Homestudy in the mail!

Woohoo. After calling yesterday and this morning I finally picked up our home study so we could get it in the mail with our I800a extension. Of course we are having high winds and tornado warnings, so the lady at the post office said the planes might not take off tonight to over night our paperwork....but I am thankful it is off and will be there soon, out of my hands. So the count down begins, how long will it take to get approval? and fingerprint appointment?

Need to vent somewhere, so how about on my blog:)

We still don't have our home study!!!!! 2 weeks ago we gave our social worker all the medicals and she said she would have our home study done last week Wednesday. Last week she then says it has to be check by her supervisor so it won't be ready until Friday. Friday we get an email saying her supervisor can't sign it until Monday so we will get it Monday. TODAY IS MONDAY. We called and were told to leave a message for the supervisor because she was in a meeting. NEEDLESS to say we still dont' have our home study. I would be banging my head on the wall and screaming on the top of my lungs if I didn't believe that this is all God's plan and His timing is perfect. Might not be perfect in my timetable though:) Just want to move on so we can get our paperwork into USCIS. This time last year we were waiting on the doctors now it is our 'new' social worker and her supervisor. So frustrating. Okay I am done venting and feel a bit better.

Is International Adoption the best choice for your family?

Posted by a PAP on a Bulgaria support group;

I was visiting the website of the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice this morning and found some information on the number of international adoptions completed in 2010 through June 30, 2010. A total of 109 adoptions of 122 children were finalized. Fifty-eight of these adoptions were by Italian parents, 18 by U.S. American parents, 14 by German parents, 5 by Spanish parents, and 5 by Swedish parents. The remaining nine adoptions were completed by parents from Canada, France, Cyprus, Holland, Switzerland, Bahrain, and Norway.

So, if you are thinking of adopting from Bulgaria expect it to be awhile, especially if you are requesting a child under 6 years old. Special needs and older children are being referred, not many young children (especially in the USA). The young kids I have heard coming home are special needs and older than 3 years old. Also keep in mind government offices in Bulgaria are closed during August and December (slow downs during the months of July and January too). I am very disappointed that only 109 referrals have been made Jan-June. Am I being naive to think, if there are hundreds of families waiting and even more orphans waiting, why not hire more workers to match children and families to get them out of the orphanages? Breaks my heart knowing there are families and children waiting and waiting for years to be matched.

If anyone askes me about adoption I would tell them if they want older or special needs international adoption is the way to go. More and more countries are leaning this way as more families in the countries are fostering and adopting the younger children (which they should be doing). If a family wants a young healthy child they should go with foster care or domestic (and even with these adoptions the children might have FAS, experienced abuse, neglect etc). Honestly the only reason we didn't go with domestic adoption is because a birth mom can change her mind at the last minute and even after you have taken the child home for a certain time period. I don't think I could go through that and try again (emotionally and financially). We were also told by an agency in our state that because we already had 2 children a birth mom would most likely not choose us. And domestic adoption agencies are not wanting families that want closed adoptions. They want you to be open to 'open or semi open'. Each has pros and cons. You need to decide what is best for your family.

In choosing a country, we looked at time in the country and number of trips (hubby only receives a certain amount of days of vacation, less than Europeans). We also looked at cost...we could not afford the $60,000 for a Russian adoption. We originally started with Ukraine, but after a few months realized that families were having to stay in country for about 5 weeks because they had to have 2nd appointments to choose a child (blind referral). Another reason we got out of that program is that there were no healthy young kids being referred, even though our agency told us there were (we saw this on adoption chat/support groups). I wanted to go with Korea but then started seeing Bulgaria pop up and agencies started sending me info on this 'new program'. We checked it out, the kids look like our family (olive skin, dark hair) the travel time was perfect for hubby and work and the price was not as daughting as Russia. So we prayed and proceeded to research agencies. We chose our agency based on their experience with Bulgaria and they were quick to respond to our questions. However, all the agencies we talked to were under the impression that young healthy referrals would be made in 12 -24months. We have been waiting for 33 months! I really don't think our agencies know, they go with what their Bulgarian Agency tells them.

