Poland tomorrow, holy smokes time has flown by!
We also got the final draft of our home study today so we can send it to USCIS for the petition to adopt international children. Ou social worker has to send it to our placement agency to get their approval, she will then get it notarized and apostilled and send it FedEx to USCIS. We are sending in all of our dossier documentation to our placement agency for them to translate it all and put our packet together! Hooray! It has been a crazy time! The house stuff, the adoption, school, and work...who's idea was this?
The best thing our social worker said to me yesterday was that normally they do not have this many recommendations to go through and the letters she read were the best she has ever read...so thank you to all of those that wrote those letters, your payoff will be in the mail soon! :)
Hugs and Kisses!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
ICBF dossier turn around time
A contact in Colombia sends out an update every few months in regards to the dates that the ICBF (this is the country org that matches the child to the family) has provided referrals to families. It demonstrates how long the process can be, there are still some families looking for a child from 2008, but their criteria is very specific. Here is the sibling list.
2 Siblings 0 - 4 years --- Apr - 2008
2 Siblings 0 - 5 years --- Feb - 2008
2 Siblings 0 - 6 years --- Sep - 2009
2 Siblings 0 - 7 years --- Apr - 2010*
2 Siblings 0 - 8 years --- Mar - 2011
For our specifications which is asterisked above; this family submitted their dossier in April 2010 and received their referral in November 2011. So total time after their dossier was complete is 18 months. They could have more specifications then we have such as gender preferences.
Here is the information from our placement agency as to what has happened thus far in 2010.
Referrals for October 2011:
1, 16 month old boy from Montería
2 sibling girls from Cali - Ages 14 and 11
Families currently in country to adopt:
1, 15 month old girl from Cali – special case
1, 16 month old boy from Monteria
Completed Adoptions for 2011:
14 families/27 children
Current # of Application Families: 48
Current # of Dossier Families waiting for a referral: 45
Current # of Dossier Families with dossiers sent out to a region, awaiting their referrals: 7
Current # of Families with referrals waiting to travel: 1
2 Siblings 0 - 4 years --- Apr - 2008
2 Siblings 0 - 5 years --- Feb - 2008
2 Siblings 0 - 6 years --- Sep - 2009
2 Siblings 0 - 7 years --- Apr - 2010*
2 Siblings 0 - 8 years --- Mar - 2011
For our specifications which is asterisked above; this family submitted their dossier in April 2010 and received their referral in November 2011. So total time after their dossier was complete is 18 months. They could have more specifications then we have such as gender preferences.
Here is the information from our placement agency as to what has happened thus far in 2010.
Referrals for October 2011:
1, 16 month old boy from Montería
2 sibling girls from Cali - Ages 14 and 11
Families currently in country to adopt:
1, 15 month old girl from Cali – special case
1, 16 month old boy from Monteria
Completed Adoptions for 2011:
14 families/27 children
Current # of Application Families: 48
Current # of Dossier Families waiting for a referral: 45
Current # of Dossier Families with dossiers sent out to a region, awaiting their referrals: 7
Current # of Families with referrals waiting to travel: 1
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Secretary of State
The dossier checklist has been reduced to our home study and our I-800A form (petition to adopt); we cannot submit our I-800A until we have our home study, something I overlooked in starting the paper work process. Yesterday concluded the apostilling as well. I went into Boston for an interview and decided that I would bring of a change of clothes with me to go get the documents apostilled at the Secretary of States office. You can bring up to 4 documents and they will do it while you are standing there. I find the location which is right behind the capitol building. Great walk and it was 60 degrees out in November!
And so the story begins...
