Secretary of State visit

When I updated last week I have to admit I was freaking out a little bit about getting things verified for our dossier before the state shutdown starts on Friday. Today I am feeling relieved that our documents are verified, and also a little bit foolish.

Yesterday Scott picked up the final document we need to have verified. I also called the Ethiopia coordinator at our agency to see if I was bringing in all of the right documents. I found out some interesting things from M.

Now, I don't know if I have ever mentioned that we are not a part of the Ethiopia program yet, and we won't be accepted until after our homestudy and all other documents are complete and at the agency. I found out that we don't go on the waiting list until our immigration paperwork is approved by the government, which has been taking about 2-1/2 months (or 75 days from the time it is turned in). The immigration paperwork cannot be turned in until our homestudy is completed by the local agency and is approved by the international agency. Our homestudy won't be complete for about 2 months. We are waiting to hear from S., our social worker, to set up a homestudy visit. Once that is done we wait while she writes the homestudy document. That could take 1-2 months. Now, our dossier doesn't have to be sent to Ethiopia right away when we get on the waitlist.

So, the documents we had verified today probably won't be needed for at least 4 months, which is why I am feeling foolish. Oh, well! One less thing to do later, I guess!

Update

I don't know if anyone is reading this blog right now, but I am going to post anyway so that someday our children will know how they came to be a part of our family! By the way, the rambling you will read is truly me, and my random thoughts!

I also hope that our experiences will help others in the future. With that being said, let's get going!

In my last post I wondered how the changes in the Ethiopian adoption process will change our timeline. WACAP, our adoption agency, continues to be hopeful that this changes (although they may increase our wait a little bit) will be best for the children of Ethiopia, and will help to decrease (or better yet stop) fraudulent adoptions.

Now that the school year is over my focus has been to get our paperwork done, once and for all. I will admit that we have been taking our time with it, and not giving it the attention that we should be. In my defense, I truly believe that this adoption process is all a part of God's plan for our family. I haven't felt the need to rush. Why rush, and then wait longer?!

Yesterday I made a bunch of photocopies and sent our final paperwork to our local agency, HOPE. The next step there is to have a home visit with our social worker. She'll take a look at our house, make sure it's a safe place and that there is a space for kiddos, and she will ask for our final parameters for our homestudy. After that visit she will begin to write our homestudy document.

Now that we are done with that part of our paperwork the next step SHOULD be to finish up our paperwork for WACAP. Everything is done for them except their required Parenting Resource Plan. It's a biggie, and we are stuck on the questions about parenting older children and all of the developmental and emotional possibilities that come with that (I'll write more about this later).

Did you notice I said SHOULD up there in the last paragraph? Well, let me explain! There has been a lot of talk in Minnesota about a state shutdown starting July 1st because of a budget disagreement in the legislature. At first I thought the only way that this would effect us would be the closing of the state parks because they are considered non-essential.

Today it dawned on me that we need to have a bunch of dossier paperwork verified by the Secretary of State's office. Scott called the SOS office, and sure enough, they are considered non-essential, too. Our options? Not worry about it, and hope the state shutdown doesn't last very long, OR spend the next few days gathering all of those documents and take them down to the SOS office early next week.

We decided not to risk a long shutdown since we cannot be put on the waiting list until all of our paperwork is in Ethiopia. Here's a list of the documents we need to gather, and where we are in the process after today:

• Birth Certificates -- DONE (new copies obtained, $26/each)
• Marriage Certificate -- need to go to the Ramsey County Courthouse on Monday to get one
• Medical Certificates -- Scott will drop his form off at the clinic tomorrow so the Dr. can write it up early next week, Mine was sent to WACAP by mistake and was mailed back to me today
• Police Clearance Reports -- DONE, although she had to include my driving without a license citation from 2006
• Financial Statements -- we are waiting on letters from our employers to finish one line, then we will need to get this notarized.
• 3 different Power of Attorney statements that must be notarized -- DONE

The woman at the Secretary of State's office recommended we get there before 8:30 so we can be one of the first in line, and told us that it will take about 3 hours to have everything verified. Athough I was a little stressed out earlier, this is doable!

My goal was to have all of our part done before we go back to school in the fall, but with this little push from the government, it might be a little sooner than that!

