A State Of Shock

Brian and I are a bit in a state of shock today, but definitely good shocked. Right now we are waiting for AGCI to review and approve our homestudy. We should (Lord willing) have that approval sometime next week and hopefully no changes will need to be made to the report. At that point we take our approved homestudy downtown to file with immigration (USCIS). The office is open for walk-ins on Tuesday mornings only. I asked Michelle at Adoption Alliance (our homestudy agency) how long it takes California to approve us and mail us our Favorable Determination Letter (FDL) once we have turned in the homestudy. Once the FDL is in our hands we are on the wait list. This is HUGE!! The most exciting thing that will happen in the process is meeting our child, the second most will be legally becoming parents, the third most will be receiving our referral, and the fourth most exciting thing will be being added to the wait list. So we are very close to the 4th most exciting part of this journey! Michelle's response was this "Typically in San Diego County , families will receive their I-171H (pre-approval) or also called FDL the day they hand in the homestudy or in the mail 1-2 weeks later." WHAT?!? NO WAY!!

To sum up what this means:
IF AGCI reviews our homestudy on time and
IF there is nothing that needs to be changed and
IF we are one of the lucky ones who get handed their FDL the SAME DAY

THEN we could potentially be on the wait list next Tuesday - yes in 8 days. Now that was a lot of IF's so we are trying to not get too excited but it's basically impossible not to be ecstatic right now. We have definitely read enough blogs to know that at some point there is bound to be a big bump in the road BUT we didn't even know it was a possibility to have the FDL handed to you in person. WOW!

Brian and I keep e-mailing each other talking about how crazy it is that we are this close, that the process is moving this fast, and that SOON we will be parents. It all seems a bit surreal at this point. The thought of us being parents still seems so far away, but we couldn't be more excited about that thought!

Adoptive Parenting 200

Brian and I were really excited about our second parenting class, especially since our home study was being completed (see post below). This class was taught by our social worker Lori and her business partner, Susan. We learned a lot about attachment. We focused on the psychology behind a child constantly not having their needs met and some of the expressions a child may have because of this, whether it be shutting down or hyperactivity/crying. We were also taught how to reparent a child who has experienced this loss and sense of extreme independence. The most helpful part for us was learning specific techniques like what to do if our child refuses to eat, has constant temper tantrums, cries incessantly, etc. A lot of the examples were specific to toddlers and older children but many of the things said pertained to infants. Again the importance of the parent meeting every need right away was stressed. We were again told at least for the first month to three months we need to be doing all the feeding, diaper changing, putting to bed, bathing, etc. in order for our child to be able to attach to us and not just see us as more caregivers but really see us as that constant in his life. We were warned about over-stimulation and really needing to just lay low at first. It really was fun to talk to other parents in the adoption process and get to know everyone in our class a bit more.

Answered Prayer

Yesterday was a mini emotional roller coaster ride. Cindy, another adoptive parent in our parenting class had given me a phone number to check the status of our clearance. It ended up not being the person I needed to talk to, but he was able to give me another number. After being on hold for 20 minutes I got to speak to a live person. Unfortunately, she was extremely rude. She told me my clearance had been done on 3/3/08, the same day we were fingerprinted. Before I could ask how that could be or have her check on Brian's, she said "Good Bye" and hung up. So I began to get discouraged about the situation and figured my hope for a homestudy by end of March just wasn't going to happen.

On Wednesday night at prayer meeting I gave a very specific request. We prayed that our FBI clearances would come soon and I have been praying for a while that our home study would be done end of March. There is no real reason except end of March for us meant we were moving along quickly.

Yesterday afternoon, completely out of the blue, I get a phone call from Michelle, the program director at Adoption Alliance. She called to tell me our clearances were done and they were able to fax them in to her. She later told me this was after she was talking to an associate who told her it could be 2 months to the FBI clearnaces done. Not only did she have FBI clearance in hand, but since Lori had our home study complete, Michelle had already reviewed it. She e-mailed it to Brian and I and we checked for any factual errors.

A couple hours later we had our second parenting class and at approximately 8:30 last night Michelle was e-mailing our completed home study to Martha at All God's Children. So thanks to a social worker who is FAST and to Michelle who worked late last night for us our home study is at All God's Children being reviewed. We are told to expect 5-7 days for this review to take place. Once our report is approved we proceed with 2 different steps simultaneously:

1) We mail our dossier to AGCI. This is our pile of paperwork which has been ready to go for weeks and is only missing the home study. This gets checked and then translated and authenticated (I'm still a little unsure of what all that means so maybe someone can give me an idea...)

