Why Did You Opt for an International Adoption?

I ♥ NPR

I found this interview on NPR. It is a discussion of why people choose to adopt internationally.

In our adoption news, no word yet on the status of our dossier. I am hoping/praying that it is sent this week to Ethiopia.

One Week Down

Its been a week and a day since our agency received our dossier. It should be getting authenticated in D.C. now.

We won't be officially "waiting" for our referral until it arrives in Ethiopia.

Complete and Utter Panic...

but it's a-ok now. For about 30 minutes this afternoon my heart was racing as I was trying to figure out what happened to our homestudy, what happened to our release and why our homestudy agency is so confused and why our adoption agency and homestudy agency are having some problems communicating. This is how it went down:

I'm at swimming lessons with Chloe when my cell phone rings. It's our homestudy agency. I pick up the phone--they have a problem. Our adoption agency has called them and want to know when they sent the draft copy of our homestudy for approval, because they don't have a copy of it on record. The lady on the phone then tells me she can't send them a copy because that's not our placing/adoption agency that they have on file--they have Great Wall. So, she refused to send them the homestudy. After talking to her for about 5 minutes, I am so confused. Why does our adoption agency need our homestudy draft, they have our dossier? And, why does our homestudy agency have no record of them as our placing agency? I hang up with her telling her I would call our adoption agency and get back to her in a little while.

So, I'm totally confused. I'm standing by a swimming pool trying to figure out--

a) why our adoption agency needs a draft of our homestudy when they have our completed dossiers with the approved homestudy in the dossier

b) why our homestudy agency thinks we are completing an Ethiopian adoption with Great Wall (our agency for our China adoptions and with whom they would never have had any communication yet b/c our dossiers for our China adoption was written by a social worker with Great Wall in 2006 when we still lived in Texas)

c) what the heck is going on?

So, I try not to panic and remain calm while I get Chloe showered and dressed. We make it home where I call our Ethiopian adoption agency to get the low-down on what they called our homestudy agency for exactly. It seems they have to report reviews of all homestudies for Hague compliance and they somehow didn't have the original email with our homestudy draft. They were calling to get it resent so they could have it on record. I then called our homestudy agency (here in NJ) to clear things up. They apparently had misfiled our paperwork and only had that we were waiting for our referral from China with Great Wall and would have to do a new homestudy for China. Apparently they realized they had misfiled something after they got off the phone with me, dug around and found all the correct documentation.

In the end it was much ado about nothing but it did send me into a complete panic until I could clear things up. Apparently, having clients who are in the process of two international adoptions at the same time is very confusing to our homestudy agency. Luckily, they figured it out and all is back on track--WHEW!

The Dossier Arrived at the Agency

We got an email last evening that our dossier arrived at our agency. It will now be sent to D.C. for authentication and then it's off across the Atlantic.

Our dossier should be in Ethiopia before May!

What Happens Next?

Our dossiers should arrive at our adoption agency this afternoon. Yes, for an Ethiopian adoption you must submit three dossiers. Once our dossies arrive, our agency will spend some time reviewing them and barring any errors in them will send our completed dossier to Washington, D.C. for final authentication by the State Department and Ethiopian Embassy. That’s right, Hillary gets to sign off on our dossier. After that our dossier is sent by our agency to Ethiopia. On average, it takes about 2 weeks for our dossier to go through this process before it finally departs for Ethiopia. One of the neat things about the Ethiopia process compared to the China adoption process is that we get to track our dossier from the U.S. to Addis Ababa, so we will know the exact time it touched down.

Once our dossier makes it Addis Ababa, here’s what follows:

1. Our dossier is translated to Amharic. The dossier is then presented to the officials at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) and the orphanage, Toukoul. After reviewing our dossier, the orphanage will refer us a child that best fits our requests and family. This can take anywhere from 3-9 months.

2. We receive medical history, photos and information on our child. Once we accept we begin the wait for our court date. We will be unable to post any identifying information on our child until he is officially ours. So, sorry, no photos on this or the other blog.

3. The court date is several weeks after referral. Also, the courts will close this August for the rainy season, which, depending on when we receive our referral, could delay our court date. Our agency estimates from referral to bringing Oliver home will be 2-5 months. A judge will hear our case and will hopefully grant us custody of Oliver. We will officially be his parents and can plan our travel dates.

4.We go to Ethiopia to bring our son home!

I haven’t spoken to our agency about the latest timetable but am planning on doing so once we hear about our dossier.

The Dossier is Done!

Our final document arrived this morning and I just finished checking and double-checking our three dossiers--and they are complete. I just sealed them in an envelope and after I pick up Chloe from preschool we are overnighting it to our agency!

Losing My Mind

Funny story...now that our dossier is almost complete I am eagerly anticipating when it will be finished and sent to Ethiopia so that we can move on to the waiting game. According to my husband, Matt, I go completely neurotic when I get close to finishing a dossier. I apparently become an utter nutter.

We knew that we had a few adoption-related items to complete yesterday--get our passport-sized photos taken and get our introduction letter notarized. We had a fundraiser to attend last night and I had to help set up for it in the morning. After setting up I came home and we all had lunch together. Afterwards, Chloe started playing and Matt sat down in the recliner for a nap. I seized the opportunity to grab our dossier and give it a once over and see what else needed to be completed. I got so engrossed in checking over the dossier that I glanced at the clock to see that it was 12:48 p.m. I went into super freak-out mode and started yelling, "We have 10 minutes to get to the bank before they close!" (to get our paper notarized). Matt popped out of the chair from his slumber, grabbed his shoes and coat while I assisted Chloe in finding her shoes (which I didn't tie).

We rushed to the bank in the car all the while with me shouting, "we're not going to make it!". I pull into a parking spot, avoid paying the parking meter and rush into the bank like a stark raving lunatic with Matt and Chloe following behind. It was only then that I found out that the bank didn't close for another hour. After the bank, Matt and I got our photos taken and we came home after another errand. We had been gone about an hour when we pulled into the driveway to find that our dog was waiting patiently in the yard--as we rushed out of the house without bringing her back inside.

The moral to my story is that I must have baby on the brain. Our dossier should be sent off next week to Dove barring any unforseen circumstances. One of our reference letters has to be re-written and notarized again as I realized that the notarization expires in 2009, which is a no-no, the notarization should be a year or more from the date the letter/paper is notarized, so it had to get redone. Tomorrow our state authenticated I-171h should arrive. Once our new reference letter arrives we will be done with the paper chase and on to the waiting phase.

Hopefully my neuroticism we lessen, but I highly doubt it.