I go through security and get upstairs to the 17 floor where the public records people are going to apostille our Medical certificate and psych evaluation. The gentleman (known as Mr. Uptight in the rest of the story) that works there comes to the counter and starts verifying what the notary has written to ensure proper word usage and a completed form. He looks at the Medical Record which if you remember we had to get tested at the MD's office, then our NP had to wait for results, then contact a notary once she had them to complete the rest of the document and notarize her signature; this process took 3 weeks to receive the paper back and I gave them a self-addressed and stamped envelope. Mr. Uptight informs me that the form is filled out incorrectly, he begins to explain to me in a condescending manner no less that his job at this office is to ensure that the notary is doing their job appropriately, using the right terminology and documenting it on the form correctly, and they are told this during their swearing in. This notary did not list what document verified who our NP was and he did not use the correct Notary wording as written on the back of the pamphlet that Mr. Uptight passes across that table to me. I say to him excuse me sir but as I am sure you are aware from these papers that we are in the process of international adoption and there is a lot of paperwork that must be notarized and apostilled; I get what your role is in the process as this is our 35th document that we have needed to take care of. He looks at me with a blank face. He says well I can only do this other form that is filled out correctly (I had placed a $12 check on the counter for my two documents at the start of all this) and how will you be paying for this? I moved the check closer to him and he said well this is filled out for $12 and you owe $6, do you have cash or another check? No sir I do not have either. Well there is an ATM downstairs where you can get the cash out. Ok and he hands me back my forms. I go downstairs and of course the ATM is outside of security and it is not BOA. I take out $10 because as the man told me I can only get one form today because the notary does not follow directions. I go back through security upstairs with my $10 and hand in our psych evaluation. While I am waiting for the receipt from this nice woman (I am now standing in line hoping I do not have to go back to this fool for anything else) Mr. Uptight looks at me and says you know that you can get a certified copy of this document from the notary at the citizens bank downstairs then we can attach the two documents together and apostille them as one. No sir I did not (why would I???). Yes miss the bank is right down the hill and then you can come back and we will apostille it. In my brain...why didn't you tell me this before I went down took out not enough money now to get both and went back through security! I just smiled at him took my one document and left. I huffed it downhill to the bank (if anyone knows where Suffolk is it is on the same hill), the bank man ask me if I am a Citizens customer to which I answer no, and which bank do you bank with miss, BOA, why didn't he send you to BOA. With all due respect sir I do not think the gentleman who works for the SOS cares what banking institution I personally use. Man: Miss well I will need you to write out exactly what they want on the form and then I will notarize it. Great! Once that is done I leave and got to the ATM again take out cash and huff it back up the hill. Thank goodness for bringing my TOMS and not still being in those darn heels. I go back through security and head back up to the 17th floor and there is a line 10 deep. Would they call me to the front since I am now going on my third time...nope! So I wait hoping that I do not get Mr. Uptight and thankfully I get the sweet gram to help me out, she takes care of it and I am out of there. Of course as you know, I made sure to excuse myself to Mr. Uptight as he was helping someone else and say with a big smile, thank you so much for all your help I truly appreciate it! And turn on my TOMS and leave.
Ugh! Our babes will all be worth this in the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And so the story begins...
I go through security and get upstairs to the 17 floor where the public records people are going to apostille our Medical certificate and psych evaluation. The gentleman (known as Mr. Uptight in the rest of the story) that works there comes to the counter and starts verifying what the notary has written to ensure proper word usage and a completed form. He looks at the Medical Record which if you remember we had to get tested at the MD's office, then our NP had to wait for results, then contact a notary once she had them to complete the rest of the document and notarize her signature; this process took 3 weeks to receive the paper back and I gave them a self-addressed and stamped envelope. Mr. Uptight informs me that the form is filled out incorrectly, he begins to explain to me in a condescending manner no less that his job at this office is to ensure that the notary is doing their job appropriately, using the right terminology and documenting it on the form correctly, and they are told this during their swearing in. This notary did not list what document verified who our NP was and he did not use the correct Notary wording as written on the back of the pamphlet that Mr. Uptight passes across that table to me. I say to him excuse me sir but as I am sure you are aware from these papers that we are in the process of international adoption and