The Journal
6-30-2008:It has been a fairly busy month adoption wise. (Yes, we cheated a little with our journal entries. It has been hard to keep up with all of the updates as well as getting everything else completed for the adoption.) Once we found out the region where we are adopting from, we were given a list of six more documents that we needed to have completed. Judy told us that in doing these extra documents, we should have smoother court proceeding. We have one more document that we are waiting on, and we will have all the paperwork that we can complete- completed- at this step on the process. The last document is actually a letter from our Mortgage company. We've received notice that they have gotten our request. Hopefully we'll get that back in the mail in the next week or two.
Nancy did a bunch of adoption errands today, including picking up a letter written by the County Assessor's office located at the courthouse downtown. As soon as Kurt got home from work, we went to the bank to have the attestation for the copy of the I-171H notarized. We also put a bunch of documents in the safe deposit box.
We both have been working hard to learn as much Russian as we can via Rosetta Stone. So far, we both have been reasonably pleased with the effectiveness of the software. This afternoon, Nancy got a phone call from our friend Marjon. She connected us with a woman who is from Russia and is trying to learn English. We are both very excited at the prospects of not only helping this woman out, but also picking up some Russian from her as well.
We both have been asked how we are dealing with the wait and all. We both have decided to embrace the extra time between now and the referral (as well as the time between the referral and the adoption) as excellent preparation time for us. It gives us time to spend some quality time together as well as taking some personal time for ourselves as well. We've even started scouting out different places we can take our child- like the Peoria Zoo!
6-27-2008:
We received the I-171H in the mail today. What a wonderful sight! Nancy also made her first official Russian dish- Pirozhki with a meat filling. (Basically, little meat pockets.)
6-20-2008:
We got a call from Judy, our caseworker from the Cradle. She told us that our documents will be going to Perm, which is a new region in Russia for the Cradle. She told us that there are two families that are ahead of us, and that we could expect a referral (picture of the child and medical records) sometime in late fall!
6-6-2008:
Our stage 2 documents were sent to Russia to be translated! We are finally making some real progress.
6-2-2008:
Our DCFS endorsement letter came in the mail. What a welcome sight!
5-27-2008:
We've hit a milestone in our adoption journey. Our stage one paperwork has been sent to Russia to be translated! We found this out from our local caseworker today when we met up with her to have some stuff notarized for our stage two documents. We've been told it will take about 5 days to get the paperwork to the appropriate place and then another two weeks to have them translated as there is quite a stack. From there, they should be sent to the appropriate provinces! It's hard to believe that we might actually be getting closer to our child after all of the hoops we've had to jump through to get to this point.
This past Thursday through Sunday we went to Florida for a birthday vacation. (For those of you who don't know, Nancy was born on the 23rd and Kurt on the 24th of May.) The trip was so nice. We went shopping in downtown St. Petersburg, wandered around Busch Gardens, and walked along Madiera Beach near sunset. Other than a short bout to the emergency room that came with news that Nancy would have to have her gall bladder removed in the near future, it was picture perfect. While it was so nice to be away just the two of us, we also found ourselves saying "we'll have to ___ once we have kids" quite a lot.
5-15-2008:
Well, we've had a bumpy few months. We waited and researched on the Guatemala, only to find out that everyone is speculating their adoption program will not open until sometime in 2009. As soon as we found this out, we contacted our caseworker and switched over to Russia. We had always had Russia in the back of our minds as a possibility, but felt we should give proper time to see if Guatemala was the program God had for us.
So far, our experiences getting documentation together for Russia with the Cradle has been fairly simple. As much of the documentation is fairly similar to Vietnam, we actually had some things already completed. We have completed our part of the first of three stages of Dossier paperwork and sent it into the Cradle. We are currently waiting on DCFS (yes again) to send us a new endorsement letter for Russia. We have been assured that they are now putting out these letters in 5-7 days. (We will believe it when we see it.) As soon as this letter is taken care of, then our dossier will hopefully be sent to Russia to be translated. Once it's in Russia, the staff members read through the home study and determine what province will be a good fit for us. Since we are open to "ethnic children", those who don't necessarily look Caucasian, they are planning to send our dossier to two provinces instead of just one. The province that we know for sure is Buryatia, which is close to the border with China. We are now currently working on getting the second stage of paperwork together.
As soon as we were on board with the Russia program, our local agency set us up with a mentor family who also went through the adoption process in Russia. We got a chance to meet them and pick their brain on all sorts of things- from what to pack to the experience going through the court proceeding. We also got a chance to spend a little time with Max, the adopted little boy. He was so full of energy and life! We look forward to add this new kind of vigor to our lives!
