Home Study Update

We met with our social worker last night to update our home study. We had to make some changes since it was originally written for Kazakhstan. The meeting was quick and we should be able to send our new home study and letter to request a country change to the USCIS before we leave for vacation. I don't know how long it will take to get a new I-171H, but we're hoping it will be fast. That will be the last document to complete our new dossier, so the sooner it arrives, the sooner we can send off the paperwork to Bulgaria.

The dossier for Bulgaria is much easier than the dossier for Kazakhstan. I posted a picture of our completed Kazakhstan dossier in a previous post. This dossier is much shorter and includes the following documents:

* Copy of passport of both parents
* Financial Statement
* Description of our Home
* Medical Forms for both parents
* FBI Clearances for both parents
* I-171H form from USCIS
* Home Study
* Social Worker License
* Home Study Agency License
* Home Study Agency Letter of Recommendation
* Marriage Certificate
* Authorization of Representation form
* Partner Agency Agreement
* Proof of Residency
* Employment Letters for both parents
* 10-12 Photos

Fortunately we already have a lot of these documents completed from our Kazakhstan dossier, and since they were done earlier this year, it's not a problem to use them. That makes things so much easier. Everything has to be notarized and apostilled, and it has to be absolutely perfect.

Things seem to be moving along just fine. We're still educating ourselves by reading books and by attending the monthly classes at Bethany. This Saturday we'll be attending a class where we are able to meet with the International Adoption doctors from Riley Children's Hospital to talk about health conditions that we may encounter with our new children. It should be interesting. Thats all for now!!

A Decision

If you remember in my last update I mentioned that we had three options for our adoption:

1. Wait for Kazakhstan to deal with the issues
2. Choose a new Bethany country
3. Switch to domestic adoption

Well, we chose option number 4. We have decided to go with a new placement agency. We've been researching new agencies for several weeks, and we have decided to go with Adoption Ark in Illinois. We are currently working on our contract with them, and should be able to get started very soon. We will be joining their Bulgaria program where we will be adopting a sibling group of two between the ages of 2 and 5. This program was closed for about four years, but it has reopened and is very promising. We're very excited and feel more confident about this choice than we have any of our other adoption choices up to this point. We will still be working with Bethany for our home study and post-placement reports. They will also be doing our adoption education. Adoption Ark will help us prepare our dossier and find our children. They'll also prepare us to travel and will be with us during our trips to Bulgaria. We have not received the dossier instructions yet, but we're hoping that it won't be as challenging as the last dossier.

A Change in Plans

I received a call from my social worker yesterday afternoon saying that Kazakhstan had decided to work with only a few agencies, and Bethany was not one of those agencies. We were told that we would most likely need to choose a new country or choose a new program, because it didn't look like Kazakhstan was going to happen. I was told that there was a small chance that we may be able to proceed with our adoption from Kazakhstan, but we won't know anything until July. By then most of our documents will expire, so we will have to redo them if we choose to continue. With Guatemala being closed and the wait for China being 2+ years, many people are switching to the Kazahkstan program, and this is causing delays. We have to make a choice, and we have three options:

1. We can choose to stay in the Kazakhstan program and hope for the best, knowing that there is a possibility that we won't be able to contine or that our dossier will be rejected.

2. We can remain in the international program and choose a new country to work with. The Central/South America programs are mostly closed right now. The Ukraine and South Korea programs only allow a certain number of adoptions per year, so we would have to wait until 2009 for those countries, Russia has a lot of issues, and China and the Philippines both have a really long wait. Our only real options would be Haiti and Ethiopia.

3. We can switch to the domestic program, create a profile, and wait to be chosen by a birthmother here in Indiana. This program can vary in the time it takes to be chosen and there is the risk that we may go through several failed placements before we have our son or daughter.

If we choose domestic, we wouldn't be spending seven weeks in a foreign country, and we would be able to spend more time at home with the baby before going back to work. We keep going back and forth with our decision, and we're just not sure what to do right now. We will continue to research out options and will hopefully make the best choice.

It's Done!!

Our dossier has been submitted. It's such a relief to have all of those forms out of my hands. I spent the day having the last few documents notarized by Lisa before making a stop by the Secretary of State's office to have them apostilled. I then made four copies of the entire dossier before meeting with LuAnn at the Bethany office to review everything. It all looks good and is on its way to the Grand Rapids office for a final review. If everything is fine, it will be on its way to the Kazakhstan Embassy shortly. We should be traveling to meet our son in early 2009.

Almost Finished

After some delays, we finally received our I-171H. This is the form from CIS that allows us to bring an orphan into the country as an American citizen. I've been getting all of the other forms organized and ready to go this week. I dropped the medical forms off with our doctor yesterday, and he is supposed to have them ready for me by tomorrow. I'm meeting Jason after work to get the last two documents notarized, and I should also be able to pick up a few documents from Bethany later this week to complete the dossier. Once I have everything in my possession I'll be taking it all to the Secretary of State so he can apostille each document. Thankfully this is free in Indiana, because we have about 20 documents that were notarized in this state. We also had documents from Illinois, Minnesota, and West Virginia, and those states charge between $2.00 and $10.00 per document. If everything is completed, signed, notarized, and apostilled correctly, then we'll be able to send the dossier to the Bethany office in Grand Rapids for a final review. Once it's approved at the corporate level, it will be sent to Kazakhstan for translation. After that it will come back to the US and go to the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington DC. There have been some delays at the embassy, but hopefully everything will be worked out before our paperwork arrives. After it is approved by the Ambassador at the embassy, it will be sent back to Kazakhstan. After going through several offices there, it will be sent to the region where our son is waiting, and they will send us a Letter of Invitation to travel. If everything goes smoothly, we could travel as early as the beginning of the year. For now, I'm just trying to be as organized as possible!!