Some News

Today we received some news.  There is a family (lots of you know, I'm sure) that just got back with their kids a few months ago.  They called Ira to see why she changed her mind and to tell her of their experiences.  What it boils down to is that she doesn't want to leave her friends.  Things are going well for her now and when told what's going to happen when she turns 16 she said she didn't care about that right now.  Basically, she's 12 years old and can't see far enough ahead to understand what is really going to happen to her.  She also has a family there in the town that takes her out and does fun things with her every so often.  No, they've never mentioned anything about adopting her.  She does like us and enjoyed her time here.

The good thing is that at the beginning of the conversation she was still, "No, I don't want to be adopted."  By the end, however, she said yes she does, but no she doesn't.  To me at least this isn't a, "No way" kind of a thing and there is a chance she'll change her mind.

Our plan of action right now is to call her often and send her pictures of the things we're doing together.  Not to mention, keep praying.  Hopefully things will go even a little better when that package arrives.  It should be there sometime this next week.

We Have a Date!

We got word from Ellie today.  We've got our date for February 9th.  Move us on up, Andreas!  Now if we just knew what was bothering Ira and if there is a chance she'll change her mind.

Tuesday Maybe??

Amidst all our phone calls to Ellie on Thursday we were hopeful to have our SDA date either later that day or Friday.  Friday rolled around and we still hadn't heard from her so Brandon called to see if we'd gotten it or not.  I guess we have our paper all printed out and ready to go, but they didn't catch the person that was supposed to sign it and then it was too late.  He won't be back in until Tuesday so we'll have to wait until then.  We *should* have it Tuesday though.  We're thinking it will either be for February 9th or February 12th.

Honestly I'm going back and forth between being excited to have the date and having that excitement tainted by her not wanting us anymore.  We're hopeful that maybe it's just that she's afraid (and who wouldn't be??) and that she'll change her mind again.  She really didn't want to leave and seemed so happy here.  When we talked to her the first time she was still so excited to have us come.  We've got a few thoughts as to the sudden change of heart, but we don't know for sure.  We didn't feel that phone call was the time to grill her on "why?"  We honestly didn't really know what to say after that.

We went to the temple this morning with a couple other families nearby.  That was really, really nice.  Just what I needed actually.  It was so nice to visit with the other two couples as well. 

I am amazed at how the Lord has provided me with this built-in support group.  Between Thursday and Friday I called (or was called/texted/messaged/emailed by) a few of my new friends.  Some I had specific reasons for calling (with support being in there as well) and honestly, others I just called to talk to because I knew they'd understand and I needed that.  It's also interesting to me that some of these friends I got to know during the hosting and some I've actually only gotten to know since the kids left.  For every one I'm very grateful though.  I'm grateful for those that have gone through this and offer advice and support and also for those that are going through the process with us that support me as well.  What a tender mercy.

This week could end up being really good or really bad, both in the decisions made by the Ukrainian government as well as by Ira.  We shall see.  First, let's get to Tuesday.

2nd Phone Call

We called Ira again today.  It didn't exactly go as we thought it would.  At first it was great.  It was nice to hear her again.  We told her we'd gotten together with a bunch of other families and sent a big package of things.  Inside was a box for her as well as for Little Ira.  There was also a bunch of things for them to share with all the kids.

She told us the kids were learning some dance steps and about what they were doing for St. Nicholas's day tomorrow.  I guess someone is coming to visit the orphanage and the kids are performing for whoever it is that's coming.  I got the impression it wasn't like having our Santa coming.  She seemed very excited for that.

Then she told us that she really wants to see us again, but she likes living in Ukraine and is happy there.  She doesn't want to come live in America.

Yeah.  Still trying to process this.

Getting Antsy

It's been more than 2 weeks since our paperwork was submitted to the SDA.  I did really well at first.  It was out of my hands and there wasn't anything I could do, except pray.  I had (and still do, actually) a TON of things to do and I kept quite busy.  Now that it's been more than 2 weeks though, I'm getting antsy.  I'd really like to know an exact date we'll be getting to Ukraine.  We actually called Ellie on Monday and she said we should be hearing any day now.  She also said that people that had their paperwork turned in before us have already received their dates in February.  I'm wondering if that means we'll be going more like mid-late February instead of early.  I sure hope not.  Two months is already too long!

Our Story (short version)

It occurred to me when I sent out an email to people we know about this blog that I've never mentioned anything about how we got into this on here.  In order to let people know, I'm going to give the short version of the story so as not to lose anyone part way through!

