Vacation!!

Mom and I went on a wonderful Western Caribbean Cruise on Royal Caribbean last week. It was my second cruise and her first, and we had a great time. Jason wasn’t able to get any vacation time, so he had to stay home and work. We left on the morning of the 22nd and flew to Fort Lauderdale. Our flight arrived at 11:30am, and we were on the ship having lunch by 12:45pm.

We visited Georgetown, Grand Cayman and Cozumel, Mexico. We had a great time at both ports. In the Cayman Islands we visited the Turtle Farm, stopped by Hell, went to the Rum Cake Factory and had lunch at a cute little restaurant that was owned by our bus driver/tour guide’s aunt. We rented a car in Cozumel and drove around the island. We stopped at several neat places and had lunch at Coconuts before coming back to the pier area to do some shopping. Driving in Mexico is certainly interesting.

We met some great people on the ship and kept ourselves busy the entire time. We spent some time at the pool and in the casino, as well as shopping in the stores. We went to a game show and watched a comedian and enjoyed dinner in the dining room with a fun group each evening. We even saw two dolphins outside of our window one evening while getting ready for dinner. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Jason and I are already looking at a Southern Caribbean Cruise for next fall. Of course we would rather be travelling to Bulgaria to meet our children, but if it isn’t our turn yet, a cruise will work!!

Here’s a link to my photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98621&id=588579889&l=50649274a1

Two Year Anniversary

Two years ago today we went to our first information meeting at Bethany Christian Services in Indianapolis. That night over dinner we decided that we were ready to move forward. We had been researching adoption for several months and had attended another agency’s meeting a few weeks earlier. We were happy with Bethany and knew right away that we wanted to work with them.

We’ve prepared dossiers for two different countries, worked with two different agencies, been fingerprinted 5-6 times, been tested multiple times for infectious diseases, been to many education classes at the Bethany office, read lots of books about parenting adopted children, started learning Bulgarian and studying the culture, and networked with other families in the process. We are now preparing to meet with our social worker to our second home study update since ours expires in mid-October. This also includes another round of fingerprints, CPS checks in three states, updated financial forms, and visits to our doctor.

We’ve had a lot of challenges over the past two years, and we’ve learned a lot. Not only have we learned about adoption and the challenges that come with it, we’ve also learned so much more about ourselves. There have been many ups and downs along the way, and everything is out of our hands at this point. We only hope that the process goes smoothly and that we are able to bring our children home soon. We don’t have any new news to share. From what we have heard lately, the approximate wait time can be two years or more. We’ve been registered for almost five months. Waiting is hard, but we know it will be worth it in the end.

Changes to Family Code in Bulgaria

Bulgarian Parliament Adopted New Family Code

Published on June 12, 2009 at 12:30 PM BG
Updated on June 13, 2009 at 5:07 PM BG

The new family code is a fact after Parliament adopted the texts of the new Family code on second reading. An amendment is the introduction of pre-nuptial contracts that regulate which of the spouses will have to pay alimony in case of divorce. The pre-nuptial contracts however do not regulate matters in case of death of one of the spouses. Parliament also adopted changes to the process of adoption. The amendment gives the authorities the right to put a child up for adoption in case biological parents have withheld contact for six months. The biggest disagreements were on the subject of cohabitation. Cohabitation will not have the same legal footing as marriage. Its recognition as the legal equivalent of marriage was backed by one of the ruling coalition partners, but lacked support of other parties.

Mark and Kelsie's Wedding

Last weekend we travelled to Des Moines for Jason's brother's wedding. We left on Thursday afternoon and stopped in Covington, IN to have dinner at the Beef House with Ben, Tanny and Drew. It's always good to see them. Drew is growing up so fast. It's hard to believe he's already two years old. We drove for 5.5 hours and spent the night at Jason's parents' house.

We took it easy on Friday morning. We left Wilton around 11:30am and stopped by the mall near Iowa City to pick up a couple of things and to have a quick lunch. We arrived in Des Moines around 3:30pm on Friday and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Embassy Suites right next to the Des Moines river. Once we got settled we took the shuttle over to the Des Moines Botanical Center for rehersal. The Botanical Center is amazing!! After rehersal we drove down to Indianola for the rehersal dinner.

We got up early on Saturday morning and had breakfast at the hotel. We took a walk along the river and then headed back to the hotel. We ran some errands and had lunch before coming back to get ready for the wedding. It was cloudy on the day of the wedding, which actually made the dome feel less humid. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time visiting with our friends and family members.