2) We take a notarized copy of our home study report down to USCIS and turn it in. They already have our fingerprints and I-600-A application (see post dated 2/11/08). I will need to go downtown on a Tuesday morning and stand in another DMV like line to turn it in. I have no idea how long it will take to get this pre-approval for a visa for our child because so many other people's waits have varied. This approval comes in the form of a Favorable Determination Letter (FDL). It is my understanding that as soon as we have the FDL in hand we are put on the wait list (again someone please correct me if I am wrong).

We are close!

22 Days

Uuugggh. 22 days waiting on the FBI. As of late last week our names were still in the "to be processed" pile. Once they are eventually processed they get sent by snail mail to our homestudy agency. I asked if I could send them a UPS or FedEx label or pay extra to have it overnighted, anything - but the answer was no. Of course the bureaucrats have a system and we can't dare throw an overnight anything in the mix or the well-thought out, perfect, unalterable system would be messed up. Ok, enough with the sarcasm and complaining.

On a more positive note our social worker is wonderful. Way back at the beginning, I asked her if she could please have everything done by the end of March. I thought this might seem a bit pushy but she was very understanding and knows how excited we are to be on the waiting list. She said she would do her best and she hasn't failed. Last night she told me she has the report written with the exception of our third reference (that will give me something to follow up on) and the sentence about us being cleared by the FBI. So our progress can be summed up to 22 days and waiting...

Adoptive Parenting 100

So we had our first adoption parenting class last night. This is a series of four classes we are required to take through Adoption Alliance (our home study agency). There were six adoptive families represented at the class. Three of us were adopting from Ethiopia (very popular), one from China, one from Taiwan, and one from Ukraine. Now we had no idea what to expect going in to this class. We knew it was going to be 2 and 1/2 hours (wow) and it went by surprisingly fast. We learned a lot about common medical issues with internationally adopted children, brain development, and probable developmental delays our child will have. A lot of this was covered in our online classes we took for AGCI, but everything was covered in a bit more detail than online. We found out some things specific to Ethiopia. Intestinal parasites, like Giardia (which we knew) are common. Also, something we didn't know was that Tuberculosis is also very common for Ethiopian adoptees. This can also be commonly misdiagnosed because a certain vaccine a lot of international orphans have causes them to have the skin reaction when tested for TB. This is one reason we were strongly encouraged to take our child to an international adoptive specialist pediatrican because they are aware of these things. Apparently there are only 60 specialists and one is in the San Diego area. She has a ton of experience and will look at our referral for an evaluation to help us make a decision. She will only do this evaluation if we intend on being lifelong clients. I plan on looking into whether or not she accepts our insurance. On a different note, we found the situation in Ethiopia is one usually in which the parents have died or the child is relinquished because of poverty (which again we knew). What we didn't realize was this means the child has most likely lived with birth parents and or relatives and has usually had a loving environment so it is likely that our child won't have the emotional and developmental delays as severe as children from other countries might. We also viewed some sample referrals. One thing I learned about referrals (which now sounds silly to me that I didn't know this) was that you can ask questions. After taking your referral to a pediatrician for evaluation we can go back to the agency with a list of questions (if we have concerns) before making our decision. I guess I just always assumed they give you what they know and there is no way they will be able to get any more information for you. We also learned that the point of these classes is to inform us but also to help us network and meet other families in similar situations. Now I don't have high expectations of really significant relationships because our differences are so glaringly obvious, but I hope I am wrong. The majority of the room was of my parents generation, not mine. Regardless of whether we are in our 20s or 40s+, if our relationship to an 18 year old is that of sibling or child, or if we have a job or a career, we do have the adoption process in common. We learned last night that we all have the same questions. We are all nervous about the plane ride home and the potential for it to be a disaster, we all wonder what shots we need to get, and we all wonder who our child is and when we will meet him/her. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised and this commonality will over come all of our other differences allowing us to learn and grow together.

Celebrating With Sushi

Here we are with a small but important fraction of our family who helped us celebrate our final homestudy visit.

