Retail Therapy

Those that know me well know that I love to do a little retail therapy now and again. LOL. Unfortunately since I don't know the age/size of the baby that I will adopt I haven't been able to buy clothes but I have managed to pick up a few things. Here goes my first attempt to post pictures. Let's hope it works!


I've been putting everything in one bookcase.


This is the quilt.


The bumper and crib sheet.


I love love love these dolls - Ellie and Emmy.


Some books.


Some towels. The pink alien towel in the middle is my favorite of course. :)


Dragonfly nightlight.

I guess I am one huge advertisement for pottery barn kids.

My Adoption Process

I know I posted a list of what I’ve done so far but I don’t think I have explained how the whole international adoption process works.

The first step for me was to pick a country and then to see which agencies were the top agencies for that county. In my mind this was important because I wanted an agency that had an established program and really good in-country connections. I did a lot of research online and talked to a lot references and was able to narrow it down to two agencies. It was particularly helpful to talk to other single mothers about their experiences.

At the same time since both of the placement agencies I was considering were out of state, I also had to find a local agency to do a home study. I had received some suggestions from people I met at a FRUA picnic. I called and interviewed several different agencies and had them send me their information. I spoke to references and finally made my decision.

After I picked my placement agency I filled out their application and waited to be accepted. For my home study agency I filled out their application and their agreement.

So what exactly is a home study? Basically it is a process that is completed by a licensed social worker. This person will (a) ask you to provide the required documents, (b) interview you (at least one time at your home) and (c) counsel you regarding adoption. My home study agency contacted me within a week of receiving my application/agreement and set up an initial meeting where they explained what they needed to do the home study. The first step involved gathering a bunch of documents (i.e., my driving record, my birth certificate, financial records, etc.), getting fingerprinted and having three people write me letters of recommendation (thank you Donna, Latonya and Shelly). Once I had the initial set of documents done I met with my social worker at my house and she asked me questions about life - things about my family, my parenting philosophy, my religion. It was a little intimidating and I felt like nothing was coming out right. I had to go get a complete physical (which I’m not sure I’ve ever really done before) and have the doctor fill out a form. I also had to have my home inspected by the health department and the fire department. After all the documents are collected and all the interviews are done, the social worker writes a report that summarizes his/her findings. My social worker provided me with a draft copy of this report and sent a draft copy to my placement agency to make sure that it complied with all Kazakhstan requirements.

As the home study process was winding down I filed an I-600A – Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) and got fingerprinted by USCIS (it’s amazing to me how many different times you have to get fingerprinted during this process – no government agencies share this information). I also started my dossier which is the documents required by Kazakhstan for adoption. They include things like a guardianship document (i.e., who will take care of the child if something happens to me), a financial statement, a verification of employment letter, pictures of my family and my house. Each document in the dossier has to be notarized then apostilled at the Secretary of State’s Office. Because of the state in which I live I also had an extra step in the middle - I had to have each notarized document certified by the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Since I had notaries from 4 different counties I ended up going to 4 different court houses.

After the dossier was completed I sent it to my placement agency who reviewed it to make sure all the documents were properly completed. That takes a couple of weeks. Then the agency sends it out for translation (which I think can take 2-6 weeks). The dossier is then submitted to the New York Consulate (different agencies work with either the NY Consulate or the DC Embassy – my agency goes through NY) for review which normally takes 6-8 weeks. The dossier then goes to the Foreign Ministry, then the Education Ministry and then is passed along to the proper regional agency (Education Departments and orphanages). After it’s been approved by the regional agency I will be sent a Letter of Invitation to come to Kazakhstan for the adoption.

Under Kazakhstan law you do what is called “travel to select” which means you travel to the orphanage and they let you meet some children (the number varies depending on the availability). You elect to bond with a child and then the bonding period begins. This is a 15 day period during which you visit with the child daily at the orphanage. After the bonding period you go to court. In some regions it is right after the bonding period in others it can be several weeks later so you can go home and then come back for court. After court there is a 15 appeal period. After this 15-day period you take your child to Almaty where you will file the necessary paperwork to get your child's Visa at the US Embassy and then you can come home. Once you land on US soil your child is officially a US citizen.

