Another Big Step Closer!

Today I received the letter that says our I800 application to immigrate Christy was approved!  So the US is willing to allow her to join our family and come to live in the US.  Yay!

On a side note, this week the family of a little girl that we recognized while we were visiting Christy are leaving to bring their little girl home. I have arranged it so that they are bringing "Thick It" to allow Christy's care takers to thicken the water they give her making it easier for them to give her water, and easier for Christy to take the water without choking!  They are also taking some toys that I sent.  Most of the toys are for all the children there (they all LOVED the toys we brought for Christy to play with and left most of them there).  But one we purchased just for Christy.  She has severe reflux (common in children with Down Sydrome), so they keep her in her highchair for 30 minutes after eating.  She is usually left alone during this time with nothing to do.  So we are sending her a toy that attaches to the tray (with a suction cup) so she'll have a toy to play with while she sits in her chair!  Isn't God amazing to orchestrate that a fellow Washington State family is adopting a little girl who lives in the same group home as our daughter???

This is Christy's room, her own highchair and play crib for sleeping in.

We still have many more steps yet for our adoption to take, while we wait.

Right now I am waiting for the documents that we sent to get appostilled to come back.  Evidently, the Washington Secretary of State has different policies from most of the other SOS's in the US, so I have to re-do both documents...actually it becomes 4 documents.  We had "bundled" our medical updates (Daryl and Mine) together, and we had done the same with our local police background checks.  They were rejected.

I have gotten her police background checks (they now require that the notary be done in the police office).  We are waiting for the medical updates to come back so we can do a cover sheet for each medical update form, and then we'll send both right back to be apostilled.

So here's what happens with our paperwork.

Now that our I-800 has been approved, it is sent to the National Visa Center.  It takes up to 7 days process the approval and forward it to the US Embassy in Christy's county.  This will trigger the setting up of a visa interview.

Christy loved to "taste test" things...like your clothes, your face...your arm.
She's such a lovely, unique little girl!

At this meeting the US Embassy representative will review our home study, dossier and the child's information and will approve the adoption to continue (Lord willing!).  Sometimes they have questions about something and require additional paperwork.  If they approve everything, they will issue the Article 5 the following day.  We get notification of this via email!

Once the Article 5 is received, it is translated and authenticated, which takes a little over a week.  Then this is submitted to the right big wig along with all the second stage dossier documents that we have sent in.  This will mean that our dossier is officially complete.

At this point, it goes through a series of steps that  take about a month to complete.  Basic paper chasing, too boring to list here.  Once it goes through all the right hands and receives the required signatures, the dossier is taken to the courts.

Once the dossier is sent to the courts, it is assigned to a judge.  This take 14 days, officially.  Once assigned to a judge, the judge has 7 days to assign the court date.  Some judges require additional information from the adopting family before court, others do not.

On the day of court, the adoptive family is represented by an attorney.  We are notified via email the day of court about the outcome.  The adoption is granted unless the judge of prosecutor asks for additional information, in which case, court will be postponed....

Once the adoption is granted, there is a 7 day wait period before the adoption is finalized, and after that it takes 3 - 5 days to obtain the signed court decree from the judge.

Once the court decree is obtained, the new birth certificate is applied for, which takes up to 5 business days.

We will be given travel dates for our "gotcha trip" after the birth certificate is obtained.

Then we get to go bring her home.  The second trip requires at least 12 days in country, so we will be away from home about 2 weeks.  There is quite the process that happens once we get her in our arms again...but that is for another blog post!

Please pray with us that we will sail through this process with no more snags, and that the political climate in Christy's country will remain stable so that many more orphans can come home and be with their forever families!

Our First Week Home

Since getting back from our trip to meet Christy, I was very sick with a virus.  I was having much difficulty thinking clearly.  But starting on Tuesday I began to tackle the paperwork needed for the second stage dossier.

I was able to fill out the I800 (application to immigrate
 a particular child) and gather the required documentation.  I was also able to print out the three documents that needed to be notarized and apostilled and had Jessica drive me so I could meet up with Daryl and get the signatures notarized.  The went out to the Washington Secretary of State on Thursday, and I expect those to come back late this week.

This week our assignment is to get to the local City Police and have them run a background check, and on Monday Daryl and I go see our family doctor for an updated medical report.  Then those two document will be notarized and sent in to get apostilled.

We also authorized a payment from our Reece's Rainbow grant for the last payment to our adoption agency.

That's it!  So much easier than the first stage dossier!

So the waiting is once again upon us!

We hope to bring her home sometime in February and are already making plans for that trip.  I plan to go through all our girl's clothes that are in storage (and elsewhere since Esther just grew out of the sizes that Christy will be wearing) to find all the 3T clothing we have around here.

We are in need of a LARGE suitcase to bring the necessary equipment and clothing for our time with her on our second trip (the second trip has now increased to 10 days instead of 5 due to a change in policy by the US Embassy, as they now require a TB test and positive result before we can bring her home) .

We have gotten the words "Fully Funded" removed from our FSP on Reece's Rainbow, as this extended trip, plus expenses on our first trip being higher than we expected, will cause our adoption to accrue more costs that we originally projected.  At this point, it looks like we are running somewhere between $1500 and $3000 short.  If you feel led to help with this shortfall, we greatly appreciate your generosity!  I know that God will provide, so do not feel pressured to help us out - there are so many other families with greater needs that we have!