there is a lot of paperwork that must be notarized and apostilled; I get what your role is in the process as this is our 35th document that we have needed to take care of. He looks at me with a blank face. He says well I can only do this other form that is filled out correctly (I had placed a $12 check on the counter for my two documents at the start of all this) and how will you be paying for this? I moved the check closer to him and he said well this is filled out for $12 and you owe $6, do you have cash or another check? No sir I do not have either. Well there is an ATM downstairs where you can get the cash out. Ok and he hands me back my forms. I go downstairs and of course the ATM is outside of security and it is not BOA. I take out $10 because as the man told me I can only get one form today because the notary does not follow directions. I go back through security upstairs with my $10 and hand in our psych evaluation. While I am waiting for the receipt from this nice woman (I am now standing in line hoping I do not have to go back to this fool for anything else) Mr. Uptight looks at me and says you know that you can get a certified copy of this document from the notary at the citizens bank downstairs then we can attach the two documents together and apostille them as one. No sir I did not (why would I???). Yes miss the bank is right down the hill and then you can come back and we will apostille it. In my brain...why didn't you tell me this before I went down took out not enough money now to get both and went back through security! I just smiled at him took my one document and left. I huffed it downhill to the bank (if anyone knows where Suffolk is it is on the same hill), the bank man ask me if I am a Citizens customer to which I answer no, and which bank do you bank with miss, BOA, why didn't he send you to BOA. With all due respect sir I do not think the gentleman who works for the SOS cares what banking institution I personally use. Man: Miss well I will need you to write out exactly what they want on the form and then I will notarize it. Great! Once that is done I leave and got to the ATM again take out cash and huff it back up the hill. Thank goodness for bringing my TOMS and not still being in those darn heels. I go back through security and head back up to the 17th floor and there is a line 10 deep. Would they call me to the front since I am now going on my third time...nope! So I wait hoping that I do not get Mr. Uptight and thankfully I get the sweet gram to help me out, she takes care of it and I am out of there. Of course as you know, I made sure to excuse myself to Mr. Uptight as he was helping someone else and say with a big smile, thank you so much for all your help I truly appreciate it! And turn on my TOMS and leave.
Ugh! Our babes will all be worth this in the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Ouchless bandaids
The past two weeks have been a little busy; we finished our psych evaluation with a 567 true/false question personality test (MMPI). Dr. Coleman said please answer honestly to the best of your ability, the test was built to assess different psych disease states and it can also score those that are trying to trick the test. I have taken a ton of these because at my previous employer these tests were everything and were used for a variety of circumstances including climbing the ladder in any direction you had to take a different one or there was an updated version every 6 months. So as you all know me I was nervous to take this test just as I have not been a test taker for my ENTIRE life; I always get anxious and cannot concentrate. No matter how I study or what I do, I get nervous. As Matthew sat with me in the waiting room, he looks at me and knows I am nervous and laughs. I had to laugh too as there is no reason to be nervous but all I kept thinking about was this is the line to get our babies so I need to be perfect. So I am going to share with you some thoughts that went through my brain as I am answering these 567 questions. "Are you afraid of lightning? True; Have you ever wanted to be a member of the opposite sex? My brain says well sometimes when I have to pee outside at DMB concerts but I'll answer False; Do you think that others can read your mind? Well is you are asking me this because of I have honest facial expressions then True; Do you find yourself thinking faster then you speak? True; Do you love your mother? True; Do you enjoy being at large parties with a lot of noise and a lot of people? True; Do you have moments of complete excitement for no reason? False...the test measures depression, hysteria, hypochondriasis, paranoia, social introversion... We shall see how it comes back! :)
This week we also got our past two year tax returns notarized and they are now on their way to the Secretary of State to be apostilled. Today we went to our MD to get our medical testing done; 4 vials of blood drawn and a skin tests. We have to wait for those results and then get them notarized and apostilled. My skin test was still bleeding before we left so the RN gave me a bandaid. When we got home I tried to take it off and MAN did that hurt. I said to Matt "Babe don't they make ouchless bandaids" and his response was "I think you are a bit old for those." I have more arm hair then a child!!!
Our placement agent, Nichole emailed us today with approval for our introductory letter, now we need to get that notarized as well. Nichole is leaving for Colombia tomorrow for 10 days! Cannot wait to see her pictures and here all the news of what is going on with the ICBF and Colombia in general!
