Frustrated, but it's not what you think

No, not with the adoption, but with clothes shopping. This evening, I went to buy new black dress pants for work. I must have tried at least 6 different styles in 2 different sizes each and I left Kohl's with absolutely nothing, except a feeling of being frustrated. What the heck ever happened with normal trouser dress pants with a high-cut waist. Now, I can't be the only one who does not want low cut hip huggers. Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, I would have worn them, but I no longer have the 20-something body that I used to have; now that I'm quickly approaching 40 later this year. I always have great luck at Kohl's, which is what made tonight even more frustrating then ever.

I'm still so frustrated and I'm really getting frustrated with CHI. One they should have limited their waiting list. Other agencies had temporarily stopped accepting new applications when they felt their waiting list was getting too big. Also, they allowed way too many people to send in dossiers. Had we not sent in our dossier at the beginning of April to Vietnam and spent all that additional money, we probably would have been more likely to switch countries right away, but we already had even more money invested than we did before submitting the dossier. Others who are working on Ethiopia can work on their dossier while they are working on their homestudy and waiting for CIS approval, but we have to wait!!! We've been waiting over a year and a half from when we first started this adoption and they've had no problem accepting our money, but now when we and they know without a doubt that Vietnam will close, even if it is temporarily and we will be switching countries no matter, since everything is moving at a snail's pace anyway, they just want us to sit and do nothing when there is so much we caould do, if we knew exactly what it was we needed to do. No wonder there atre many people who would love to adopt, but don't one because of the cost and two because they make it so difficult to do so. Well, I'm getting off my soapbox and doing some work, since lunch is now over.

The End and the Beginning

This post should have been posted over a week ago, when I wrote it but I don't really want to rewrite it. It is now pretty much definite our Vietnam adoption wont be happening. Our agency got its last 3 referrals this past week. As of a couple weeks ago, we were down to #78 on the list and now are probably 2-3 positions further down the list, but that probably doesn't make much difference anymore. As of 9/1/08, the dossiers with all the documents we gathered and had notarized, certified, and authenicated, will be sent to our agencies. We've known for over a month or so that we would pursue an adoption from Ethiopia, if Vietnam didn't work, but since we needed to renew some paperwork, we decided to hold off, so we could get our free renewal. We currently are waiting for DCFS to approve our homestudy update, which our social worker did in June. Once our homestudy update gets approved, we can send in for our free renewal with CIS (the former INS). Then we have to wait for an invitation to get our fingerprints retaken (Like they've changed in the past year and a half.) Once we get our renewal approved, we will finally be able to send in for a country change for the adoption. . This should also be free since we renewed the 171-H paperwork first.

Hopefully, once we have the renewal, we will be able to start our Ethiopian dossier. I wish I could start on gathering the paperwork, but they do not want to provide us that information until we are formally in the new program. We want to start on this as soon as possible, because although our agency has had an Ethiopian program for only over a year, it has become very popular and with the closure of Vietnam, it will be even more so. Plus our agency has not yet been Hague-certified. Ethiopia is not a Hague country, so they can work with agencies that are not Hague-approved. (The Hague Treaty is pretty hard to explain, so I won't even try for those of you who have no idea what it is, but as long as our agency isn't Hague-certified the only country new prospective adoptive parents can adopt from are Ethiopia and Russia. Technically, we will be considered new since we will have to start over with another country. Russia is a more expensive country to adopt from with 2-3 trips to Russia that needs to be taken before you finally can bring your child home.

I don't even want to think of what we have spent and much of it has been more or less flushed away. What a waste of money, not too mention time. We started well over 18 months on this, 14 months of which was on the waiting list and for what? NOTHING! We are not getting any younger and I will be turning the big 4-0 in a few months and Kevin is 45. Our parents do not yet have any grandchildren and most likely any child we adopt will be the only grandchild they have. Yes, I am feeling very cynical tonight. I truly feel our agency should not only allow us to switch countries, but but should allow us to get in line ahead of people who have only been waiting a short time. The longest some people waiting to adopt from Ethiopia is 6 or maybe 7 months at the most; that is nothing compared to 14 months and there are many others who have been on the waiting list for much longer. It is one thing if you chose voluntarily to change months ago, when there were first rumors, but now pretty much everyone has to either switch to another country or just wait it out and hope Vietnam allows for American adoptions again in the future. Last time the country closed to the U.S. that wait was almost 3 years, so making us have to wait that long is crazy and is not an option with us either in or about to be in our 40's.

