Home Study Finishing Up

Last night, we had the 'home' study portion of the Home Study. Meaning, our social worker, Diane, actually came to the house to check and make sure that our living conditions are acceptable. In preparation, I spent the day cleaning and scrubbing the house so it looked in pristine condition. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed she didn't actually inspect our toilets to see how clean they were! (Because, you know, clean toilets are definitely a sign of good parenting!) Mainly, she just walked around the house and made sure we knew to keep poisonous items out of a child's reach, had working smoke detectors, and a basic plan on where the new baby will sleep. She also met Josh, who was very ready for bed by that point, but was in a great mood. He definitely made us look good.

Last week, Jay and I each met with her for our individual interview portion of the Home Study. Diane is so easy to talk with, and so the interviews were far from nerve-wrenching. She asked questions which easily led into other questions, and before I knew it, the interview was done. I've really been happy working with her so far. We feel very comfortable asking her questions, and she's amazing at addressing concerns that we have.

Our fingerprint clearances just came in the mail, so now all that is left for the Home Study is for Diane to type it up. She'll then send the Home Study to CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services) in order to complete our I-600A Orphan Application. Once that is completed we'll:

1. Send everything (aka. the Dossier) to Springfield in order to have our notarized documents authenticated.
2. Send these authenticated documents to Chicago to be translated into French.
3. Send these French, authenticated documents to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago to be authenticated one last time.
4. Send these re-authenticated, French, authenticated documents to Haiti where they'll then match us with a child!

More donation options

Wow, the response from our 'Orphanage Baby Shower' post has been incredible. Thanks to everyone who has wanted to be a part of helping out the orphanage in this way :-)

A friend recently e-mailed me and asked if there was any other way to donate besides through the registries. Yes! If you'd rather you can just go straight to the source. The Florida-based agency is delivering all donations to the Haitian orphanage.

Here's the address where donations of any kind can be sent:
Lifelink c/o First Congregational Church UCC
1031 S. Euclid Ave.
Sarasota, FL 34237

And here are some specifics that they requested:
"Health and hygiene items (tooth brushes, hair items, diaper cream, Tylenol/digital thermometers); Children's clothing and shoes (short and long sleeves, sandals & sneakers, underclothes, sleepwear, jackets/sweaters, cloth diapers and plastic pants); Linens (bath towels and wash cloths, towels for kitchen, sheet sets for single beds, crib sheets, mattress pads/protectors, blankets, pillows); Toys (educational toys, stuffed animals, decorations for room walls, simple furniture (bean bag chairs, juvenile shelving for toys and storage, etc.). Contributions to help with the costs of shipping and to purchase larger items will also be gleefully received."

If you have any 'used, but in good condition' items that are listed above, and have been looking for a place to donate them, they'd love them!

An Orphanage Baby Shower

I recently got an e-mail from our adoption agency asking for people to donate various items to the orphanage we're working with in Haiti. I thought I'd pass it along, in case anyone is interested.

Here's some of the e-mail:

"Our Haiti partner has recently secured a building for the orphans to call home while they are awaiting their adoptive families. The orphanage will need many things from mattresses to bottles, diaper creme to tennis shoes, thermometers to a refrigerator. Haiti is not a manufacturing country and therefore must import most all of it's goods. So many Lifelink families and friends have asked to be a part of a hands-on project that we through some of you might like to participate in this worthwhile cause for children. Lifelink's Florida office will collect items and arrange for transport to Haiti. To make the process a bit easier, Lifelink has "registered" with Target.com and Babiesrus.com. At the sites, you can see the needed items, purchase, and have your item(s) shipped directly to Lifelink's Florida office. All donations are tax deductible! Lifelink is very excited about the opportunity to care for children in Haiti! Your care and support is greatly apprecitated!

If you're interested here are the links to the orphanage's registries. Basically, you can just order from there and have it sent to the agency's Florida office where they will then deliver the items to Haiti.

Target Registry

Babies 'R 'Us Registry

Also an FYI: there are some Target.com discount codes here.

Went Public

We sent out a mass e-mail this past week, and its now 'public news' that we're adopting. We have gotten so many e-mails filled with support, encouragment, excitement, etc. Thanks so much!!!

I thought I'd write a post addressing some questions that people asked:

Can we share your blog with other people?

• Yes! We're hoping that our blog will not only keep our family and friends up-to-date with our adoptions, but also that it will be helpful to other people who are thinking about adopting. Plus, we can use all of the prayers and good wishes available :-)

Are you adopting a boy or a girl?

• We don't know... we can state a preference but we're not sure if we are going to do that or not. Basically, we'd love to have another baby boy or have a baby girl!

When will the baby be home with you?

• Hopefully by January 2008, but that's really in the hands of the U.S. & Haitian government. Everything is waiting on how long it takes for them to process paperwork.

