Shame On Me ... A LONG Overdue Update

Shame on me!! It's been far too long since I've updated and much continues to transpire on the Adoption front.

Here's the quick version: our second visit with Christine on June 27 marked the halfway point of our homestudy and on Friday, June 29th we mailed off the ever-important I600A form and fees to the USCIS (Immigration) office in Charlotte. Details for both of these are below, what's coming up soon follows that, and praises and prayer requests are at the bottom.

The Details

Homestudy: At our second visit with Christine, Mike and I talked about our marriage and what brings us together as a couple, as well as our parenting styles and discipline philosophies. We reflected on our favorite memories from our 11 years of marriage, as well as the challenges, rewards and blessings of parenthood. Christine continues to be very easy to talk to and each meeting has gone well past 9pm as it's actually been very fun to walk down memory lane and share our lives with her (plus, she's at least as chatty as I am so between the two of us, we could go on for hours!!).

I-600A: The I-600A form is the Advance Petition for Orphan Visa form required by the Department of Homeland Security/US Immigration Office. It is one of the most important forms we will file during this process because it alerts the US Government of our intention to adopt internationally and is the precursor to what will give our son his legal status to enter the US. In the next 6 weeks or so, we will be issued an appointment time to go out to Charlotte for FBI fingerprinting. As soon as our homestudy is complete, Christine will also forward that on to the USCIS office in Charlotte. Together, our petition (the I-600A), the fingerprints and the homestudy will be used to issue us the I-171H, which is the official US government's approval for us to adopt an international orphan. At this time, the USCIS office in Charlotte is estimating 90-100 days from start to finish to issue the I-171H. The reason we file the Advance Petition is so we don't have to wait the 90-100 days AFTER we have our referral and they can issue the visa much quicker (much more quickly? Whatever.). Once the adoption is completed in the Ethiopian courts, the USCIS office will issue our son his visa based on our I-171H, after which he will travel here with an escort from AAI to a "point of entry" (which, for us, will probably be Washington DC or Atlanta) where we will meet him and bring him home!! So ... long story short: filing the I-600A is a BIG and VERY important step.

What's Coming Up Soon?

Homestudy: This Wednesday, we have our third meeting with Christine. We will be talking about our expectations for our adopted son, our attitudes about adoption and how we plan to help Isaiah develop and maintain a sense of pride in his Ethiopian heritage. At the fourth and final meeting, in two weeks, Christine will meet the kids and talk to them about how they feel about having a new brother and she'll also take a walk around the house so she can describe it in detail in the homestudy report. After the last meeting, Christine will finalize her report and send us a draft to review. We'll correct any factual information that might need correcting and then she will send us a copy of her final report and recommendation, which will also be notarized and sent to AAI to be included with our dossier.

Training DVDs: Mike and I are in the midst of watching a set of DVD's called Because They Waited, which was sent to us from AAI with the purpose of providing specialized training for adoptive parents. The videos are produced by two adoptive mothers who are also experts in child development, with a specific focus on children who are adopted. It's been extremely fascinating to learn about neurological development of young children. In addition to outlining the scientific basis of their research, the women in the series also give very practical advice and tools to help adopted children transition and "catch up" developmentally, as well as what to expect. It's kind of a "What to Expect when you're Adopting" kind of series. Quite frankly, I wish we'd learned all this before we'd had our first biological daughter eight years ago! After each of the first four segments, we are required to take an online test to see how well we are retaining what we're learning. The results of these online tests are sent to AAI and we will be issued a "Certificate of Completion" for the course as well. Finishing these training videos is a top priority for us in the next two weeks (we've had them for two months!!!).

Dossier: The Dossier is a compilation of documents that presents us to the Ethiopian government. To my knowledge, the dossier will include: original birth certificates, original marriage license, a financial statement, a letter to the Ethiopian government, letters of recommendation, our homestudy, pictures of our house, letters of employment verification, um ... I think that's it (if there's much more, it's not a lot, but I think that's it). OH! There's also some kind of letter/form that will need to be stamped by the Secretary of State's Office, but I'm not sure exactly what that is yet. We're hoping to receive our dossier packet from AAI very soon. We're just over the 2-month wait point and the original wait time given us at our time of application on May 4 was 2-3 months, so we should definitely have that in the next several weeks. Other than the homestudy and the SOS document, the rate it will take us to compile the dossier is entirely up to us. It's really just a matter of getting things together. Luckily, most of these forms, certificates and letters were also required for our homestudy, so we've already got them together. Actually, now that I think about it, the I-171H is also part of the dossier, so it will not be complete until that is issued from USCIS (see above for the explanation on that!!) and *that* is likely to be the longest part. Once our dossier is complete, it will be authenticated and translated into Amharic (the main language in Ethiopia) and sent to the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs. THAT'S when the wait for referral (the match of a child to us) begins (AAI's current estimate for a child under the age of six is 2-6 months, but it will probably be on the shorter end of that timeframe since we are adopting a boy). Obviously, there is a LOT of time between now and then, but if we can get our dossier *IN* Ethiopia by Halloween, I will be a very happy Mama!

How You Can Be Praying for Us
"... in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Phil. 4:6)

Praises: Please give thanks to God with us for such a wonderful social worker to do our homestudy. If you can't tell from my posts, we really like Christine and are so grateful for her role in bringing Isaiah home to us. Please pray for blessings over her and her family as she completes our homestudy.

Petitions: The biggest prayer request we have right now is for speedy processing of our I-600A form at USCIS. That has the biggest potential for holding up the completion of our dossier, so we are definitely praying for blessings over each person whose desk our petition lands on!!!!

Please also continuing praying for financial provision for each step of our adoption. We are confident that God Will Supply for all our needs at the exact time we need them. It is part of how we are allowing God to direct the timing and "rhythm" of this adoption. Of course, we are anxious for the process to move as quickly as possible, but we know that with each step, more (and increasing) fees are required. We are definitely depending on God's perfect timing and for His ultimate provision in order to make this happen. We do have several grants and loans we will be able to apply for once our homestudy is complete (a completed homestudy is a prerequisite for application for any adoption-related loan or grant), but to be honest, the chances of being approved for a grant or loan is pretty slim, considering the number of people applying for them. Regardless of the financial outlook, we know that NOTHING is impossible with God and that He is the Creator of all good things. We know God loves Isaiah and we have full faith that He will bring him to us in His perfect timing through His perfect provision.