Just keep swimming...
Hello Everyone!
It has been a while since I have taken the time to write you all an update so I wanted to catch everyone up to speed with where we are at. If you follow us on social media, this post will be a little redundant, but I did want to give a more thorough update here.
I am sure most of you are waiting to hear travel updates... of course we'd love to be ready for that but as you may have caught on by now this process is VERY tedious so we still have a bit to do before we get those much anticipated travel dates.
So what exactly is taking so long?!
Well, remember alllllll that paperwork we were working on? We finished that. That set paperwork is referred to as a "dossier" in international adoptions and it consists of the homestudy and all the supporting documents to prove that the information provided in your homestudy is valid. These documents are employment verification letters, proof of homeownership, background checks, medical letters, and bank statements... just to name a few.
One piece of documentation needed for the dossier is an "800A Application Approval" from USCIS. This is an application for determination and suitability to adopt a child from a convention country. Essentially this document from US immigration states that we meet all the requirements to be adoptive parents both here and in S's home country. It also approves us to bring our daughter into the country! (Though we will obtain formal documentation for this later.)
Once you have all of these documents notarized, you have to get them apostilled. These are essentially seals from the Secretary of State that are needed for formal documents being used out of the Country. They are verifying the notaries.
I sent all of our documents to the Secretary of State in early January to get apostilled and was unpleasantly surprised to see them mailed back to me covered in post-it notes stating they needed corrections. All of the information on the forms was correct, however, the notary statement was missing one piece of information.
It was so DEFEATING. It felt like a huge setback. We had already redone many of these documents several times between D's and S's paperwork... NOW, it was done correctly but I had to ask everyone to redo it with an additional word or two in the notary statement?!
The following week was filled with running around to police stations, doctor's offices, township buildings, and so on to get the paperwork redone. Thankfully everyone was completely understanding and worked VERY quickly to get things done right for us... with the promise that we will bring S in to visit once she's home.
They want to see what this hassle is all about... trust me folks, she's WORTH IT.
It's hard to ask people to understand. To understand why they have to fill out this form for the fifth time. Why they need to use blue ink NOT black. Why forgetting their middle initial is a big deal. It's hard for people to understand this process in general or to appreciate all that really goes into it. I mean I am sure some people are sick of hearing these little updates and just want to hear when she's coming home. All this paperwork stuff doesn't matter to other people. And, trust me, I wish so badly we could skip all these little steps that take weeks or months at a time to complete. But, that's not how it works. And we do whatever. it. takes.
So, to avoid wasting another precious week to mail all the corrected documents back to the Secretary of State, we took a quick "sick" day from work to head into the city. After hours waiting in a tiny, crowded waiting room we walked out with a huge stack of apostilled documents ready to be mailed to Country.
The next day, I made copies (just incase) and I carefully packaged the dossier up and sent it to our agency. It was sooo hard to hand over what we in the adoption community refer to as our "paper baby." But, it made it safely to our agency for a quick review in person then was sent out in the mail this week to Country! This is HUGE.
So, what is next?
Once the paperwork gets to country, our team there will translate all of the documents which will take a few weeks. After translation, the documents will be presented to the Ministry for review. Once they approve everything, they will send us a very important document called the Article 16.
The Article 16 consists of S's birth certificate, medical history, guardian relinquishment information, and approval of us as her adoptive parents. This set of documents is added to our 800 package that will be reviewed and approved again by US Immigration. After we get this next set of approvals from them, the Ministry & Embassy will be notified, and they will send us travel dates. They typically give you 2-4 week notice for travel. THEN WE GO GET OUR GIRL!
With that being said, we are SO close! We are considered "Almost There" on Reece's Rainbow which is the final step before "Traveling Now." This is HUGE for us. We didn't know if we would ever make it this far. But, we still have months to go. Even though there isn't that much left to do, it is all out of our hands now.
In the meantime, our agency has advised us to start preparing our home for our daughter! And this is exactly what we are doing. We have been buying things for S's room since we found her but I never took the tags off or hung things on the wall because in the back of my mind I have been so scared of the "what ifs." Honestly, after losing D, it has been a challenge to change our mindsets from "if" she comes home to "when" she comes home. But, she will. She WILL come home. Soon!
And we are going to be ready for her! We took the tags off her bedroom decor last week. And we hung the signs on the wall. And we washed her bedding. It's all becoming so real. We've dreamed of this for so long and we are 'Almost There!' What a feeling...
As the paperwork has slowed down, I have also been applying to grants. We should hear back on a few next month and we hope these will help us get closer to 'fully funded.' We are about 2/3 of the way there with our funding which is amazing! We have the in-country fees and post adoption fees left to cover. We are also going to have another fundraiser coming up in the next week or so. I am super excited about it so please check back next week to hear all about it!!