This week we also got our past two year tax returns notarized and they are now on their way to the Secretary of State to be apostilled. Today we went to our MD to get our medical testing done; 4 vials of blood drawn and a skin tests. We have to wait for those results and then get them notarized and apostilled. My skin test was still bleeding before we left so the RN gave me a bandaid. When we got home I tried to take it off and MAN did that hurt. I said to Matt "Babe don't they make ouchless bandaids" and his response was "I think you are a bit old for those." I have more arm hair then a child!!!
Our placement agent, Nichole emailed us today with approval for our introductory letter, now we need to get that notarized as well. Nichole is leaving for Colombia tomorrow for 10 days! Cannot wait to see her pictures and here all the news of what is going on with the ICBF and Colombia in general!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Color aware
Some blurbs from our Adoption Learning Partners course work; we need to complete 10 hours of online courses for Colombia since it is a HAGUE country. Food for thought.
"Consider the spotlight. Children in conspicuous families often feel like a spotlight is shining on them when intrusive questions are asked. When you respond, make sure that whatever you say affirms both your child and your family as a whole. That will take the spotlight off the child and put it on the family, where it belongs.
It means that your family stands out.
It means that your family is different.
It means that, because of racial differences, your child's adoption is obvious, public, and visible.
It means that you can't deal with issues of adoption when you choose to, but whenever comments, questions or odd looks are sent in your direction."
Some questions could be "Is that your real child or are they real siblings?; How much did you pay for them?; That's so nice of you; Was their mother one of those crackheads?"
How are we going to respond to these people? Sarcasm, humor or education. How are our children going to feel when they hear others asking these questions? How do we respond to ensure we are not singling out the babes and responding as a unit; one family? Is it ignorance and/or lack of social awareness?
"Consider the spotlight. Children in conspicuous families often feel like a spotlight is shining on them when intrusive questions are asked. When you respond, make sure that whatever you say affirms both your child and your family as a whole. That will take the spotlight off the child and put it on the family, where it belongs.
It means that your family stands out.
It means that your family is different.
It means that, because of racial differences, your child's adoption is obvious, public, and visible.
It means that you can't deal with issues of adoption when you choose to, but whenever comments, questions or odd looks are sent in your direction."
Some questions could be "Is that your real child or are they real siblings?; How much did you pay for them?; That's so nice of you; Was their mother one of those crackheads?"
How are we going to respond to these people? Sarcasm, humor or education. How are our children going to feel when they hear others asking these questions? How do we respond to ensure we are not singling out the babes and responding as a unit; one family? Is it ignorance and/or lack of social awareness?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Stress ceiling
Yesterday we had our first "formal" meeting with our psychiatrist. We found her through Leah @ A Red Thread. Dr. Coleman rents out Leah's office space. We had the option to use a psych through our placement agency however we would never meet the person as she resides in CA. What an investment? NOT. So instead we are using Dr. Anne Coleman; she is an adoptive mom of two gorgeous Chinese girls, not bio siblings and an adoptee herself. She's amazing; we spent about an hour and forty-five minutes talking through our life as a couple = our infamous first introduction and the history from then on; how are families have reacted to us adopting; are we prepared for the potential issues (attachment, grief, loss, anger, ambiguity) that could arise in adopting older children; are our families prepared to handle this as well; what we think is appropriate discipline for our children; how do we deal with stress and what is our stress ceiling...etc... So many stories to share and so little time, I remember back in Speech class at CCRI when I had to stand up there and discuss my topic on "most admired person in my life" or what not it seemed that 5 minutes lasted FOREVER! Now in speaking about this ENORMOUS adventure we are embarking on and seeing my husband so excited when he discusses the aspect of having children to another adult, this is the best ride EVER! The best part about all this for me right now is the silent communication Matt and I have; when we are asked a questions whether it be a couple question or a individual question we both look at each other with an awareness of what is going to be told exactly. Driving back and forth to NH many moons ago to see Matt was a great experience, but the coolest part was the amount of phone conversations we had during the weeks apart when we knew what we both wanted and when; we were not like most couples who got to hang out all the time every day so our relationship was initially built on asking a lot of questions and answering things that you would not normally answer to early on in a relationship...its cool to be on the same team without even really recognizing it until now.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Picnic