A few months ago I saw a link on a homeschool yahoo group I belong to from a name I recognized.  Her family was going to host a couple of boys from Ukraine in the fall and here was the link if anyone else was interested.  It's quite interesting that I even looked at the post, let alone checked the link out since that is not something I would normally have done.  Come to find out, this organization brings kids over here every fall and a lot of the families end up going back and adopting them.  Adoption has always been something we've been open to, but not internationally and not an older child.  After talking about it with Husband we decided to call them up and get more information.  We had a few concerns, but really felt this was something we needed to do and do this year instead of wait.  A few days later we'd visited with the lady in charge, picked out an adorable little 8 year old girl to host and were all excited.

We decided to start getting all our paperwork going as if we were going to adopt.  We figured that we would get this little girl here, fall in love with her and not want to wait very long before we could make things permanent.  Besides, there was a strong chance (considering her age) that she would be taken into foster care or adopted by someone else before we could finish everything up and get her.  She has to say she wants to be adopted by anyone (including us) but they're so easily persuaded at that age that we didn't want to take any chances that weren't necessary.

About 2 weeks before the group of kids was set to arrive we were asked if we'd consider hosting a 10 year old boy as well since it was getting close to the time they were coming and he didn't have a host family yet.  Husband and I talked about it but decided to not since he was from a different orphanage and that complicates matters when it comes time to adopt.  It's more time consuming and more expensive and we were already pushing limits.  Not that we'd be obligated to adopt both, by any means, but we wanted to be willing.  After finding out there was a 12 year old girl from our orphanage that also didn't have a host family yet we decided to host her as well.  There were some concerns again, such as how would Little One do with two older sisters that shared the same experiences growing up and spoke the same language?  Still, after much thought and prayer we felt it was what we needed to do.  We got everything ready for two girls and were all excited for them to arrive.  The funny thing was that they had the very same name.

The hosting time came and it was one rollercoaster of an experience!  It started out great, even though the 8 year old didn't sleep at all that first night. LOL  As time went on though, we began to realize that this little girl we were so sure we'd just fall in love with, wasn't going to work well in our family.  It wasn't a good match for us, or for her.  The 12 year old, on the other hand, seemed to be working out very well and we wanted a chance for some one on one time with her to make sure adopting her was what we wanted.  Finally, a little more than half way into the program, our little 8 year old was moved to another family.  It was very sad at first and both Little One and the 12 year old were having a hard time with it.  It didn't take long, however, to know that we wanted to adopt Ira.  She is very kind and obedient.  She gets along well with Little One and plays so nicely with her.  It just felt right.  Little One was very excited about such a thought.

A couple of days before she had to fly back to Ukraine we asked her if she would want to be a permanent part of our family and she agreed.  We had a wonderful last few days with her and it was very, very hard to send her on that airplane when it was time for her to go back.

Since then we've completed our paperwork and are now just waiting to hear when we might be able to go get her.  It doesn't feel right having her all the way across the world and we can't wait to get her back here with us.

Dossier Submitted!

Yea!  Our dossier was submitted to the SDA in Ukraine today!  Unfortunately, we were told that because they're trying to catch up from this year's back log, it will probably be early February before we can head over there.  We're praying for sooner, but we'll see what happens.  Now we wait for the official invitation to travel.

Good News!

We found out today that Ira is officially ready for an international adoption!

The way it works over there is once their paperwork is finished (death certificate or court degree terminating parent's rites) they go into a local pool for adoption.  Meaning anyone in the local area has first dibs on them.  After a short time there, they move into a national database when anyone in the country has the opportunity to adopt them.  They have to be there for a year before they are opened up for an international adoption.

With Ira, we knew her paperwork was complete in October of 2009, meaning she could be out of that national database anytime.  Not knowing exactly how long she was in the local pool though, we didn't know if she was officially up for an international adoption yet and we were slightly worried it might slow us down on getting a date to go over there.  That's not the case though, as she is all ready to go!

Now we're just praying very hard (like we weren't already) that the moratorium doesn't pass and we are still able to follow through with this.  The vote is scheduled for December 16th so please pray for not only us, but all the families in our group that are desperately trying to get their paperwork finished and over there before they aren't allowed to anymore!

Finished!