How can you help right now? Right now as we are truly left waiting since everything is completely out of our hands at this point, you can pray for us. Please pray for our paperwork to arrive safely in Country. Pray that the team there is able to quickly and accurately translate our documents. Pray that the Ministry approves all of our paperwork and approves us to be our sweet girlsadoptive parents. Pray that the US government shutdown does not start to effect adoptions. Pray for the grant review committee as there are so many worthy families and children for them to consider. Pray that the process moves forward quickly and smoothly. And as always, PLEASE pray for our little girl and those that care for her each day as she waits for her Mom & Dad.
It has been a while since I have taken the time to write you all an update so I wanted to catch everyone up to speed with where we are at. If you follow us on social media, this post will be a little redundant, but I did want to give a more thorough update here.
I am sure most of you are waiting to hear travel updates... of course we'd love to be ready for that but as you may have caught on by now this process is VERY tedious so we still have a bit to do before we get those much anticipated travel dates.
So what exactly is taking so long?!
Well, remember alllllll that paperwork we were working on? We finished that. That set paperwork is referred to as a "dossier" in international adoptions and it consists of the homestudy and all the supporting documents to prove that the information provided in your homestudy is valid. These documents are employment verification letters, proof of homeownership, background checks, medical letters, and bank statements... just to name a few.
One piece of documentation needed for the dossier is an "800A Application Approval" from USCIS. This is an application for determination and suitability to adopt a child from a convention country. Essentially this document from US immigration states that we meet all the requirements to be adoptive parents both here and in S's home country. It also approves us to bring our daughter into the country! (Though we will obtain formal documentation for this later.) Once you have all of these documents notarized, you have to get them apostilled. These are essentially seals from the Secretary of State that are needed for formal documents being used out of the Country. They are verifying the notaries.
I sent all of our documents to the Secretary of State in early January to get apostilled and was unpleasantly surprised to see them mailed back to me covered in post-it notes stating they needed corrections. All of the information on the forms was correct, however, the notary statement was missing one piece of information.
It was so DEFEATING. It felt like a huge setback. We had already redone many of these documents several times between D's and S's paperwork... NOW, it was done correctly but I had to ask everyone to redo it with an additional word or two in the notary statement?!
The following week was filled with running around to police stations, doctor's offices, township buildings, and so on to get the paperwork redone. Thankfully everyone was completely understanding and worked VERY quickly to get things done right for us... with the promise that we will bring S in to visit once she's home.
They want to see what this hassle is all about... trust me folks, she's WORTH IT.
It's hard to ask people to understand. To understand why they have to fill out this form for the fifth time. Why they need to use blue ink NOT black. Why forgetting their middle initial is a big deal. It's hard for people to understand this process in general or to appreciate all that really goes into it. I mean I am sure some people are sick of hearing these little updates and just want to hear when she's coming home. All this paperwork stuff doesn't matter to other people. And, trust me, I wish so badly we could skip all these little steps that take weeks or months at a time to complete. But, that's not how it works. And we do whatever. it. takes.
So, to avoid wasting another precious week to mail all the corrected documents back to the Secretary of State, we took a quick "sick" day from work to head into the city. After hours waiting in a tiny, crowded waiting room we walked out with a huge stack of apostilled documents ready to be mailed to Country.
The next day, I made copies (just incase) and I carefully packaged the dossier up and sent it to our agency. It was sooo hard to hand over what we in the adoption community refer to as our "paper baby." But, it made it safely to our agency for a quick review in person then was sent out in the mail this week to Country! This is HUGE.
So, what is next?
Once the paperwork gets to country, our team there will translate all of the documents which will take a few weeks. After translation, the documents will be presented to the Ministry for review. Once they approve everything, they will send us a very important document called the Article 16.
The Article 16 consists of S's birth certificate, medical history, guardian relinquishment information, and approval of us as her adoptive parents. This set of documents is added to our 800 package that will be reviewed and approved again by US Immigration. After we get this next set of approvals from them, the Ministry & Embassy will be notified, and they will send us travel dates. They typically give you 2-4 week notice for travel. THEN WE GO GET OUR GIRL!
With that being said, we are SO close! We are considered "Almost There" on Reece's Rainbow which is the final step before "Traveling Now." This is HUGE for us. We didn't know if we would ever make it this far. But, we still have months to go. Even though there isn't that much left to do, it is all out of our hands now.
And we are going to be ready for her! We took the tags off her bedroom decor last week. And we hung the signs on the wall. And we washed her bedding. It's all becoming so real. We've dreamed of this for so long and we are 'Almost There!' What a feeling...
As the paperwork has slowed down, I have also been applying to grants. We should hear back on a few next month and we hope these will help us get closer to 'fully funded.' We are about 2/3 of the way there with our funding which is amazing! We have the in-country fees and post adoption fees left to cover. We are also going to have another fundraiser coming up in the next week or so. I am super excited about it so please check back next week to hear all about it!!
How can you help right now? Right now as we are truly left waiting since everything is completely out of our hands at this point, you can pray for us. Please pray for our paperwork to arrive safely in Country. Pray that the team there is able to quickly and accurately translate our documents. Pray that the Ministry approves all of our paperwork and approves us to be our sweet girls
Comments
Post a Comment