Yesterday we attended A Red Thread Adoption annual picnic. At first I was bit apprehensive in going because I thought that seeing all these families with the kids would make me a bit anxious for us to get ours...NO WAY...it made us both inspired. Inspired to see how many families Leah has been able to directly impact; a one person show impacting over 100 individual families. She knows all their names and all their stories...nothing short of AMAZING! Inspired to see how happy these families are and how diverse the domestic and international adoptions have become. Children were walking up to us introducing themselves and telling us they spoke Russian or are from China and/or that they are adopted. I loved how open it was; when my Mom and I talked about my Gram Holt's adoption, my mom said it was a topic not discussed outside the home and her mom did not tell her until her wedding day. Wow times have changed!! These kids are empowered at such a young age, SO awesome!! Inspired that although we have chosen to adopt before having bio children almost all of these families did not have this choice and they chose to move past their sadness, disappointment, frustration and provide a home to a child that did not have one. And inspired to button up our last pieces of our dossier and get this party bus moving along.
We went to our first psych eval meeting; we have four more to go. With this time frame we are thinking we will have everything to Colombia by mid-October. I am sending in our finger prints this week to the FBI. Then we need to make an appointment to have some tests done by our Doctor and get a letter of economic capacity from Matt's employer. That's it!!! It seems like it has been a lot of paperwork but we started this journey in April and we are only in August!
I began reading more into what defines "waiting children"; this is a phrase used typically for children with some form of special needs. We knew early on that we wanted to have healthy children as with Damien and Devon (Matt's godsons) being terminable with their Muscular Dystrophy we did not want to add to this. I found out that a sibling group of 3 and/or children over 8 years old are considered "waiting" in Colombia...what to do?!?!? Our dear friend Tom said to us when we began this journey, "what if they call you with a referral and say we have two but there are three other siblings who are being separated...you guys would never say no, Casey may but Matt won't..." What path are we going to take? :) Sean and I always said we wanted our kids to have A LOT of cousins like we did growing up (17 first cousins)!
We went to our first psych eval meeting; we have four more to go. With this time frame we are thinking we will have everything to Colombia by mid-October. I am sending in our finger prints this week to the FBI. Then we need to make an appointment to have some tests done by our Doctor and get a letter of economic capacity from Matt's employer. That's it!!! It seems like it has been a lot of paperwork but we started this journey in April and we are only in August!
I began reading more into what defines "waiting children"; this is a phrase used typically for children with some form of special needs. We knew early on that we wanted to have healthy children as with Damien and Devon (Matt's godsons) being terminable with their Muscular Dystrophy we did not want to add to this. I found out that a sibling group of 3 and/or children over 8 years old are considered "waiting" in Colombia...what to do?!?!? Our dear friend Tom said to us when we began this journey, "what if they call you with a referral and say we have two but there are three other siblings who are being separated...you guys would never say no, Casey may but Matt won't..." What path are we going to take? :) Sean and I always said we wanted our kids to have A LOT of cousins like we did growing up (17 first cousins)!
Monday, August 15, 2011
Notary, Apostilling...
In receiving the information from our placement agency, Children's Hope International (CHI), we realized all the paperwork we need to gather in addition to all the paperwork we needed to gather for our home study. Our documents need to be notarized and then some even need to be apostilled by the Secretary of State. We need fingerprints notarized, FBI background checks, letters from our Doctor, a letter from our CPA, notarized reference letters, photo albums for the kids (which I put together and were quite fun to do!), a photo book for the Institute of Child Welfare in Colombia (ICBF), a letter of Introduction for the ICBF, copies of our passports, a psych eval...the list goes on and on...this is why the "dossier" which is what this total package is called takes the longest amount of time. Today we got in some of our apostilling = our birth records, our marriage certificate and an affidavit of our names. We sent this in last week and got it right back so I am excited for the turn around of our documents thus far. Now we are waiting for Leah to continue to put together our home study then we need to send it to our placement agency for approval and then to our psych person the placement agency uses. A lot of stamps will be used over the next few months... :) Biggest things I have learned with all of this is being organized and being patient. Thank goodness CHI gave us a checklist for all this paperwork, you all know how much I love checklists! :)
On a side note Leah sent me an email this week letting me know that she began the home study process with a new family this week who is interested in adopting from Latin America. The coolest thing about this process we have found is the openness EVERYONE has been to speaking with us and sharing information. Now we get to share information with ours and help them on this journey too. SO cool!