Right now my dossier has been with the Foreign Ministry for about six weeks. I’m not sure when I’ll be assigned a region.

How Did I Get to Here?

I’ve thought about adopting for a long time but it never went anywhere farther than just thinking. A couple of things happened in the last year or so that finally set me in motion.

The first was I turned 40. Your life doesn’t always turn out the way you think it will. I always thought that I’d find my prince, get married and have kids – in that order. Over the years I’ve been on a ton of blind dates and even tried online dating (which I now refer to as the parade of frogs) but never met anyone with whom I wanted to share my life. Hitting 40 made me realize I didn’t want to wait any longer to start a family and since I hadn’t found my prince it was up to me to do it alone.

The second thing is something I consider to be fate. One of my friends intermittently ran a woman who was in our sorority in college. One day last June when my friend was dropping off her kids at a gymnastics class she ran into this woman who now had a new toddler. It turns out that our sorority sister had adopted not only this child but two others from Russia. My friend put me in touch with this woman who has been an invaluable help to me in my process. She gave me a lot of good advice and ideas on where to find information online.

The first thing I had to decide was whether to do a domestic adoption or an international adoption. I attended a couple of seminars put on by adoption agencies to see the differences. There were a lot of things I did not like about domestic adoption. First, the way domestic programs are set up the birth mother gets to choose the parents. You put together a little pamphlet type thing about yourself and they look through them and pick. Essentially you wait until someone picks you (if ever) - there is no set timeframe and no guarantee that you’ll end up with a child. From my perspective I would think realistically birth mothers would be much more likely to pick a two-parent family over a single parent. Second, the adoption laws are structured so that birth mothers have a relatively long time (I believe it is 30 days in Maryland) after they give up the baby to change their mind. So you could get a child only to have it taken away. That would be too heartbreaking for me. Third, the trend in domestic adoptions these days is for open adoptions. That’s where the birth mother gets visitation rights to the child. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I’d be with that type of arrangement.

After ruling out domestic adoptions I had to decide which international program would work for me. I quickly found out that as a single prospective adoptive parent you have fewer options. A lot of countries (like China) no longer allow single women to adopt. After a lot of time doing research I found that singles could adopt from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Guatemala (for some reason I didn’t know about Vietnam but that program is about to close so it’s a good thing I didn’t consider it). I immediately ruled out a couple of countries: (1) Ukraine because they only allowed singles to adopt older children or children with special needs and (2) Guatemala because there were rumors that their international adoption program was going to be shut down due to the US’s implementation of the Hague Convention (Guatemala did in fact close and is still shut down). That left Russia and Kazakhstan. Initially I was more interested in Russia since I had met a bunch of people through an organization called Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA for short). I contacted several agencies and spoke to them about their programs. The main problem with Russia was that the government had decided that all agencies had to be reaccredited so adoptions from Russia were moving REALLY slowly. At the time Russia had just started reaccrediting agencies and was only doing a few at a time. In addition, I was told that the wait for an infant girl was 18 months to 2 years. That would mean that I would have to do all my paperwork twice (because the paperwork all expires after a year). The long wait and having to redo things did not sound appealing to me.

One of my sisters works with a woman who had adopted children from both Russia and Kazakhstan (I believe she’s now gone on to adopt some additional children from Uzbekistan). This woman said she had a better experience adopting from Kazakhstan and told my sister to suggest it to me. I looked into and was pleased by what I found - the Kazakhstan program seemed established and from what I had read the children are very cared for. I spent some time researching agencies and ultimately decided this is was what was right for me.

A New Look

I decided to get rid of the dark format and pick something a little brighter. I figure since I love to paint the walls of my house green that would work well for the blog too. Hopefully this will be a little easier on the eyes.