When Brian and I had our orientation phone call with AGCI, Kari explained to us that adoption is an up and down process with a series of small milestones beforing reaching the final goal of expanding our family. Yesterday we reached another small milestone in our process. We had our final meeting with our social worker (at least until after the baby is home). Lori came over to our house to inspect it. It was much less of an inspection and more of a "giving the tour" like we would for any guest. Our place is cozy so I'm pretty sure it took all of 3 minutes. She did comment on how cute and clean the place was so I would consider that a success. Knowing how small our house is made me really curious as to what could possibly take 2 hours. We ended up sitting down and chit chatting for just about the full 2 hour estimate. We answered questions that were still unclear after our one-on-one interviews. What I really liked about this appointment (if you can call it that because it was so much more comfortable than an "appointment") was that we talked more about the post-adoption experiences. We were able to discuss things like being a transracial family, how each of us are going to respond to racism, how we will react differently, and how we will teach our child about racism. We also talked about sleeping methods and how the methods need to be different for an adopted child who needs to learn to feel secure. We discussed attachment and bonding, traveling (and how scared I am that I will be THAT mom with the screaming baby on the plane and that I will be a stranger and no comfort at all to my baby), and about how messy my house will be with toys all over. Brian and I have been very blessed with a social worker who is incredibly easy to talk to, not intimidating, and truly treats us with care and wants to educate us. What an answer to prayer! Now - we wait. We wait for the FBI so Lori can complete our homestudy report. We are still hoping for the end of March.

Here's what we did all week in preparation for the home visit.

We painted our blue wall a NEW blue, re-caulked the tub/shower, and planted some flowers (our concrete slab of a backyard has never looked so good). We had to be extra careful of our new neighbors living in the BBQ. Brian discovered them the night before as he was going to cook some steaks. Luckily he opened the lid before turning it on! We ended up broiling those steaks... Of course we also did some major spring cleaning, including cleaning out and reorganizing the closets.

We're DIFFERENT

Ok, it's been a while since I have given an update, mostly because there isn't much to write about. All of our paperwork (minus one reference letter, Jo has the flu :( ) is in. Our DOJ and local police clearances are in. At this point we only need our homestudy and FBI clearances back. Our final homestudy appointment is on Sunday. This week has been crazy, stressful, etc. as we are frantically trying to finish some lingering projects and be as prepared as possible for our home inspection. We are very excited and nervous about Sunday. We (including our social worker) are hoping to have our home study report completed, with FBI clearances, by the end of the month. We will keep our fingers crossed that the FBI has our timeline in mind (haha). I recently realized I never posted anything about our 2nd home study appointment, so here goes.

In this appointment we each had separate 1 and 1/2 hour interviews with the social worker. Both Brian and I were extremely surprised how the interviews went. For a good hour of the time we were answering questions and dishing about our families and childhood. Relatively little was about our future child or our relationship with one another. I guess they figure you will parent similarly to the way you were raised. The most interesting part of my conversation with our social worker, Lori, had to do with my age. She asked me what I thought of the home study process. I answered honestly and told her I was worried she would take one look at me and write me off as being too young. She said it wasn't her place to judge only report her observations. Lori said she found me to be very mature (yes, I know), articulate, etc. for my age and that thought never crossed her mind. She congratulated us for being so young yet having a seemingly very strong marriage of almost 4 years. She was definitely choosing her words carefully at this point and said "As a mother, I would have been very concerned that you were getting married right after your 20th birthday. I think you guys have a great relationship though, your situation is just so (long, weird pause) - different. To be so young and make the decision to get married is different than most people. Then to have children right now is very different from your peers who are probably finishing college and looking for the next step in life. What is even more different is that you don't have any known fertility problems, you want to adopt, and you want to do it first. I think what you guys are doing is great, but you are just so different than most people." I think our social worker is great and loved talking to her. I realized she was being careful, as to not offend me and it didn't. This conversation was followed by me explaining to her the audacity of strangers who think they are allowed to give their opinion on me being married and "looking like a baby" myself. I explained that this is definitely occurring a lot less as I have gotten older but expect it to start up again once we have our little boy!! I have already started mentally preparing to bite my tongue and smile at people who are SO out of line :).

The more I think about this conversation the more thrilled I am. As a Christian, what a wonderful compliment. We are in this world, but try not to be of it. We are DIFFERENT! It's always a little nerve-racking explaining to strangers (like our social worker), who might not understand our reasoning. We are adopting in answer God's call on our lives and in service to Him. In doing so we will be blessed by having the opportunity to be parents. It's been very exciting for me to hear that we are different. Whether people mean it as a compliment or a criticism, I can't help but be happy that we are making choices that are DIFFERENT - what a great testimony!!

I Would Gather Children

Some would gather money
Along the path of life,
Some would gather roses,
And rest from worldly strife;
But, I would gather children
From among the thorns of sin,
I would seek a golden curl,
And a freckled, toothless grin.
For money cannot enter
In that land of endless day,
And roses that are gathered
Soon will wilt along the way.
But, oh, the laughing children,
As I cross the sunset sea,
And the gates swing wide to heaven
I can take them in with me.

-Author Unknown

I loved this and stole it off of Amy's blog!