Cheers!
On a side note Leah sent me an email this week letting me know that she began the home study process with a new family this week who is interested in adopting from Latin America. The coolest thing about this process we have found is the openness EVERYONE has been to speaking with us and sharing information. Now we get to share information with ours and help them on this journey too. SO cool!
Cheers!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The steps...
Matthew and I have completed the home study. We did the process a bit backwards but it is because we are using two agencies instead of a one stop shop. Typically you would find an agency that does it all and you begin with the home study after you have selected a country and such.
We are waiting for the social worker to put together our story from her perspective; we had 6 visits with her where we chatted about why we want to adopt, our family, our lives, our views on parenting, why Colombia, why two children (siblings) from age newborn to 7, why no gender preference, why healthy children, what are our views on schools, religion, teenage pregnancy, contacting birth parents, abuse both emotional and physical, what are our support systems like, who are our friends that have children and what is our interaction with them, thoughts on children with disabilities, empowering our children to feel comfortable discussing the adoption, our siblings, our parents, our Children's caretakers in case something happens to us, the diversity in our town and living area, do we have remodels of color for our kids... list can go on and on. We answered a lot of questions we never thought to ask ourselves when we become biological parents. Leah gave us homework of watching a few videos in adoption and doing a test provided by PACT; the "test" demonstrated some pretty crazy facts about us and also showed how different our upbringings were but in a good way. FYI the #1 cause of death for African Americans is not gun wounds...it is heart disease. We also realized that we do not know a lot of diverse history, meaning diverse inventors and such...we need to do more research about Colombia and it's history!!
Then we had to find a placement agency, Leah had recommended we look at online blogs for reviews from parents, that we look into the state website to see how may children have come in from various countries this past year and email agencies on the ACONE list we received to ask them questions about their agency. In doing all this we probably emailed 25 agencies and narrowed our country list down to 13. Then I got on some yahoo groups and we narrowed down our placement agency to Children's Hope International and Colombia. Our choices were primarily based on how the children were treated while waiting to be adopted; in most orphanages children are two to a crib or bed, they are rarely held and there attachment with their new parents takes an extraordinary amount of time; in Colombia most children adopted from CHI are in foster care, their mami's give them constant love and affection, they educate the child on adoption and their new parents. CHI had amazing reviews from families adopting for various countries and in speaking with the agents they were timely and thorough, which as you all know me these things are VERY important.
Now we are gathering our international documents for CHI, we received a booklet of about 35 pages of things we need to gather, get notarized, finger prints, pictures, apostilling...etc... The faster we get this information together the better, typically the year time frame starts from when you submit your dossier which is this content. So if we can get this in by October and the typical turn around time from Colombia is 2-4 weeks then our time frame of next Christmas will hopefully come true.
For those that have thought about adoption and such, here are some sites to check out. Xoxo!