UPDATE: We did get our letter of endorsement from DCFS and I sent for our free renewal on Saturday. We are now waiting for our return receipt notification that it was received and then for the dates of our fingerprinting. And yes, we are now #75 as of 7/24/08, for whatever that's worth!!

Blogger Problems

I guess blogger had problems, where they had a large amount of blogs that were shown to be spam blogs and they had all of them lockied until the blog owner asked them to investigate. They found out it was a bug in there progrem and are fixing that bug and have also since unlocked those blogs. Since mine was only recently unlocked, I haven't had a chance to post, but hope to soon!

DCFS Letter of Endorsement

We had our home study update done in June and were waiting for DCFS to issue a letter of endorsement, so we could file for our free renewal of the 171-H. Well, our agency, finally received the letter of endorsement and will mail it to us along with the instructions so we can file for our renewal. The renewal can't be filed any earlier than 90 days before the expiration of the 171-H and today marks the 90th day before expiration. So hopefully, we will receive the letter from CHI in the next day or 2 and I'll be able to immediately send for the renewal to CIS. Then our social worker says it takes CIS 2-3 weeks to process it and then a week later, we should get it in the mail. We'll also need to get our fingerprints redone (like they've changed!!!) I will be posting an update soon about our adoption. I wrote it out the other day on the way home from work and just need to find the time top type it.

Weird Dream

I had the weirdest dream last night. I was pregnant with twins and then I gave birth to one twin and then the doctor said the other one is not ready, yet and that I cango home. When I asked how long until the other one? The doctor said it could be a day or 2, a week, maybe a month. Weird, huh? No wonder I was so tired this morning; I had a hard night of labor.

Second-Guessing Myself?

Should we stay with Vietnam and hope for a miracle? Should we switch to Ethiopia right away and risk not getting a free renewal? Should we go with a domestic adoption; most likely a transracial adoption? Or even should we try infertility treatments? (We know we are, but we never underwent any fertility treatments) and at just about 40years of age, should I and do I really want to be pregnant? Where is this coming from?? Well, in the past month(s), there have been so many other prospective adoptive parents that have either become pregnant (I don't think I can name overyone, but congratulations to all of you and several who have adopted domestically (congratulation to the latest new parents, Megan and Larry)

Your Support Is Needed

Please go to the link I've attached and sign this petition. It directly affects us, because our dossier is logged in to the DIA. You can read the details, sign the petition, and then log out. You do not have to give a donation for your "signature" to be recorded. Thanks in advance!http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Grandfather_All_Dossiers/index.html

Child Of The 80s

Oh memories!

Early Morning Meeting

This morning, we met with our new social worker to discuss our 171-H renewal, changing to Ethiopia and home study update. Our 171-H needs to be renewed this fall and we can renew it up to 90 days before, but the orphan officer has recently changed at our local USCIS office and many families who are changing countries and then trying for a free renewal of their old 171-H are being denied. Therefore, the best option was to stay in the Vietnam program and just updating our home study and getting our free renewal , which will be sent at the very end of July and then once we have received an updated and renewed 171-H, we will then file a change of country form and add an addendum to our homestudy for Ethiopia. This really allows us the best of both worlds, since if by chance Vietnam adoptions do continue we will still be in the Vietnam program and we will be able to just continue with it, but if it turns out that Vietnam will not be continuing adoptions with the United States, we will be already approved for Ethiopia. Since we already have our dossier in Vietnam, we will be able to continue the process to adopt, but at the same time once we have filed for a renewal, it will take some time for it to get through the reapproval process (hopefully, we'll get our approval at about the same time we find out if adoptions and the giving of referrals will continue after September 1st.) In the meantime, we might be able to start getting our paperwork together for an Ethiopian dossier. If we won't be able to continue with Vietnam, then at least we may have somewhat of a headstart when it comes to getting our new dossier ready and hopefully, it won't be very long thereafter until we can send off our dossier to our agency and then Ethiopia. In reality, this is the perfect option; more or less, it is a win-win opportunity. If Vietnam continues, we win in that we have not totally dropped out of the program, but if it closes for certain, we still win because we are ahead of the game on the road to Ethiopia. Not everyone will have this option, but since our immigration paperwork needs renewal and our USCIS office is so finicky about the order of renewals and country changes, it works on our behalf.

Also, since our home study was done in March, another home visit is needed and that is scheduled for Monday June 16th. Only one of us needs to meet with our SW at our home, so since I have a couple floating holidays that I must use up at work, I'll be the one to stay home. Plus it is easier since I work in an office to get a day off, then Kevin who works in a child care environment. They need people to cover and one of his co-workers is getting married around that time, so coverage will be limited and they'll need all the people they can get. Well, I've really babbled on and on, so I'll just end this post until next time.