Today we dropped our coveted I-171H form, all notarized and apostilled, off to Natasha who is flying back to Ukraine on Friday.  We are officially done with everything we have to do and now we wait.  I hate waiting.  At least it will allow me to catch up on things that have been neglected since this whole adventure began.

Happy Day

We got to talk to Ira this morning!  It was so much fun and so good to hear her voice.  Some of our friends called to our orphanage to talk to a girl they hosted and that got us super excited to talk to Ira.  We ended up using a very sweet Ukrainian girl going to BYU on a 3-way call to the orphanage and it worked great!  We just have to be very mindful of the 9 hour time difference.

The best part was that she seemed very excited to talk to us.  We told her we loved her and that we hoped to see her soon and she was very excited to know things are moving forward quickly. 
As with most girls that age, we'd ask her a question and she'd answer with a very uninformative, "good." LOL  We told her we'd call her again when we had a travel date so she knows when to expect us.

It made our day to talk to her and know that she is still very much wanting us to come get her.  It was likened to calling home for Christmas on your mission.  Very cool, but also a great longing to be there with her.  Hopefully soon.

Hurray!!

And there was much rejoicing.

We got our USCIS paper today!!!!!!  We got it notarized, faxed to Ellie, approved and up to the capitol to apostille.  So close.  So close and then it's out of our hands. :^)

The Last Step - The Dossier

Once you've got your USCIS approval (and sometimes before) then you get to start working on your dossier.  There is a checklist of 13 documents you need to gather/fill out/get copied.  We got the information on it last week Wednesday and finished ours up on Monday so it really isn't too bad.  Granted, we did work on it full time until we were done but again, after the homestudy this honestly seemed easy.

Once you have everything gathered/filled out you need to take them to get notarized.  We had almost all of our documents ready and took them in at one time.  The fewer notaries you have the better, but don't stress too much about it.  There are a couple of things that you need to get notarized copies of and for those we took in the originals and had the notary make the copy.  We actually had quite a few questions throughout the process and called Ellie 4 or 5 times while we were sitting there with the notary. :^)

As we got things notarized we faxed them to Ellie for the "Okay."  Once she had reviewed them she told us they were ready for the next step.  At this point she also takes each document she's okay-ed and sends them off to her translator since everything has to be in Ukrainian.

Once everything is ready and notarized, you take it to the State Capitol building to get it apostilled.  Never heard of that?  Neither had I.  I've been told that it's basically a notary for international documents.  What they do is check the notary you have on each document and then attach their official paper to it.  It costs $15 per document, unless you're in a hurry.  Then it's $40/document to have it the next business day and $65/document to have it within 2 hours.  That's a little pricey when you have 22 documents to get done (there are some you need 2 or 3 copies of.)  We dropped off ours on Monday night and had the Wednesday morning so unless you REALLY need them right away I'd stick with the $15/document.  Keep in mind government offices are closed on Fridays.

Once you have everything back from the capitol you have to make 2 copies of everything, one for Ellie and one for your records.  Then it's time to Fed Ex everything off.  Normally you'll send it to Ellie and then she'll keep her copy and send the rest off to Ukraine.  In our case, since we were trying to get our stuff there (minus that darn USCIS paper) in a hurry, we bypassed her and sent it straight to Ukraine.  Once we get our I-171H we'll get a notarized copy of that, take it to get apostilled, copy it, and then send Ellie our copies of everything.

The problem is that you can't really start working on this early.  The USCIS paper is good for 18 months, but the dossier is only good for 6 months.  That means you have to be fairly close to going over there before you can start on everything.  Check with Ellie before you start on it.  That being said, here is the list.  Just know that it only gives you an idea of what you need to do.  Most of these documents you'll get from her.

• Homestudy
• I-171H form
• Proof of income
• No criminal records
• Marriage licence (You need the licence, not the certificate like the checklist says.  This we got from the county in which we originally got our licence.  You need 2 copies.  Only cost $5/each.)
• Medical statement forms (If you're in a hurry and it's a few days before you can get in to the dr. then go ahead and get your blood drawn ahead of time so the results are back by the time you go in for the physical.  You need an HIV test and a syphilis test.  We made sure the dr. had a notary there as well as had them fax the paper to Ellie to make sure it was filled out correctly before we left the office.)
• Letter of obligation form
• Petition for adoption form and addition/specific child form if you're wanting to specify a particular child.
• Power of attorney forms
• Assessor's paper (again, we got this from the county)
• Copies of our passports
• Permission for Interpol clearance
• Post-placement agreement (notarized only, not apostilled)

Ellie will send you the documents you need as well as an instruction paper explaining everything.  She was very helpful and quick about getting us what we needed.