http://adoption.state.gov/
http://www.childrenshopeint.org/
http://www.pactadopt.org/
http://www.redthreadadopt.org/
We are waiting for the social worker to put together our story from her perspective; we had 6 visits with her where we chatted about why we want to adopt, our family, our lives, our views on parenting, why Colombia, why two children (siblings) from age newborn to 7, why no gender preference, why healthy children, what are our views on schools, religion, teenage pregnancy, contacting birth parents, abuse both emotional and physical, what are our support systems like, who are our friends that have children and what is our interaction with them, thoughts on children with disabilities, empowering our children to feel comfortable discussing the adoption, our siblings, our parents, our Children's caretakers in case something happens to us, the diversity in our town and living area, do we have remodels of color for our kids... list can go on and on. We answered a lot of questions we never thought to ask ourselves when we become biological parents. Leah gave us homework of watching a few videos in adoption and doing a test provided by PACT; the "test" demonstrated some pretty crazy facts about us and also showed how different our upbringings were but in a good way. FYI the #1 cause of death for African Americans is not gun wounds...it is heart disease. We also realized that we do not know a lot of diverse history, meaning diverse inventors and such...we need to do more research about Colombia and it's history!!
Then we had to find a placement agency, Leah had recommended we look at online blogs for reviews from parents, that we look into the state website to see how may children have come in from various countries this past year and email agencies on the ACONE list we received to ask them questions about their agency. In doing all this we probably emailed 25 agencies and narrowed our country list down to 13. Then I got on some yahoo groups and we narrowed down our placement agency to Children's Hope International and Colombia. Our choices were primarily based on how the children were treated while waiting to be adopted; in most orphanages children are two to a crib or bed, they are rarely held and there attachment with their new parents takes an extraordinary amount of time; in Colombia most children adopted from CHI are in foster care, their mami's give them constant love and affection, they educate the child on adoption and their new parents. CHI had amazing reviews from families adopting for various countries and in speaking with the agents they were timely and thorough, which as you all know me these things are VERY important.
Now we are gathering our international documents for CHI, we received a booklet of about 35 pages of things we need to gather, get notarized, finger prints, pictures, apostilling...etc... The faster we get this information together the better, typically the year time frame starts from when you submit your dossier which is this content. So if we can get this in by October and the typical turn around time from Colombia is 2-4 weeks then our time frame of next Christmas will hopefully come true.
For those that have thought about adoption and such, here are some sites to check out. Xoxo!
http://adoption.state.gov/
http://www.childrenshopeint.org/
http://www.pactadopt.org/
http://www.redthreadadopt.org/
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
A Red Thread
I attended a fashion show for Matthew's high school alma mater with his mother and other family and friends. I look at the program to check out the events for the evening and the author who is signing autographs for her new book is Ann Hood. (Sidney had recommended to me this book, "A Knitting Circle" the author was local from Providence, RI. Sidney spoke highly of the book and since we have some similar reading styles I borrowed her copy to read. The book was AMAZING to say the least.) I was SO excited to meet her and immediately texted Sidney to let her know she was there. I purchased the book "The Red Thread" and got two signed copies; one for myself and one for Sidney. This book was also amazing, two years later we decided to move forward with the adoption process.
For those that do not know my grandmother Holt and her sister were adopted from an orphanage in Canada. We are not sure of some of the roots due to records being lost but they were not biological sisters and had come from different locations. My gram never talked about the adoption outside of the home and she actually never knew she was adopted until her mother gave her the birth certificate on her wedding day...talk about a big day. My mom does not think my gram every read it but that my grandfather did; we are unsure of names and origins and are still trying to solve the mystery. I have always wanted to expand my family when I had one to include bio and adopted children; so many lives are out there now that need a loving home and we are ready with big arms to give them one.
Matthew during a Spring break alternative trip visited an orphanage in Honduras. He met these wonderful children who ran around all day playing with a deflated soccer ball, happy as can be! He fell in love with how enlightening the experience was and a need to some day provide children like this a home and a family.
Anyway...I googled the book and found an agency The Red Thread Adoption Agency. I emailed the agency and heard back from Leah O'leary about an adoption conference we should attend put on by ACONE (Adoption Center of New England), we spoke about it but did not commit. A last minute decision, we ended up attending, best thing we did, and better was Leah spoke during our home study seminar. She walked in the door and Matthew turned around and said what I was thinking, she looks just like Grandma Legare, a younger sister. I think at that moment we knew we wanted to adopt and we HAD to have Leah as our adoption agent.
