When Jason and I made the leap to adopt, we decided to not have a separate blog about our adoption journey. NOT that I have anything against blogs that are about a family’s adoption journey, we just wanted to write about what is going on in our family like we have for the last four years! Since we already have a blog, we decided to highlight our adoption in between posts about Christmas and Basketball season!
We began the process at the beginning of November. The first thing you have to do is have your homestudy done, which is what I do for a part time job, so this was not a hard process for us, just a list we needed to work! Our agency was Adoption Assistance, Inc. A homestudy highlights your family, your background, your home, your finances, your community, any criminal background or history and your preparation for adopting a child. If you are adopting internationally, it also is what USCIS looks at to determine if you are meet the guidelines to adopt and bring an orphan into the United States. They will only approve the parameters of gender, age and how many children based on what you have been approved for in your homestudy. It also is country specific and highlights what a specific country may have as requirements, such as income or how many years a couple has been married. Basically, a social worker conducts four interviews and one home visit to determine if your family is a good candidate to adopt.
You also have to choose an agency. There are many factors that go into choosing an agency, such as their wait time, their track record, their integrity, their cost….but bottom line, it comes down to who you feel comfortable with walking the journey towards your child. For us, we chose, Celebrate Children International. We chose them for several reasons. One, was because people I trust, who work in adoptions, and who have successfully brought 10 children home, have nothing but GREAT things to say. Second, I spoke with the director and heard her heart and felt comfortable with her. Third, they were much faster for the age and gender we were looking at compared to other agencies I looked at. This is important to us because honestly, who wants to wait, and international adoption can change in a minute and there is no guarantee that Ethiopia will be open in 2 months or 6 months or a year, so the quicker we get him home…..the better. Other great agencies for Ethiopia, that I have worked with over the past two years and do a phenomenal job are Gladney, WACAP and All God’s Children. (It also depends on the country you are adopting from as to which agency would be the best…if you have questions, please email me and ask! I would love to give you some suggestions!)
We completed our homestudy and had everything but one form ready before Jason left for China in December, but with the holidays, Jason being gone and the amount of work I was juggling, we finally had our dossier ready to go last Friday. Our dossier is the official documents that are specific to each country that the government officials will look at to determine if you meet their requirements to adopt. They must be notarized, County Certified, State Authenticated and then sent to a courier in Washington D.C. to be taken to the State Department to be authenticated and then, in our case, the Ethiopian Embassy to be Authenticated. Then, it is overnighted to your agency and will be sent to Ethiopia for translation. Our dossier landed at CCI on Friday, January 14.
After your homestudy is done, you also apply for an I-600A with USCIS, which is a Application for Advance Processing for Orphan Petition. Basically, you apply, send in a big fat check, and wait to be given an appointment for FBI fingerprinting. They also review your homestudy and grant or deny your request to bring an orphan into the United States. We applied on December 10 and we had our fingerprinting done last Friday as well, on January 7 and are now awaiting our I-171H, which is the Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition. It is valid for 18 months and you must have it to bring your child home.
So for us the next step is to wait. It is out of our hands at this point. We wait for our I-171H, but more importantly, we wait for our REFERRAL. A referral is basically….your child. The director of our agency has been in Ethiopia, and the Assistant Director thinks we are second on the list for a boy and first for a boy between the ages of 2 and 4. Our desire is for a boy around 2.5 to 3. She informed me to stay close to my email….he could come any day!!!!
We are super hopeful that we will have our referral by the end of January, but if not, that is fine because really, it has been one week…..I know parents who wait years for a referral, so I have no right to complain that we are already at the top of the list!
For now, we have paid about $6500 towards our adoption. We have had one yard sale to raise money and that was very helpful. We have applied to be apart of a program called Both Hands through Lifesong For Orphans. It is a wonderful program where you gather friends and family to work on a widow’s home for a day and they send out letters asking for support of their time and any money raised goes toward our adoption. It is truly caring for the widow and the orphan! Hopefully, we will be approved for this amazing program soon. If you would like to volunteer, we would love to have you!
I can’t wait to see my boy’s face and know his name. We pray for him daily as a family that he is safe, loved and healthy. Our kids are so ready to see his sweet face. Parker said to me yesterday, “Mom, I am just ready to see him and have that face up our fridge.” She has seen many children waiting to come home on our fridge and she is ready for her brother’s face to included.
If you have any questions about adoption, please feel free to ask us. We are not experts, but we will gladly share our journey and pray for you as you determine your role in caring for orphans.
Your next update will hopefully include the words….we got a referral!!