On It's Way

Well, everything except our immigration paper is on it's way to Ukraine.  Elliana said it would be best to go ahead and send everything else in because that way they can get us an official appointment to turn everything in on the 30th.  Once our letter comes (hopefully tomorrow??) we can get it to Natasha and she'll take it back with her.  The Lord reminds me how He is in charge. 

Good news is that we got the address and phone number to our orphanage so that we can officially write and call Ira now!  Yea!  It will be good to talk to her again.  Now we just need to find a place we can go where we'll have an interpreter there with us so we CAN talk to her. LOL

The Next Hurdle - USCIS

This one I'm super frustrated with right now but I will still try and make it a positive post.

If you're in a hurry you will want to get your paperwork in to USCIS ASAP.  Hum...what other acronyms can I think of??  As with everything else, check with Elliana before you actually send it in!  Your completed homestudy is part of what you send to them, but you can send in everything else while you wait for that to be completed and then send it in on it's own.  You can get the information on what to send and where to send it on their website. 

Be aware you will have to send in a check.  We sent in a personal check for the entire amount and it was just fine.  We paid $670 + $80 + $80 for a total of $830.  It was $670 for the filing fee and then an $80 fingerprinting fee for each person living in your home over the age of 19.  Check the website for exact information since fees tend to go up without notice and it will slow things down if you send in the wrong amount.

One thing we were unclear on was if we had to send in copies of our passports.  Since we'd gotten them ordered when we were doing our homestudy we sent them as well, but have also been told by other people (not USCIS though) that it wasn't necessary.  Since I believe we were the only ones to send them in, I would say it's a safe bet to not worry about it.  HOWEVER, you will need copies of your passports for the dossier so if you haven't already done it, get those on their way!  By advised that you have to send in an original birth certificate with your paperwork.  They do send it back when they send your passport but if you need to be ordering a copy before you get passports, then do that right away.

Once you send everything in you wait for a conformation letter saying they got your paperwork.  Then you wait some more for another letter (one for each person getting fingerprinted actually) with your fingerprint appointment.  Again, if you are in a hurry I would do everything you can to keep that appointment when it comes.  If you have to change it you do it in writing and they send you another appointment in the mail, thereby taking more time.  Once you get to your appointment they fingerprint you just as you did for the homestudy and it's out of your hands.

Since this is a journal of sorts for our adventure with this whole thing I hope you will indulge me in sharing our experience as well.  We sent in our paperwork the end of September.  We had our homestudy done by then so we just sent everything in at once.  After arriving home from a little trip to see my grandma we found our paperwork had been sent back.  They had just barely redone the form you fill out and we'd filled out the old one.  We sent our newly redone form and the rest of the paperwork back in the 4th of October.  Eventually we got our fingerprint appointments for the 8th of November, the day the kids flew back to Ukraine.  We found out later that we'd actually been pre-approved on the 17th of October, pending our fingerprints.

We made an appointment for the 9th with another office in town (different than the place we got fingerprinted) to speak to someone in order to hurry things along.  We got down there and were told they no longer handle adoptions and to call the number at the bottom of our confirmation letter.  It was a waste of time, but luckily it was only the waste of about an hour, including travel time.  Once we got home and called the number we found that they should have our fingerprint information the next day and she would send out our coveted I-171H form that day.  We called her the next day and sure enough, she was sending out our paper.

Here is the catch though.  She asked if we wanted an emailed copy since we were in a hurry.  We told her no and are very much regretting it right now.  That paper is the ONLY thing we're waiting on to send this stuff over to Ukraine (our dossier is now finished except for that paper) and we were told we probably could have used the emailed copy.  Because it didn't come in the mail today we can't get our paperwork submitted into the SDA (Ukraine's adoption place) this next Tuesday and we have to wait until the following Tuesday, which is cutting it too close for comfort.  If it's not in that day then we have to wait until February to submit it as the SDA doesn't accept new adoption petitions from December 1st through January 31st.  There is no guarantee that the emailed copy would have been accepted, but still.  I wish we could have tried.  Ah well, it is what it is. :^)

Next up, the dossier....

Homestudy Tips

In an effort to help my fellow paperwork friends, and yet not get myself into trouble by accidentally giving out wrong information, I've decided to only share my tips in speeding up the process once you're in the middle of it.  We did our full homestudy back in August and I'm really not sure what the requirements are for the mini-homestudy.  Contact McKay (or whomever your social worker is) for specific questions.