About a week ago, Kurt ordered Rosetta Stone for Russian. We are both looking forward to learning some of the language we will find surrounding us in months. We purposely got the home school addition so that once our child is older and well established in the English language, they may also learn some of their native tongue from their birth country.
On another note, we have been working outside in our yard quite a bit lately. Kurt has taken down the rotting play structure in the back yard. Nancy has started a garden with zucchini, butternut squash, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, onions, carrots, and green onions. The yard is shaping up to be a nice play area for our little person someday!
3-10-2008:
We have wonderful news! We got a call from our caseworker last week (on Wednesday) that informed us that we have been endorsed by the DCFS to adopt an international child. We have been waiting on this on the edge of our seats for over a month now. Our home study has been sent on to the USCIS. We were also informed that they have had a huge turn over in people and that there could be a delay on this step as well as a result. However, we are ecstatic to see the process moving along, if even at a slow place.
We have also decided to wait until April to officially declare our country of adoption. We have heard rumblings that the Guatemala program could open up in April. This program would be an excellent fit for us. However, if this program does not open back up, we will adopt from Russia. For those of you who are praying for us, thank you so much! Please continue to pray that if the child that God has hand picked for us is from Guatemala, that the government and program would open at just the right time.
2-12-2008:
It's been quite a while since we have last updated this journal. The past month has been a rough ride for us. DCFS, the Illinois child services, has been holding on to our home study. We have been informed that they have been backlogged. Along with this, we found out that they were unsure on whether or not to approve or deny us because of Nancy's narcolepsy. Just yesterday, we received an email with a bunch of questions from the DCFS. We answered them and sent them back to our caseworker. Hopefully we will have an answer by the end of next week. From there, our home study, if approved, will go to the USCIS for approval there. Our caseworker has informed us that it is very likely they will approve it with the DCFS approval. If for some reason DCFS does not approve our home study, our agency is looking into what the appeals process looks like.
During the past month, we also learned there is some problems arising in the Vietnam program. Apparently the bilateral agreement between Vietnam and the United States is due to expire in September of 2008. Since the requested stipulations have not been met to renew this agreement, it is possible, and perhaps even likely that adoptions would not only slow but could stop entirely. We've been looking into other program possibilities. We've caught wind that our agency may be opening up the Guatemala program in April. This program is actually a better fit for us than Vietnam in some very big ways. We found out this morning that we won't know for sure that this program will be open until it actually does.
It appears as though this past month God has done some major redirection for us. We're ok with it too, as long as he leads us to the child he has for us to love, care for, and raise as our own. For those of you who have been praying for us- please continue to. We are not out of the waters yet. DCFS still needs to approve our home study, and so does USCIS. From there, we would need to have the Guatemala program open up, or find another program that fits our situation well.
1-15-2008:
Nancy had a meeting with Laura this morning to go through the documents that we have collected for the dossier up until this point. We learned that we needed to have our local police clearance done again and one other document signed in front of the notary. As soon as Nancy got home, she called her contact at the police station. They were able to run the clearances, and she picked them up this afternoon. We are hoping to have the other document notarized tomorrow or Thursday afternoon.
Our tentative plan is to travel to the Secretary of State in Springfield on Friday in order to have our documents state certified. We learned from Laura that they will do this while we wait. We were very happy to hear that we will not have to wait to have our documents shipped back to us. This means that we could be shipping out our documents to the courier to take to the Vietnamese embassy by early to mid next week!
All of the different tasks we need to complete can be really daunting. However, each little step brings us that much closer to having our child in our arms.
1-9-2008:
Things over the past month have been going slow, but going. Our home study was sent to a few people in the adoption agency that needed to sign it in front of a notary. From there, it was sent to DCFS (child services) for approval. Nancy picked up the home study with those steps completed this morning. There was a second copy of the home study that was sent to the USCIS. Once they approve it, they will send the I171-H document. (This document states that we are approved to bring an orphan into the country.) A photo copy of this document needs to go into the dossier. We talked it through a little with our social worker and have decided to go ahead with all of the rest of the documents in getting them notarized, state certified, and approved at the Vietnamese embassy. Then, when we get the I171-H form, we will hustle to get it copied, and the photocopy notarized, state certified, and expedited through the embassy. If all goes well, we should have our dossier in sometime early to mid March. (This is dependent upon USCIS). Hopefully, once the dossier is in, we will have a better idea of how long it will be until we will receive the referral.
Another development since the last entry is that we have got our built in furniture. The baby's room now has a built in dresser/book case. We were really happy with the way it turned
out.
