Monday, April 5, 2010

More FAQ's

Hello Everyone! I hope your Easter was a blessed one! We had a wonderful weekend spent with family, doing some spring cleaning and some fun adoption paperwork! =)

In the week or so since we have started our "paper pregnancy" we have gotten several things accomplished. We have gotten new copies of our birth and marriage certificates, had our physical exams, gotten Matt's employment verification, contacted our home study agency and began our Hague training. Not bad for a week, right!? I have a feeling keeping all this paperwork organized is going to be a bit of a chore, but we bought a little filing box and are setting up a specific area to keep all of this stuff.

Thanks again to all of you who are praying for us. Keep it up! Right now, our main prayer request is getting our home study begun and completed as quickly as possible. We are trying to work out a way for someone local to conduct the home study, since our agency is out of Kansas City and paying mileage would cost an outrageous amount. We need a completed home study to send in with I-600A (immigration form stuff), so the sooner that can be accomplished the better!

Ok, on to the FAQ's

Do you know him already? and along with that. . .How do you know he is a boy?

No. In fact, depending on the length of our process, he may not have even been conceived yet! We will not be put on the list to receive a referral until our paperwork is completed and sent to Ethiopia. We know he is a boy because we are requesting a boy. We would really be happy with either gender, but the wait for a boy is significantly shorter. We could put in for either gender, and would most likely get a boy anyway. Knowing that we are getting a boy will be beneficial in getting his room ready and preparing for him. During our long wait, it will be nice to have nursery preparations and such to keep me busy! Besides, Matt thinks it's time that he's not the lone male in the house! =)

Why does it take so long?
It just does. In a process like this, it can be easy to get frustrated by how long it takes. The waiting is not going to be easy at all! It can be hard to understand why, if there are willing parents and 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia, it has to take as long as it does. But really, as you go through the process, it makes sense. We are, after all, dealing with two different governments in the process. Here is a breakdown of the process and the length it takes:
  1. Application & Paperchase-4 to 6 months. This is the stage we are in right now. This involves collecting all the documentation we will need for our Dossier. The Dossier the collection of every document and form that we have and will be collecting, including our home study and approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Getting all this together takes time, especially the home study and immigration papers. Not only do all these documents need to be collected, but most of them have to be notarized and then certified by the Secretary of State. Once our Dossier is complete, it is sent to Ethiopia and we are officially DTE and on the waiting list. DTE stands for Dossier to Ethiopia.
  2. Dossier Submission and Waiting-4 to 6 months. Once our Dossier arrives in Ethiopia, it needs to be translated--all 30+ documents!! It is then processed and we wait for our referral call! As of last week, the current wait time is 4 to 6 months, but that could change. The wait for a girl is around 8 to 11 months! When we receive our referral, we will be sent a picture of our son, his medical history and a short profile of him. We then will need to send in a referral acceptance form stating that we do, in fact, want him! I can't imagine not accepting any referral, but I am sure there are instances where this may occur. I firmly believe that the Lord already knows who are son will be and that the boy referred to us will be the child God want us to have!
  3. Court & Travel- 3 to 6 months (we think). As of last week, we officially will have to make two trips to Ethiopia. This is new and won't start until have May 9th, so this may change. What we have been told is that we need to be prepared to travel to Ethiopia approximately 4 - 8 weeks after receiving a referral in order to be present in Ethiopia for our appointed court date. Families will remain in Ethiopia for roughly 4 -7 days and will then return to the US. Up until now, parents have not been required to be present for court. We are hoping that being there will give us a better chance of passing court the first time. The chance of passing court the first time is currently 50%. There are some families that have had to wait until the 8th court date to pass. We are praying it will not be that way for us. Passing court means you are legally the parents of your child. Woohoo! After officially passing court, we will then travel back to Ethiopia approximately 6 -12 weeks later to pick up our son. The hardest part of this process will be leaving Ethiopia the first time without our child. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard that will be! But, we will get through it and it will be worth it all in the end.

Well, that's it in a nutshell! Sounds simple right? This is really just a rough breakdown of this process. Anything can happen to delay or slow it down. We have been told repeatedly to be prepared for anything and everything. We would love to have him home a year from now, but we will be patient and wait for the Lord's timing. His timing is always better than our own!

Rubeinna

No comments:

Post a Comment