Our full homestudy consisted of a checklist of 15 things.  Some of them required gathering/making copies of things and weren't really time consuming.  Others were.  I would suggest getting your reference letters out to your 5 people (3 non-related and then 1 each from the husband's side and the wife's side) ASAP.  People tend to take awhile to get those back to her and you want to give them time before you start hounding them because that's all she's waiting on.

Next, get your fingerprinting done for the background checks.  You have to have both a criminal background check as well as a child abuse check and I honestly don't remember which is which.  Get both of them done and on their way though.

Don't panic if you can't get into your doctor for a physical right away.  We couldn't get an appointment for weeks and since we were in a hurry we went to a First Med and just paid to get them done there.  We were in and out in around an hour and had the paper in hand.  Just know that you will need another physical for your dossier paperwork that will include some blood work.  If you get the paperwork from Elliana (or the adoption agency you're working with) I would think you could just kill two birds with one stone and get them done at the same time, but check with her to be sure.  Chances are that she won't want to give you the dossier paperwork until you're further along than the homestudy.  If that's the case, take whatever appointment you can get from your dr. and cancel it if you end up going someplace else.

While you're running around everywhere, be looking over the questions in the 11 page questionnaire you'll have to answer.  Also be thinking about how you're going to do your autobiography.  We actually did both the questionnaire and our autobiographies before our running around since we were in Florida at the time.  We did the running around when we were back home for a week.

I printed off the questionnaire and took it with us everywhere we went.  Since we lived an hour and a half from anything in Florida we spent quite a bit of time in the car together.  When we'd go someplace I'd sit with the papers and a pencil and ask my husband questions.  He'd answer, and I'd write down what he said.  The questions about both of us we would discuss and come up with an answer.  Once we were done I typed everything up and we both read over it before I emailed it off to McKay.

The autobiographies were a little different, in that I couldn't write that for my husband. :^)  I got mine done during the day (it took me about 3 days to finish it) and he would write his after work.  At first I was worried about not having enough information to fill 5-10 pages, but we both ended up with 9 pages and could have done more.  While I hate writing as a general rule, it ended up being really neat to talk about different experiences I'd had as well as to read my husband's take on his childhood and our life together.

The quicker you can get those hurdles passed the better because then you can schedule your home visits.  McKay will need to visit you in your home twice.  For us she came on a Friday afternoon/evening and then again Saturday morning.  She wanted a tour of our home, all our papers we'd collected and then to just visit.  She asked us more specific questions about things we'd talked about in our questionnaire and our autobiographies and also just chatted with us about the whole process of adoption.  Specifically with going through the Save a Child program.  It was very helpful for us to get some idea of what we were getting ourselves into, both the good and the bad.


Here is most of the checklist I got from McKay.  I took out some of the info on the background checks and such, but you can at least get a head start.  Get the whole list from her (or your social worker of choice) since this is just a basic idea.  You will also need the forms she mentions so be sure to have her email you everything.

• A picture of the adoptive family
• A picture of your home
• Financial statements to include
  • Tax returns from previous two years
  • A notarized letter from your bank describing your account(s)

• Notarized letter(s) from your employer(s) confirming position, salary and length of employment.
• Certified birth certificates (copy is fine, but show the original)
• Marriage certificate/divorce certificates (as with above, you can make copies)
• Current resume including a history of employment and education.
• If you have children, please have them write a statement or draw a picture about their thoughts and feelings regarding adoption.
• A criminal background check for each person over 18 in the home.
• Office of Licensing background screen form completed for each person 18 & over.
• Proof of current health insurance and coverage for adopted children.
• Adoption home study assessment questionnaire.
• Autobiography for each adoptive parent (detailed historical information). This should cover each applicant’s life history to date (typically 5 to 10 pages) and is in addition to the questionnaire.
• Please provide me with a list of five people (names, addresses, and phone numbers) who you think would be willing to be referents for you. Three of the referents should be people who know you well, but who are not related. The other referents should be family members, one from each side of the family if you are a married couple. After providing me with the referent names, please e-mail them a copy of the attached reference letter. They can either e-mail or mail it back to me.
• Medical Clearance.

Beginning

Welcome to our journey to bring Ira home. Here we will share our adventure through the whole adoption process. Hopefully it's not too boring! :^)