12-12-2007:
On Monday, we went to the police station in town for our final background clearance. They were truly wonderful about it. We actually left the building with the papers in our hands! Tuesday's doctor's appointment with the notary went even better. We all made it there on time, signed our papers and had them notarized. The notary didn't even want her two dollar charge. On the way out, we found out from the clerk that the doctor may not even charge us for the appointment! (We were told earlier that we were going to have to pay for an office visit.)
Today, Nancy went through the process guide binder and all of the documents we've been collecting to get a little more organized. We are both very pleased with the progress that we have made to get our dossier together. While there are still some things left to do, we are sitting quite well on our end. While there is no rush for us to finish these items right now, we do want to have them done once the home study makes it back to us. (We are expecting this to be in February some time.) That way, we can move our documents right along through the process.
12-10-2007:
Wow, it's been a little too long since we've done an update. Sorry about that.
Well, Nancy FINALLY received her notarized Illinois State Police clearance on Friday afternoon. It's the prettiest piece of paper we've seen in some time. (Thanks to all of you who prayed about seeing this paper come in descent time.) First thing this morning, Nancy drove down to the adoption agency and dropped off an envelope with both notarized clearances for Laura to include with the home study. Laura emailed and said she is sending out the home study this afternoon in the mail to Linda- the first intended destination. (Linda needs to sign it before it goes to DCFS- our child services in this state.)
On our end, we have a bunch of paperwork to get ready before the home study makes its way back to us once again. Today, we are going to the Sheriff's department to have clearances written from them. (THE LAST OF THE CLEARANCES!!!) Tomorrow, we are going to our doctor's office with a wonderful notary from our bank to sign a couple of forms. We are also working on a couple more forms we need to fill out. Otherwise, things are coming together quite well. We have all of the photos gathered that we need.
It seems so hard to imagine that we could be coming home for Christmas next year as a family of three. (We're not getting our hopes up completely on this yet as we don't know for sure what the wait time is going to end up as.)
11-27-2007:
Kurt received his clearance back from the Illinois State Police late last week. We waited until Monday to call them to make sure something didn't happen to Nancy's clearance. Apparently hers is still being processed. We were told that we should have something hopefully within the week.
The good news is that our home study is now written. Laura needs the Illinois state police clearances from both of us before she can send the home study document on to Linda (regional coordinator) who approves it. Once Linda does this, it gets sent to DCFS (child services), for them to approve, and then on to the USCIS for their approval. We should get this document back around the end of February so we can push it through the state certification and authentication with the Vietnamese embassy.
In the mean time, the month of December will be full with collecting a bunch of documents from our doctor and local police, as well as filling out documents and writing letters. It's a good thing we are almost done with our Christmas shopping!
We both have found this experience pretty surreal so far- knowing that we may even have a little person by the end of next year. On one hand, we know we have a tremendously long and difficult wait ahead of us. On the other, we find ourselves talking in terms of "before we go to get the baby". It's been difficult not having a "due date", but only knowing there's going to be sometime in our future that we will fly across the world to meet our child.
11-22-2007:
Yesterday we drove up to Naperville to be fingerprinted at the USCIS. We were concerned about the trip. We had heard that the weather would be bad and figured there would be lots of traffic from Thanksgiving. While there was quite a bit of rain on the way there, the way home was better for the most part. Traffic ended up not being a problem at all. It's a relief to have this task completed.
We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving.
11-19-2007:
Laura came to our house for the home visit today. We gave her the house tour (Dani included) and went over some more paperwork. She gave us a binder full of articles on how to handle adoption issues for a variety of ages. We also found out that we have to take one more online course (we've already had to take 3) to be Hague compliant. If anyone is wondering what this is, please go HERE. Since the other online courses were so helpful, we aren't too upset about this. Over all, the whole meeting went really smoothly.
Laura estimated that we should have our dossier in by the end of February if all goes as it should. Once it is sent on to Vietnam, we should have an idea of when we will get our referral (the picture and information on our child). It all seems such a long way off.
Wednesday, we will travel to Naperville for another round of fingerprinting. We aren't excited to drive near Chicago the day before Thanksgiving. We've also heard the weather isn't going to be pleasant. So, if you have been praying for us- please pray for this trip as it is a very important one.
11-13-2007:
While we don't have much excitement with adoption stuff going on this week-- next week will definitely make up for it. Our home visit is Monday afternoon. We have the USCIS appointment in Naperville next Wednesday. Next Thursday, Scott (Kurt's brother), his wife and daughter are coming to our house for Thanksgiving. We are excited to have them visit.