Status

We actually are meeting with our new social worker tomorrow morning at 7AM!!! We have been approved, but are for the time being still with the Vietnam program, because our 171-H is going to need to be renewed. Nicky from the Vietnam program had said if we want the free extension, we will need to renew it while still in the Vietnam program and then submit a change of country form to switch to Ethiopia. We're meeting tomorrow to discuss the different options for renewing and changing countries. Hopefully, I'll have more information tomorrow.

Changing Directions, New Look

A new look is called for since we are changing directions. We are still adopting, but after the past few weeks, we've weighed our various options and don't see much of a likelihood that Vietnam will continue adoptions after September 1st and since there is no chance that we will get a referral before that time, we have decided that we must change countries. Our two best options were Ethiopia and domestic here in the United States.



With domestic, you are chosen by the birth mother to parent the child. The waiting list for a healthy white infant could be 2 years or more, it really depends on the birth mother if they choose you or not and there are so many other adoptive parents hoping to be chosen. We would be open to a child of any race or mixture of races; now the expected wait there maybe a year or so (much less than for a Caucasian infant), but the birth mother still has to choose you. There's so many legal loopholes, too; although the agency that we looked at has never had a birth parent take the child back after the child was living in your home, there's always a first time for everything.



With Ethiopia, the current wait is expected to be 6 to 11 months. At this time many people are getting referrals at our agency at about 5-6 months after sending in the dossier. Our current agency works with Ethiopia and gets referrals quite often. Just in the past week there were 8 referrals. Some of our money would transfer over to the new program, not a lot but some of it would. The cost for each of the programs would be similar, since the domestic agency is on a sliding scale when it comes to family. All in all though, they really aren't that expensive compared to some other domestic adoption programs.



So what have we decided, you're asking. Well, we are still waiting for approval from the agency, but we've decided to go with Ethiopia and to stay with CHI as our adoption agency. I'm not sure what is taking so long for approval, but it looks like everything will be a go. We'll need to have our homestudy updated, change over our 171-H to Ethiopia with the Citizenship and Immigration and work on a new dossier.

Tragedy strikes the Stephen Curtis Chapman Family

Click here.

MIA No More

I want to thank all of those who left comments on this blog or e-mailed me, I apologize if I didn't reply to everyone this has been a very emotional and confusing time. I really appreciate your concern and friendship during this time. Those of you with blogs, I have been following along, although I may not have commented often, if at all.

Those of you in the Vietnam adoption community know what I'm talking about, but for those of you, not involved in Vietnam adoptions, I'll let you know what is going on. Over the past few weeks, Vietnam has announced that they will not be continuing adoptions with the United States. They will continue to accept applications up to July 1st, but anyone who has not received a referral by September 1st will have their dossier returned to their agency. Just before this announcement the U.S. Embassy released a long report on corruption involving Vietnamese adoption. The report makes it appear that corruption is rampant. Yes, there is corruption, but it is nowhere near as prevalent as they make it out to be. It is mainly isolated to a few provinces, a few orphanages and involving possibly a few agencies. The vast majority of adoptions are believed to be ethical and not corrupt. The U.S. is also trying to force Vietnamese parents who gave up their child willingly to take DNA tests in order to prove that they are the biological parents of the relinquished child. Plus there are several other areas that the U.S. government is trying to take control of things that if a foreign government was trying to do in the U.S., they would object to it just the same as the Vietnamese government is doing. Vietnam has just gotten fed up with the U.S. and refuses to work with them anymore. This is leaving many hundreds of families in limbo.

Where does this leave us? If you remember, at the beginning of April, we did send our dossier to Vietnam. But our agency has a very long waiting list and earlier in the year, they were told that whatever dossiers were in the country by September 1st when the current agreement between the U.S. and Vietnam expired, they would still give referrals to any of those families, even if it was after September 1st. But that was then, and this is now. And with how long our agency's waiting list is and the fact that we are #86 on that list, as well as that the number of referrals, our agency is getting is down greatly, we stand no chance at all of getting a referral by September 1st. It has been several weeks, since our agency has even gotten any referrals at all. So the past few weeks, we have been thinking, talking and praying on what to do and researching what our other options are. We are hoping very soon to make that announcement, but until it has happened, we will keep it quiet for now. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we promise to share things with you soon!

Just wanted to let you all know, we're alive. But after the news the past couple weeks, I just could not get myself to post. I'm working on a post and just need to find the time to type it out.