You and me together...we can do anything

Where has 9 months gone...oh wait, to my belly...as everyone knows we are expecting our first babe any day now.

 Simultaneously, we are working on the Adoption as well. February 5th we heard from our Agency that ICBF had finally reviewed our packet and needed our updated med records and FBI prints. We sent those in last month and we are now officially approved from the Colombian government. Wahoo! Once we have the baby, we will notify them of the change and then will resume the process once the baby is 1 y.o. (ICBF requirement).

 It has been crazy down there, ICBF has been trying since last summer to get their arms around their case workload and ensuring that the children available are truly available. ICBF and other Hague treaty countries (US included) met last month to discuss what has been uncovered and come to a general decision on Colombian adoptions. They decided that they will no longer be accepting new applications for a single child 0-6 y.o. in order to process through the families they currently have waiting. This does not impact us in anyway as they had already reviewed our case and we are looking for a sibling pair 0-7 y.o. Our agency does not know if this process change will speed up the referrals, they have asked and are waiting to see what happens. There are still thousands of orphans there and hopefully with the help of the other HAGUE countries those babes will be able to be matched with their families sooner rather than later.

Our hearts are still in Colombia and we look forward to seeing how these changes positively impact the process and are hopeful by next year they will be ready for us to meet our babes! :)

 Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we journey down the child birthing process! Eek!!

 Hearts and stars!! M and C

Oh great light of love

I spoke with CHI this week and there is another family who submitted at the beginning of March to the ICBF. We submitted at the end. Neither of us have been approved yet from the ICBF. They are hopeful our approval will happen soon and will let us know as soon as it does. Sometimes our approval will come with a referral...sometimes it will be two separate things...CRAZY thought we could be parents approx 45 days from approval and referral or longer. Upon referral you get 30 days to review it, have a MD look at the medical records...etc... Once accepted you have to get VISAs and your travel date...depending on what is going on at the Embassy it could be quick or another 30 days until we travel. Thanks everyone for continuing to follow and support us on this journey!! Cannot wait to meet our babes someday!! Amaral family vacation this week and next! Excited to relax and enjoy spending time with my hubby and everyone else!! Our first cruise so I am a bit nervous :) per Shaggy's recommendation I have my sea bands and the ginger candies ready to go...and some wine! :) Need to find some outfits that will compliment my life vest accessory. XOXO C and M

Colombia is on the move again...

As some of you may have heard from us, we had a bit of a concern when individuals on a Yahoo Group I belong to stated that Colombia was not giving any more children for international adoption after the lineage investigations concluded at the ICBF. Great news is that we heard from our agency that there were 3 referrals given in August at the conclusion of the investigations, and there are 5 dossiers that have been sent out to region to be matched with a child and 4 families waiting to travel to complete their adoption. This is fantastic!! We have not heard about our approval from the ICBF yet, as some of you may recall, they initially told us 3-5 months, probably earlier for us since we are young, childless, and have pretty open desires for our children. August 30th would be 5 months from our dossier being sent in March. I am holding off on asking as I do not want to be the crazy person that keeps asking if there is any news, we committed to waiting until we get back from the cruise to ask what our status is. Maybe we will be lucky enough to get it while we are at sea, who knows! :)