How old will your new baby be?

• Our preference is for young-as-possible. In Haiti, the youngest child available for international adoption is 6 months old. Of course, that means 6 months old at time of referral, so we're assuming that the baby will be anywhere from 10-14 months when he/she arrives in the United States. So, Josh and the new baby will likely be within a year of each other age wise.

Is there anything we can do?

• As of now, it would be awesome if anyone interested would check out the book, Cross Cultural Adoption, from the library and read through it sometime before next January. Its a simple read and addresses popular questions about international adoptions. Its aimed at answering children's (who aren't adopted) questions about their adopted friends. Yet, I thought it was also a great way for everyone to understand how questions and comments they say in front of an adopted child can impact them. I'll let you know as I find other books that would be helpful too. For now, that's the shortest, easiest to read book I've found that gives good suggestions!

Checked off the list

Jay's Spring Break was this past week, and we had the chance to get lots of adoption related items checked off our list.

1) Health Physicals and Blood Tests. The numerous forms that the doctor needed to fill out for foster care licensing and for our dossier are now signed and notarized.

2) Psychological Evaluation. Jay and I are pleased to announce that we're both in fine mental health, and most importantly its in writing, signed, and notarized.

3) Local Background Checks: We now have documented by the local police station that we have no criminal records. Unfortunately, this paperwork still needs to be notarized. The police station's secretary has less than a year left on her notarization stamp, and for the dossier, a notary has to have at least a year left on their stamp. (We have no idea why). So we're waiting a few weeks until she gets her new stamp.

4) Fingerprinting: Once taken digitally for Foster Care, once taken with ink for the FBI by our local police station, and once taken for INS on this really high tech looking machine. Funny story: the INS only has a few sites throughout the U.S. in which to get fingerprinted. The closest site to our house is in Hammond, Indiana. So we drove the 2+ hours north to Hammond and found the site in an abandoned strip mall located behind an abandoned K-Mart. Not exactly the place we'd expected government offices to be located! We found it humorous so decided to take some pictures:

We're almost done with the paperwork on our end. That's a nice feeling! We're approaching a waiting period while papers get processed here and there.

The Paper Pregnancy

We met with our Social Worker, Diane, last night and found out some more details. We also learned why adoption is often nicknamed a 'paper pregnancy.' The amount of paper shuffling that will go on over the next few months is ridiculous! For example, we have to get certified copies of our birth certificates (makes sense). Then we have to send those to Springfield, where they will staple a piece of paper to the top stating that it is definitely a certified copy. Next it goes to Chicago to be translated into French by the 'official' translators. From there is goes to the Haitian Consulate where it will be further authenticated, before we send it to Haiti. And if at any point anyone removes a staple from it, its considered invalid and we have to start all over.

We also have realized that a large amount of the fees for an adoption are spent simply because government agencies don't communicate with one another very well. For example, the 3 different sets of fingerprints we have to have taken at 3 different locations (one place that is 3 hours away from us), because you know, our fingerprints may change each time :-P Or how when we return from Haiti, the Department of Immigration will already have issued a certificate of citizenship. However, the Social Security Office doesn't recognize their fellow government dept's certificate, and thus we'll have to go through the courts and ~$1000 to get a different certificate stating that the child is indeed a US citizen. Lots of hoops to jump through! Honestly, we all were giggling a bit at some of the steps that have to take place!

Diane is amazing and we're really excited to get to work with her. She seems like she's going to try to make the entire paperwork process as smooth as she can for us. Time line wise we're hoping to have all of our paperwork (Dossier) sent off to Haiti by the end of the summer. Once the Dossier is in Haiti we should receive a child referral very quickly. Once we accept a referral we then play the waiting game with the courts in Haiti.

I'm excited to get started on all of this paperwork in front of me. Organizing and filling out forms are actually some of my favorite type of tasks so that's a definite positive! I'll add more details in a later post.

Starting Paperwork

We're now in the beginning stages of the Home Study process. Every type of adoption requires a Home Study. As quoted from Wikipedia, "a home study is a lengthy document prepared by a social worker who meets with the family and inspects the dwelling to verify that the family would make suitable adoptive parents. " Before we can send any paperwork to Haiti (aka, the dossier), this first needs to be completed. We've been told that it typically takes 3-4 months through our agency and during that time we'll also be filling out the dossier.

This weekend, we spent several hours answering numerous questions for the Self-study essay. 17 typed pages and, in our opinion, one well written paper later we finished that part. Basically, the questions covered most everything in our lives :-P From reading this our social worker will now know details ranging from our childhood favorite sports to disciplining strategies to our pet-peeves and lots of misc info. in between!

We have our first meeting with our Social Worker, Diane, in early March.