Journals and Lifebooks

We recently completed our online parenting classes. We really enjoyed them. One staggering statistic we learned was that Ethiopia has the largest number of HIV infected people in the WORLD! Our hearts truly break for the Ethiopians and the pain they endure in their daily lives. We love learning about Ethiopia but not everything we learn is positive. Our hearts absolutely hurt when we hear of the poverty and disease they have to deal with and pray we can be used by God to make a difference in the lives of the Ethiopians.

Another thing we enjoyed learning about in our classes were lifebooks. One class helped explain the importance of journaling our adoption experience and creating a lifebook for our child. I am planning on starting a journal (other than this blog) about the adoption process. Does anyone have any ideas about a lifebook? How does that differ from a typical scrapbook with photos? What things will be important to our adopted child that I might not think about?

In Awe of God's Provision

Brian and I have been talking about how in awe we are of God's provision. Just 2 short months ago we started this process and it has been a complete step of faith. Although American's are generally the wealthiest people in the world, most of us don't have the funds necessary for adoption just lying around. We started this process confident in God's ability to provide for us and He has not let us down! Each step of the way we have just enough. Praise the Lord!! So, thank you to all of you have have supported us in so many different ways. We truly appreciate it!

Movin' Right Along

The medical forms are complete. The local police clearance has been turned in. One of three references has finished. We are down to needing 2 more references to finish (they just got the paperwork so I will give them some time!) and our clearance letters from Department of Justice, local sheriffs office, and FBI. ALL OF MY PAPERWORK is in. So here comes the hard part - not being in control of what is left and maintaining patience. We have our second homestudy appointment tomorrow and our third on the 16th.

We are starting to prepare for the home visit. Yesterday we bought a fire extinguisher, cupboard laches, outlet plug thingys, and foam bumpers for our sharp cornered coffee table. I wanted to show the social worker we are preparing even though it may be a year before there is a crawling baby in the house! To help pass the time I am thinking about doing a whole lot of unnecessary things like re-paint a living room wall a DIFFERENT shade of blue, paint the bathroom, put in closet organizers, and maybe start transforming the guest room into a nursery. I know the social worker won't care what color my walls are but this judgement is good motivation to get lingering projects done pre-baby.

And maybe we will plant some flowers in the flower pots that have been empty for 2 years, and finish tacking down the baseboard behind the t.v., and ...

Ethiopian Food, Anyone?

So, we had our first experience with Ethiopian food. Well, it was my first experience. Come to find out Brian had it before while living in DC but he was holding out on me and didn't tell me he had ever had it until we were eating. Maybe because he knows his wife very well :). There is a surprisingly large Ethiopian community in San Diego. There are three Ethiopian restaurants, I think a community center (although I am having trouble finding information on it), and lots of churches. I would like to try out one of the evangelical Christian Ethiopian churches sometime (even though we have a different home church). So I loved the art work in the restaurant, the service was very friendly, but the food was a little rough. I'm really not that picky of an eater, but there are two things I really don't like: meat on the bone and spicy. Well, our food had both. We went on a night when there was a buffet and only a buffet. Some of the dishes weren't warm so that could have been part of the problem. The injera was okay and I loved all the varieties of veggies. Everything was a mushy consistency which surprised me. The flavors were unlike anything I have ever tried and I genuinely enjoyed the flavors but my mouth was on FIRE!!! The tej (honey wine) I had did help a little. Although I wouldn't say I enjoyed my meal, I look forward to eating Ethiopian food again and embracing more of this cultural aspect of our child's birth country - but I can't promise the Ethiopian food won't be followed up with a McDonald's drive though. P.S. Brian loved the food and I'm pretty sure his fingers (I did a no no and used a plastic fork) still smell like Ethiopian food. We need an Ethiopian to show us how to scoop using the injera without making a mess of ourselves.

Paperwork Update

We can see the end of the pile! For our AGCI paperwork we still need police clearances and reference letters. Our references are working on their letters and I am hoping we can make a trip to our local police station with our notary tomorrow.

For our Adoption Alliance paperwork we are waiting on the reference letters and the results of our criminal background checks from the FBI and DOJ. We are told the FBI clearance could take a month but are really crossing our fingers to get it by the end of March. We need to go to the Dr.'s again today to show her the results of our TB test and then she can send in the medical report. I can't believe this but everything else is done!!

We got our third and final home study appointment scheduled. It is March 16th! I told our social worker we were really hoping to have a completed home study by the end of the month. She said a lot will depend on how quickly the clearances come back but she doesn't see why the end of the month wouldn't work since we are getting our paperwork in so quickly!!