Please keep us in your thoughts as we work to get this done before July 1st! Thanks!
Beth

how this will change our timeline...?

I am following a lot of Ethiopian adoption blogs. It's nice to follow along with the families as they get their referral, travel to meet their children, travel again to bring them home, and start taking the steps toward becoming a family.

Right now we are working on our homestudy. There is lots of paperwork to fill out, meetings with social workers, classes to take, and a home visit that all need to be done before we can become a part of WACAP's Ethiopia program. After we become a part of the program we will go on the waiting list. Eventually we will be matched with children and will wait to trave to meet them.

 I have been feeling guilty about not working on paperwork, but I have felt the need to step back for some reason.

Then last Friday, Debi, at Jenkins Journey to Ethiopian Adoption, posted a link to this article from Voice of America's online news website titled Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent. Go ahead and read the article. I'll wait...

Good, I am glad you are back. We spent the weekend talking about what this might mean for us. I started looking at other adoption agencies to see what countries we meet the adoption requirements for. As I was looking, and reading, I realized that my heart isn't "in" any other country. Our children are in Ethiopia. I am sure of that.

On Monday I sent an email to the Ethiopia program coordinator at our international agency asking if she had heard about the article. She had, and told me they were working on an email to send out to families like ours -- working on their homestudy, but interested in Ethiopia. We also scheduled a time on Friday to talk on the phone about our situation. I am looking forward to that call!

Today an adoption alert was posted on the US Department of State, Office of Children's Issues Intercountry Adoption page. Here's what it says:

____________________________________________________________

Adoption Alert

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children’s Issues
____________________________________________________________

Government of Ethiopia Plans Major Slow-Down in Adoption Processing

Citing the need to work on quality and focus on more important strategic issues, the Government of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women, Children, and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA)  will reduce to a maximum of five the number of adoption cases it processes per day, effective March 10, 2011.  Under Ethiopian adoption procedures, MOWCYA approves every match between prospective adoptive parents and an Ethiopian child before that case can be forwarded for a court hearing.  The U.S. Embassy is working with Ethiopian government officials and adoption agencies to learn more about this change in procedures.  We will continue to share information as it becomes available.

Given MOWCYA's current caseload, the U.S. Embassy anticipates that this change could result in an overall decline in case processing of some 90 percent.  If this change is implemented as proposed, we expect, that parents who have begun the process of adopting from Ethiopia but have not yet been matched with a child could experience significant delays.  It is not clear if this change in procedures would have any significant impact on cases in which MOWCYA has already approved matches. 

Prospective adoptive parents should remain in close contact with their adoption service provider to obtain updates on individual cases.

The Embassy's Adoptions Unit can be reached at consadoptionaddis@state.gov.

Please continue to monitor http://adoption.state.gov/ for updated information as it becomes available.

____________________________________________________________

Today we received an email from WACAP. They feel that the waits will be longer, but that this step is good for Ethiopia because the government is working toward more ethical adoptions. I am looking forward to our phone conversation on Friday.

We don't know what all of this means for us. We know the wait will be longer (how much longer is unknown). We are asking you to pray... for the government of Ethiopia as they make decisions about the future of adoption in their country... for families wondering what this means for them... for the children of Ethiopia, especially the true orphans who have no parents to care for them... and for patience, peace, and guidance for us as we bring children home with the privilege of learning about their culture as we work to keep it a part of their lives.

March 9, 2011

Making some progress!

We started this adoption process in July 2010, and I finally feel like we are making some progress! This weekend I finished my autobiography! It was 120 thought provoking questions like:

• Describe your spouse. List 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses.
• What are your plans for working once your child comes home? What if your child isn't ready to go to school and/or daycare when you are ready to go back to work?
• What are your most significant life experiences? Which of those experiences are with children and/or lead you to adoption?

Sheesh!

That's just for our Home Study agency. Now I am working on the form for our Child Finding (International) agency. Their questions are more specific to culture and there is even a section about bringing older children home.

I know that in the long run we will be glad that we have filled out all of this paperwork, and have thought through these questions, but right now... Right now I want to be done with all of this and on a waiting list.

I know, I know... In a couple months I will be complaining about the wait for a referral! :)