The bathroom ceiling is finished! We also decided that the vanity and mirrors needed a fresh coat of paint. Our house is finally starting to come together. The rest of this week we will continue to clean and get ready for the home visit and take more of the pictures of the house for the dossier.
11-9-2007:
Kurt had his meeting with Laura yesterday. It went well--we're one step closer to having our home study done.
Daryl, Kurt's dad, is on his way to our house as I write this. He will be staying at our house for the next couple of days to help with some household projects. We are looking forward to this help and also to having the home visit done.
We are starting to look for the Illinois State Police Background Clearances in the mail. It has been two weeks as of today that we mailed them out. They usually process in two to four weeks.
The only other activity going on right now is Nancy cleaning and taking photos of our house. Our dossier requires that we have pictures of each other, and pictures of the baby's room, our bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, the front of exterior of the house, and the back exterior of the house. Hopefully the house will stay reasonably clean between this round and the actual home visit in ten days.
11-6-2007:
We had a surprise come in the mail yesterday. The USCIS sent us an Appointment Notice to come up to Naperville and have our fingerprints run. We were not expecting to get this "invitation" until after the home study was completed and all written. Our date to drive up there is Nov. 21st, 2007 (the day before thanksgiving). We are pleased as this means that this part of the paperwork is going along quickly and smoothly.
Today Nancy had her individual appointment with Laura. It went as smoothly as the other appointments. During the meeting, Laura gave us a copy of the draft of the Vietnam Process Guide. This guide has the list of documents and pictures that we need to collect, sign, notify, certify, or get approved. It also has some information on traveling, packing, and places to shop while in Vietnam. Nancy was also able to schedule the last meeting for the home study, the home visit, for Nov. 19th. Laura estimates that the home study should be written by the first week in December.
The trim guys finished today. We are very pleased with the job they've done. It's a relief to see this project finished. Kurt's dad is coming on Friday to help out with a few other important household projects. Thank you Daryl!
11-1-2007:
Yesterday our FBI fingerprint cards came back. They both came back with the "no arrest record" stamp- not that this was a surprise. We are still waiting on the other set of fingerprints from Illinois State Police. Those will probably take another week or two.
The trim guys came yesterday and got a good chunk of the work done. We found out that we are going to have to put quarter-round in along with the new baseboards. We also ran a little short with the special laminate trim- so I had to order more. Those pieces won't be coming in until early next week. So, hopefully we will get the whole project wrapped up by Thursday or Friday.
10-30-2007:
Yesterday, we received a letter in the mail from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS for short). It has our OFFICIAL filing date on it. While this may seem like a small thing, we have accomplished the first step -paperwork wise- to being able to bring an overseas orphan into the country. We found out yesterday that once our home study is done and submitted into USCIS, they will mail us a letter with the date and time we need to travel to Naperville (near Chicago) to be fingerprinted. We are hoping this trip doesn't land too close to Christmas.
We also got an email from Laura, our social worker yesterday. She wrote to inform us that we would hopefully be receiving the Vietnam Process Guide via email by the end of the week. The Process Guide is a huge document that explains the whole adoption process from finishing the home study to traveling information. Since the partnership between Lifelink and Faith International is so new- there are a lot of questions that are being worked out. Along with those questions, the Process Guide has to be updated- hence the wait. The good news is that this new partnership means that we will only have to be in Vietnam for two weeks, rather than three. This is a blessing as Kurt's vacation time is always on high demand, and it will save us some money in traveling costs.
Tomorrow we are having our baseboards installed and a new bathroom ceiling hung. It will be nice to have these projects out of the way.
10-28-2007:
The grand opening of the journal has arrived! We are both very excited to see this idea come together. We hope that you will enjoy everything here.
Today, we came home from visiting Kurt's brother Scott, his wife Mary Anne, and their daughter, Anna, in Kentucky. The 6 and 1/2 hour drive home gave us lots of time to talk about our plans to finish a bunch of household projects. We also talked about our plans for 2008 (where we are going where and when), and even a little on our plan for baby names. (Yes, you all are just going to have to wait...)
10-23-2007:
Had our first meeting for the actual home study with Laura. We both went to this one. It went smoothly. If all of the home study appointments are going be this comfortable- it will be smooth sailing! (We brought back a bunch of finished paperwork.)We made appointments for Nov. 6th and and 8th for our individual appointments.
10-8-2007:
Traveled to Moline to meet with Linda (The coordinator for the Vietnam program and also the regional supervisor.) She was very helpful. We learned quite a bit a this meeting. She sent us home with a stack of paperwork.
9-12-2007: Submitted our Application to Lifelink.
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