We had breakfast at the hotel with Mark and Kelsie on Sunday morning. We don't get to see each other often, so it was nice to spend some time together. We left the hotel at11:30am, and we got home just before 9:00pm that night. It was a long drive, but we had a wonderful weekend.

Congratulations Mark and Kelsie!!

Making the Adoption Tax Credit Permanent

Making the Adoption Tax Credit Permanent

Adoption Action Alert

April 1, 2009/Martha Osborne

The federal adoption tax credit has helped thousands of families say yes to adopting a child. It's vital that this financial support stay in place to help families offest the costs and fees associated with adopting a child. Unfortunately, the tax credit is set to expire in December 2010 unless Congress votes to continue it. It's time to take action!

The Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009, H.R. 213, will keep the adoption tax credit from being repealed, and may make the tax relief measure permanent. It only takes a few minutes to e-mail or call your senators and congressmen. It's important for them to hear from families impacted by the tax credit.

Currently, there are 76 State Senator and Representatives cosponsoring H.R. 213. However, there are 16 states that currently have no sponsors of this bill, including eight on the East Coast (one of the largest areas of the US with internationally adopted children). H.R. 213 is currently in committee, where most bills die. It is imperative that adoptive families, and all friends of children waiting for families, act now.

It only takes a few minutes to write, call or e-mail your representatives. Please do so today!

E-mail Representative: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

E-mail Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Currently, the following states have no cosponsors or commitments of support for H.R. 213:

West Virginia

Delaware

Connecticut

Rhode Island

New Hampshire

Vermont

Massachusetts

Maine

Idaho

Oregon

Montana

South Dakota

New Mexico

Arkansas

Hawaii

The two states offering the greatest support are Texas and Georgia with 6 cosponsors each, closely followed by Pennsylvania with 5. Honorable mentions: Florida, Indiana, Illinois each with 4 sponsorships each.

Pass this on to friends and family, and ask for their help in writing, calling, and posting on blogs and Facebook. To gain momentum, we must have an absolute ground swell of families lifting their voices together for the well-being of children throughout the world.

We Are Registered!!

I got an e-mail from our caseworker that our dossier was registered with the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) on March 30th. We have our registration number and we're "officially" waiting now. It only took 20 days for the dossier to get translated and registered. That's fast!!

Dossier in Bulgaria

Our dossier was delivered to its destination in Bulgaria via Fed Ex on Tuesday morning. It took less than a week to get there. It's nice to know that our paperwork is at least in the right country now.

Our dossier is currently being translated. It usually takes three to four weeks for this to be completed. After the dossier has been translated, the translation will be authenticated by the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). This process can take up to four weeks. Once this has been done, it will be sent to the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) where we will be officially registered. And then we wait...

Finished!!

After spending a few weeks gathering the remaining documents and making three trips to the Secretary of State's office, our dossier is officially finished and is ready to be submitted to our agency. They will look it over, and if everything is done correctly, it will be on its way to Bulgaria. The timing worked out perfectly since we were planning to use our tax refund to cover the payment that gets submitted with our dossier. That money will come tomorrow, just in time to mail everything to our caseworker. Once the dossier is in Bulgaria, it will be translated and then sent to the MOJ (Ministry of Justice). The MOJ meets regularly to match children with their new parents. We will probably wait about a year from the time we are registered, although it could be more or less time. I'll post an update once we are registered.

One Step Closer

We received our I-797C (I-171H) last Thursday. This form is issued by the USCIS and allows us to adopt two children from Bulgaria and to bring them back to the United States. We weren’t expecting the form to arrive until mid-February, so it was a huge surprise to see it so soon. Now that we have that form, we’ve been working extra hard to finish the rest of our dossier. We’ve done most of the work and are just waiting on everything to come back to us so we can head to the Secretary of State’s office to have it all apostilled. We’re still waiting on some paperwork from our home study agency, both of our employment letters, and our updated FBI clearances. It seems to be going okay so far, and we’re hoping to send our completed dossier to our caseworker in California sometime next month.

A Quick Update

It's been a couple of months since I've updated this blog, mostly because not much has been happening. We did get fingerprinted again at the Indianapolis USCIS office in early December. We expect our I-171H form to arrive sometime in February. We have officially started working on our dossier so everything will be ready when the last form arrives. It should not take too long to put everything together since we're getting really good at adoption paperwork. So for now, we're filling out forms, requesting employment letters, verifying bank files, and being checked for infectious diseases. If all goes as planned, our dossier should be ready to go in six to eight weeks.