoptive family who regrets one moment!

A note about donations:  When we travel, we will be taking donations to the orphanage there.  While our orphanage, called Sele Enat, is a nice orphanage, it is still lacking in some very basics.  Some of these kids don't know how to play with toys because they don't have any.  Most have never had any clothes to call their own.  The older girls there are desperately in need of clothing, and adore accessories like hair clips, lip gloss, etc.  The orphanage needs things like crib sheets, waterproof mattress pads, plastic diaper covers (when they don't have them, they tie plastic trash bags around the babies!), crayons, school supplies, formula, personal hygiene items, etc.  Pretty much anything that you think is a normal staple of your home, they are in need of.  I will be collecting donations from any of you who wish to send them with us when we travel.  If you prefer (and want to donate), you can give us cash and we'll do the shopping for you.  Any donations will be SO appreciated, so please consider contributing!  :-)

It's good to be #1

Well isn't it interesting that I just posted today that it is so hard to be patient....  The Adamsons, the family in the #1 spot, accepted a referral today for BROTHERS, ages 3 and 5!  In addition to that being fantastic news for us, we are so very happy for them, as well as for a lucky little set of sibs.  Just shows, you never know when good news is coming your way!

Waiting is hard!

I'm not sure what's worse -- the seemingly never-ending paperchase, or the silence of waiting for the phone to ring with a referral.  At least with the paperchase, I felt like I was moving things forward.  Now I feel like I'm at the mercy of bureaucracy.  I'm trying to remember that we really are very close to knowing our new son, and I'm trying to stay busy (which is not hard when you have two little boys to chase around!)  There were two infant referrals last week, and a toddler girl referral on May 1st, so we're hoping for some toddler boy list movement soon.

Little Ian had surgery on Tuesday morning to have his adenoids removed and a second set of tubes placed in his ears.  The poor little guy has just had an awful time of it with ear infections.  His doctor said that removing the adenoids can help in making him a little less snotty on a daily basis, and they've recently discovered that adenoids are to ear infections what tonsils are to chronic Strep Throat.  So, hopefully my little man will get some relief.  The doctor said that behind the one ear drum that his previous tube had already fallen out of, it was just pure pus!  Nasty.  He said the adenoids were also puss-filled and infected.  He's had a low-grade fever since the surgery, which makes you feel crappy, plus the sore throat from the cauterization and incisions can't feel good.  The only thing he can take is Tylenol (Ibuprofen causes bleeding), and he HATES it.  Almost as much as he hates the antibiotic drops in his ears.  Ahhh, the fun of motherhood!

My FIRST ever blog post!

Okay people, here we go!  Thanks go out to Kat Marr and Joanna Coston for encouraging me to do this, and to my sweet Michael for being my in-house IT goto guy.  Still totally unsure of how all this works, but I figure it can't be that difficult, right?

I'm a bit late in starting this blog, but after constantly seeing references to others' blogs on my Yahoo groups, I now see the value in keeping friends and family updated on our crazy adoption  journey that began January 12th, 2009.  It's also very helpful to read other adoptive families' blogs to see how similar or different their process is to yours.

Africa has been in our hearts for years.  My family's first exposure to international adoption was over 50 years ago when my Great Aunt Rowena and Great Uncle Don adopted their son from Ethiopia.  I have always known that I would adopt.  "Have 2, adopt 1" was my mantra, even before I met Michael.  When we met and began discussing having children, he wanted 3 and I wanted 2 (biological kids, that is).  When I broached the subject of adoption and repeated my "mantra", he knew it was perfect.  We always knew it would be Africa, and Ethiopia specifically.  My good friend Kara always says, "You make plans, and G-d laughs", but I'm a planner nonetheless.  We knew we didn't want an infant.  We love love love babies, but we've had two of our own, with all the incredible highs and lows they bring.  We realized that we absolutely adore toddlers -- that magical age of discovery that you can watch unfolding right in front of your eyes.  We also realized that we love boys!  It goes against the mainstream in ET adoption, where most families opt for infant girls, but we've long ago learned that you have to follow your heart.  We know boys.  We're good at boys.  We love boys.  Doing this now will (hopefully) keep our sons close in age while still preserving birth order.  Kai is so very excited about his new brother, and asks me weekly when I will go get him!

And so, with a shaking hand, our journey began on January 12th, 2009, as I filled out the initial adoption application with International Adoption Net.  As all adoptive families know, the ensuing paper chase is a mind-blowing, time-sucking, exercise in frustration that you muddle through without even a photo of your future child to keep you going.  We finished that chase on April 12th when our dossier and home study was completed.  After approval from IAN of our paperwork, we were officially "approved" and placed on the toddler boy waiting list at number 3, which is quite high and unexpected.  The following day, we were bumped to number 2!  

We are requesting a 2-4 year old, and the family in the number 1 slot is requesting a 4-6 year old.  So, if a 2 or 3 year old boy comes into care, in reality, we are number 1.  It's just so strange to think that at any moment our phone could ring with news that will change our lives forever!  I'll keep you posted....