John Kerry and the fight for less broken hearts in Adoption

Some of you may have heard about HAGUE accredited agencies and countries vs. non-HAGUE. The difference is ethics, corruption and transparency. Adoption sometimes can be a difficult journey with the amount of money one invests in the process, there are governments that take advantage of the emotional highs and lows one faces and the money one sacrifices to create their family. Laws like HAGUE and the one that John Kerry and some other Senators are working with help families to get the child they are promised instead of traveling to country and finding the same child was taken by another family or said child never existed. In these countries there is no one to contact to let them know the lies this experience was based on as the government is the obstacle. These families then return home childless and having spent all the money associated with the adoption process. Hopefully with these types of laws in place, it will reduce the wait time one has to wait to get their referall and eliminate the length of time children are without these families. Legislative Update: Universal Accreditation Introduced Two identical bills were recently introduced, one in the House, one in the Senate, to amend the Intercountry Adoption Act, expanding the requirement for accreditation for all US adoption agencies offering intercountry adoption services. Both versions have been introduced and are now in Committee. The full text of the amendments can be found here (they are identical): House version: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr6027/text Senate version: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s3331/text The following is the press release from the Senate: June 22, 1012 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) and Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) along with Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced legislation to elevate and standardize adoption services across the globe to safeguard against corruption and fraudulent adoptions. After years of conflicting, country-by-country standards for Adoption Service Providers (ASPs), the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012 will for the first time universalize the accreditation process for all ASPs. The legislation would elevate standards, requiring all ASPs to comply with current, stronger requirements upheld for ASPs working with Hague countries. The new accreditation standard would help safeguard against corruption and fraud in the adoption process. “The safety of children across the globe should be our number one concern in the adoption process and this commonsense reform will help us get them placed into safe and loving homes. Piecemeal, conflicting adoption standards have made far too many cracks and chasms in the system that left room for corruption, deception, and often outright fraudulent adoptions. I’m grateful to our Ranking Member Dick Lugar and Senators Landrieu and Inhofe for partnering with me in this effort to elevate and put in place universal adoption standards that make kids the priority,” said U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “The United States adopts more children from overseas than any other nation. Many of these children have serious medical conditions, often requiring significant and costly medical attention, yet, regardless, Americans open their hearts and homes to them. This legislation establishes uniform standards that would provide American families with certainty that they are working with an accredited American adoption service provider, regardless of the country they are adopting from. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Mary Landrieu and Jim Inhofe, two of the Senate’s leaders in this field, as well the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry,” said U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “Mandatory accreditation will ensure that the adoption process between the U.S. and other countries is lawful and safe for an adopted child and respectful of the families involved. Additionally, I hope that this bill will prompt the U.S. Department of State to consider financially supporting the accrediting entities to relieve part of the financial burden on smaller agencies and to ensure a robust accreditation process,” said U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA). “Standardizing the accreditation process for international adoptions will provide additional protections for both the child and the adopting family. The patchwork of adoption standards that currently exist have resulted in a situation that is not optimal for protecting the international children being offered for adoption. It has also resulted in fraud and corruption that has devastated loving American families who are willing to make many sacrifices to adopt internationally. This legislation is the right approach to fix the problems that currently exist,” said U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. The Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA) specified that accreditation or approval is required in order to provide adoption services in cases subject to the Hague Convention with limited exceptions. The IAA defines the parameters of accreditation for the organizations providing services to prospective adoptive parents and charges the Department of State with responsibility of the accreditation process. The Kerry-Lugar bill would apply the accreditation requirement universally to all ASPs – those operating in both Hague and non-Hague countries. http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/kerry-lugar-bill-would-help-prevent-corrupt-fraudulent-adoptions-abroad

Blogger Hiatus

My apologies for not having posted in some time...there is not much to report. As you remember, we submitted our dossier for translation and approval from the ICBF on 3/23/12 which should have arrived in country on 3/30/2012... In the mean time, a Colombian native wrote an article about the ICBF being a child trafficking ring and a big thanks to the lovely Secret Service agents who decided to enjoy themselves in some extracurricular activities... Needless to say no bueno for those trying to adopt from there... For those that do not know, the ICBF is similar to DCYF in that it is a government agency that determines if the parents are not suitable or if the children are legally abandoned. In response to this article the ICBF is reviewing all cases to ensure the children are definitely abandoned and that there is no next of kin who wants to parent them. We are not sure how long this is going to take... Our social worker informed us that our translation to approval should be 3-5 months, she was hoping for the sooner but with these challenges arising it seems that we may be waiting until the end of August. Once this happens then we go onto the wait list for a sibling pair newborn to 7. We are still hoping for our December wish but we will see what happens! Matthew and I are focusing on controlling what we can and leave the rest up to those we have trusted to bring these babies to us! On another note, through one of our adoption conferences we heard of a language book and CD created by an adoptive mom. Check it out, there are multiple languages and you can buy it on Amazon. "Simple Spanish for Adoptive Families" by Amy Kendall...we want our children to retain their native language and yes they will learn English as well but what a great way to relate to them and make them feel accepted then by learning some key phrases yourself. This might by part of the Yankee swap this year, of course with a bottle of wine! :) Cheers!

Our dossier is traveling to Colombia!!

We received an email from our placement agency yesterday that I wanted to share with you all:

"CONGRATS!!! Your dossier was sent this week to Colombia!!!
 
So, your dossier takes a week to get there, then it takes at least a month to get translated, sometimes longer, depending on the amount of work that the translator has. The translator is officially approved by ICBF. Then your dossier is automatically handed into ICBF and we await approval of your dossier. It takes 3-5 months for approval. Hopefully yours will go more quickly (3 months) as you are asking for older siblings, but again, we have no control over this. We don’t hear anything until the approval process is done and they let us know you are approved and on what date, OR they contact us, asking for more information on your case."
 
Moving along in the adoption world!!!!! So once all this happens they send our packet or dossier as it is technically called into Region, this could be anywhere in the country where they have a sibling pair age newborn to 7. Once that is done we would then receive our referral. Short time frame is 3-4 months, long time frame year to year and a half. Since we are both young and without any other children we should get preferential but who knows! :)

Dossier submission

WE GOT OUR APPROVAL FOR USCIS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!! This means we are approved through the US government to adopt internationally! We should be able to submit our dossier to Colombia for translation by the end of next week! We ARE SO PUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you everyone who has helped us with all the paperwork (I counted the other day while I was making copies and it came to 97 pages) whether you were notarizing, apostilling, or putting recommendations together!!! You have no idea how much your part in this means to us!