That day we attended four classes: Inter-country adoption; the home study process; instant parenting; and financing your adoption. Inter-country was where we decided we would be adopting from a Spanish speaking country or from Africa. Both locations were fairly inexpensive then other countries and both locations seemed to have the least amount of issues with HAGUE challenges and other legal hold ups. Instant parenting was an amazing class with these moms who had adopted; one from Korea, one from China, one a teenager and one a foster mom to adoption of two teens. These women were the real deal; they spoke about their feelings on adoption, the process for them, their fears, their struggles with their children, the silly things people say because they are ignorant about the process and how you handle it in the grocery store (one women said how much did she cost in the middle of the cereal aisle and yes she was an adult), and answered a lot of questions about where they are now and what they would have done differently.
After our first meeting with Leah I told her how we found her. She stated that she had never met Ann or read any of her other books. Leah told me that she had heard through friends in the adoption world about this book, she called Ann's agent and asked her to send her a copy while informing them that she was A Red Thread too. Chinese tradition says that there is a red thread coming from a child's heart trying to find their family. The thread picks the family for the child...or maybe for us it picks our agency! :)
For those that do not know my grandmother Holt and her sister were adopted from an orphanage in Canada. We are not sure of some of the roots due to records being lost but they were not biological sisters and had come from different locations. My gram never talked about the adoption outside of the home and she actually never knew she was adopted until her mother gave her the birth certificate on her wedding day...talk about a big day. My mom does not think my gram every read it but that my grandfather did; we are unsure of names and origins and are still trying to solve the mystery. I have always wanted to expand my family when I had one to include bio and adopted children; so many lives are out there now that need a loving home and we are ready with big arms to give them one.
Matthew during a Spring break alternative trip visited an orphanage in Honduras. He met these wonderful children who ran around all day playing with a deflated soccer ball, happy as can be! He fell in love with how enlightening the experience was and a need to some day provide children like this a home and a family.
Anyway...I googled the book and found an agency The Red Thread Adoption Agency. I emailed the agency and heard back from Leah O'leary about an adoption conference we should attend put on by ACONE (Adoption Center of New England), we spoke about it but did not commit. A last minute decision, we ended up attending, best thing we did, and better was Leah spoke during our home study seminar. She walked in the door and Matthew turned around and said what I was thinking, she looks just like Grandma Legare, a younger sister. I think at that moment we knew we wanted to adopt and we HAD to have Leah as our adoption agent.
That day we attended four classes: Inter-country adoption; the home study process; instant parenting; and financing your adoption. Inter-country was where we decided we would be adopting from a Spanish speaking country or from Africa. Both locations were fairly inexpensive then other countries and both locations seemed to have the least amount of issues with HAGUE challenges and other legal hold ups. Instant parenting was an amazing class with these moms who had adopted; one from Korea, one from China, one a teenager and one a foster mom to adoption of two teens. These women were the real deal; they spoke about their feelings on adoption, the process for them, their fears, their struggles with their children, the silly things people say because they are ignorant about the process and how you handle it in the grocery store (one women said how much did she cost in the middle of the cereal aisle and yes she was an adult), and answered a lot of questions about where they are now and what they would have done differently.
After our first meeting with Leah I told her how we found her. She stated that she had never met Ann or read any of her other books. Leah told me that she had heard through friends in the adoption world about this book, she called Ann's agent and asked her to send her a copy while informing them that she was A Red Thread too. Chinese tradition says that there is a red thread coming from a child's heart trying to find their family. The thread picks the family for the child...or maybe for us it picks our agency! :)
The beginning...
As you know we have begun the adoption journey from Colombia. I wanted to start a blog to describe to all the steps in the adoption process and share what is going on; where we are at; what's new...etc... so that you can all share in this process with us as much as possible. I know that each time we see everyone we fill you in on the happenings but as I am sure you know we describe these happenings to many and probably miss out on some pieces through the multiple conversations. Our home-study social worker, Leah, talks a lot about recording moments and we want to ensure that we share those moments with all of you. We are very excited for the additions to our family and look forward to this process while sharing it with all of you.
M+C
M+C
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)