I think the most amazing thing that I've experienced since coming home is two things - I've accidentally called Carese "Christy" twice officially making her a part of our family, and when I watch videos and look at photos I can almost feel what it felt like to hold her in my arms, and it's nearly a physical ache.  I thought other adoptive parents were just overly sentimental about missing their babies between trips, but I can verify that it's all true.  They get into your hearts and make an indelible impression on your arms so very, very quickly!

Happy Birthday Priscilla!

Today Priscilla turns 3 years old.  

Three years ago Priscilla was born to a first time mother, 4 weeks premature, via C-Section.  That day her mother found out that her baby girl had special needs and a medical condition - that her baby's heart had a defect.  I often picture her mother as being hard-hearted.  That upon hearing that her child had Down Syndrome that she just walked away.  But we do not know that.  In Priscilla's country most of the people are poor, and most women work to make ends meet.  Facing the difficulty of raising a child with special needs and ongoing medical needs is difficult even in the best of situations, but in Priscilla's country this is nearly impossible for most people.  I'm sure that Priscilla's biological mother remembers the day Priscilla was born, and the day she said goodbye to Priscilla.  I don't know her heart, but I'm sure it was not an easy thing to do.  Today I pray for Priscilla's mother that she will know the love of God and He will save her soul and that someday, somehow, she will know that her precious little baby girl is so loved that we are coming from the other side of the world to bring Priscilla into our home and give her the love and care that she could not.

Today Priscilla has no idea that she has a family working so hard to adopt her.  She probably doesn't even know it's her birthday.  She, in all likelihood, will not get to have a cake or open presents.  But, Lord Willing, this will be her last birthday that goes by without fanfare.  I was also reminded today that even though we are not with her on her birthday, she is not alone.  Our heavenly Father, who orchestrated all the events in her life in order to bring about her being adopted into our family, is by her side as He always is.  He remembers the day she was born.  He knows the hours she was conceived and He created her to be exactly as she is and determined even before she was born that she would become our child through adoption.  If you haven't read it yet, please take a minute and read my blog post about how Priscilla's Story Really Started in 2008!  I share there how we can see God's handi-work that dates back to before Priscilla's birth, and how He began something the month she was conceived that would ultimately lead to our reaching out to adopt her!

And God gave us a gift for her birthday - today we found out that last Thursday we had been approved to adopt a child from a Hague approved country.  We were gone camping last week, so we  didn't find out until today, Priscilla's birthday, that we had been approved.  God knew that today would be hard for me, so He made it possible for us to get this good news today - isn't He so loving!  And I just heard that this document arrived in today's mail!  Yeah!

So now our I800a application has been approved.  We should get the approval letter through the mail very soon - maybe even today!  Once it arrives, I'll head in to town to get it notarized, and then send it off to get apostilled in Olympia.  Once it returns, I send it on to join the rest of our dossier.  Once it's translated, then everything is authenticated and then it our dossier is finally ready to be submitted!

Once it's submitted, it will wait it's turn to get reviewed.  Then once it is approved and gets the officially signature, we will get our referral and we will be notified that we can go on our first trip to meet her!

Right now, things are a bit backlogged in her country due to a change in the government, and they also take the month of August off as a holiday.  So the best we can hope is that our referral will come sometime in September, but it could be well into October before we hear anything.  It's looking more and more like our trip to meet Priscilla will be in very close proximity to our son's wedding.

I just keep reminding myself that every step of this journey is in the control of my heavenly Father and that our first, and second, trip will be exactly when He has determined it to be best for us to go!

Progress, Well, Kind Of!

So, we are still awaiting our USCIS approval for our I800a (application for permission to imigrate a child - it's really approving our family and making sure we are not involved in human trafficking).  I called yesterday and our application has not been assigned an officer yet, even though we got our fingerprints done for this over 2 weeks ago.  Last spring I was reading about approvals coming just days after the fingerprinting, but now approvals are coming 4 - 6 weeks after fingerprinting.  I have no idea why things have slowed to a crawl over at USCIS, but I keep reminding myself that God is still on his throne and even this is not out of His control.

On a brighter note, after more than 3 months of no dossiers for families waiting to be processed so they can go meet their child being processed, there is a meeting finally planned to do this next week.  Please pray that nothing will hinder this meeting and that these adoptions will all be processed efficiently so that these little ones can know that they have a family working so hard to rescue them!

We, sadly, are not even in line for those meetings yet.  Our dossier has been in translation (and might even be done with that), but it can't be submitted until it has the I800a approval (see first paragraph).  Once we get our I800a approval letter, we need to get it notarized and appostilled (that takes about a week or more) and then we send it to join our dossier.  Then we can be submitted.

Delay after delay.  That seems to be the story in many adoptions.  I just have to keep reminding me that no matter what, God ordained this adoption, miraculously funded it, and He will bring it to completion in His PERFECT timing.

Early this morning I had a great thought!  When we go to meet Priscilla, I will teach her "Baba" how to do some of the therapies that we are doing with Esther!  Then she can benefit from it even before we bring her home!  And they are so simple, even my younger kids can do some of the therapies!

One thing I do know is that it will be absolutely amazing when we do get to go meet Priscilla.  I can't wait to be able to share with you photos of her in my arms!