Timeline

While I posted a mini-timeline on the right of this blog, I really wanted to do something more detailed to memorialize the steps I’ve taken towards adopting my child. So here it goes:

July/October 2007 – contacted agencies, received applications, attended seminars, attended FRUA picnic, debated whether to adopt from Russia or Kazakhstan.

September, 17, 2007 – conducted phone interview with LMI (placement agency)

September 25, 2007 – conducted phone interview with CAI (home study agency)

October 18, 2007 – set up account with FedEx

October 19, 2007 – hand delivered application and fee and contract to CAI

October 26, 2007 – overnighted application and fee to LMI

October 29, 2007 – met with representative of CAI to go over process and paid home study fee

November 1, 2007 – got employment letter for the home study & emailed directions for reference letters

November 2, 2007 – got driving record

November 5, 2007 – emailed request for home fire safety inspection

November 5, 2007 – mailed request for home sanitation inspection

November 5, 2007 – call with LMI coordinator to go over process

November 6, 2007 – application accepted by LMI

November 7, 2007 – got fingerprinted at CJIS for criminal history (both FBI and State of MD)

November 7, 2007 – got copies of birth certificate

November 9, 2007 – had physical/medical form completed

November 15, 2007 – contract with LMI is fully executed

November 16, 2007 – signed addendum to application with CAI

November 20, 2007 – had home sanitation inspection

December 3, 2007 – first meeting with social worker for home study

December 5, 2007 – second meeting with social worker for home study

December 13, 2007 – guardianship form completed by sister & brother-in-law

December 17, 2007 – had home fire safety inspection

December 19, 2007 – sent I-600A to USCIS

December 25, 2007 – completed adoption education courses with Adoption Education LLC

January 2, 2008 – fingerprinted by USCIS

January 20, 2008 – fingerprinted for FBI clearance

January 14, 2008 – home study completed

January 15, 2008 – employment verification completed and apostilled in Massachusetts

January 16, 2008 – USCIS approval (I-797C) issued

January 22, 2008 – medical form redone and notarized

January 24, 2008 – had some of the dossier documents certified by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Montgomery County

February 6, 2008 – 1st batch of dossier documents notarized at the bank

February 7, 2008 – had some of the dossier documents certified by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Howard County

February 8, 2008 – received FBI clearance

February 8, 2008 – next batch of dossier documents notarized at the bank

February 11, 2008 – second batch of dossier documents rejected by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Baltimore County due to notary issue (notary’s name on the stamp and seal did not match what they had in their records)

February 14, 2008 – redo notaries on prior batch of documents and next batch of dossier documents notarized, certified by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in Anne Arundel County, had all Maryland documents apostilled at the Secretary of State’s office

February 22, 2008 – completed dossier overnighted to LMI

March 4, 2008 – dossier approved by LMI

March 10, 2008 - first set of vaccinations (ouch - did I mention how much I hate needles!)

March 12, 2008 – dossier in translation

April 4, 2008 – dossier to NY Consulate

April 10, 2008 - second set of vaccinations

May 12, 2008 – dossier in Kaz at MFA

I might have missed a few things but that’s probably a pretty complete list. All things considered getting my home study done and my dossier together were relatively problem free (can you hear me knocking on wood right now? As my mom would tell you I wouldn’t want to curse myself). I was shocked by how fast I got the USCIS approval. My home study was overnighted to them on a Monday, USCIS received it Tuesday and issued my I-797C the next day. I was out of town for work and found it in my mailbox Thursday night when I got back. My home study agency had told me that the Baltimore office was pretty good about processing everything and that normally it takes about 3 weeks. I guess I must have had extremely good timing or extremely good luck (I think in other parts of the country people wait months for this form).

The Very First Entry

I'm really new to the whole blogging thing (I've never kept a journal or written in a diary) but I figured you have to start somewhere. I wanted to start this blog to document my adoption process for my family, my friends and most importantly my adopted child. I want her to have a record of how she came to be with me and how much she is wanted.