So the question is how long will it take to get healthy young referrals from Bulgaria???

LOVE this song...so encouraging and worshipful.

Homeschooling Cathryn

We have finished All About Spelling Level 1 and started Level 2 yesterday, she is just breezing through it. She loves it and her reading is at a first grade level. We will also be moving onto the next level of MAth U See next week, Alpha. She found that very easy too until she had to count by 5's. She gets the 10's and 2's but struggles with 5's. She is also enjoying Hand Writing without Tears and wants to do more, but I said we need to do a little bit at a time because I can't afford to buy more curriculumn. For Bible we are doing Biblestudy curriculumn. We enjoy the cd that comes with it. Next year I am going to try Tapestry for geography, history and Shurley grammar for grammar. We are really enjoying homeschooling.

10/10/10

I started this blog to document our adoption journey and then to make it into a book for Calvin later. I couldn't pass up the opportunity though to praise God. We have had many changes in our lives with changing schools unexpectedly, leaving our church and find a new one. Through these changes God has shown us that his plans are better than ours. Yes I do miss my old church, mainly because of the familiarity. I still have the same friends, and we get together for play dates, so nothing has changed there. However, we took a huge leap of faith to join a church plant and it seemed it wasn't going anywhere. We would find a school, building to meet and it would fall through. The launch date for our new church was to be 10/10/10 but we postponed it because we could not find a place to meet in the community. Needless to say, God provided a building for us 10/10/10. We met last night for a pot luck and we had 54 people. Some from the community but mostly from the mother church who is planing the church. We are excited to see how God is working in our midst. There are so many more stories I can tell you how God has moved and place us exactly where he wants us. Change is scary, walking by faith is scary but it is better to walk in faith and obedience knowing God will always be there with us leading the way. Brings me back to my favorite verse 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.' Also the verse about God being a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Praising you Lord for your faithfulness and keeping your promises.

passport renewed

Wonderful surprise today, UPS delivered my new passport. It only took them a couple of weeks. I was expecting 4-6 weeks, so that was FAST. Now my passport is good until 2020. Chris has his doctors appointment tomorrow with our 'new' doctor. Chris and I switched to the kids doctor because mine closed his office and Chris' is just way to slow and there are too many hoops to jump through over there trying to get his paperwork back with a signature etc. I love our kids doctor, you take the form in with you, he checks you out, asks you questions and signs off right there. Chris' doctor would have him come back a week later to pick it up signed etc (that was probably when we had blood work done etc, but it took them forever to get it back to us.) I had my appointment last Friday and got my hep B shot (in case we travel this year) and my tetnus. I still need to get my flu shot (for volunteering at the hospital). Did any of you get the Hep b for traveling, it was recommended on the CDC site? They also recommend Hep A (food and water) but I really don't want to get more shots, and I have heard the food and restaurants in Bulgaria are very good so not to worried about that and we will just drink bottled water or boiled at our apartment/hotel. All this to say that I am hoping to have our homestudy done by the end of this week so I can mail it with our I800a extension. Anyone send their paperwork to Chicago? IF so how long is it taking? I have heard others saying it is taking 3 months to have their extentions approved. Please pray with us that that isn't the case, we need it sooner. Praying for God to move mountains, as we know He can. Praying that our paperwork will go smoothly, with no requests or corrections and that our son will be protected and be able to come home soon.

Moldova Program

http://www.carolinaadoption.org/international-programs/moldova/

Stacie brought this country to my attention. A great program worth considering. The children have to be on the registry for 2 years so the youngest you can adopt is 2 years old. Time frame looks good. Once your dossier is in you get a referral within 9 months and then travel a few weeks later.

Still haven't seen any healthy children referred to the USA that are young. I know of a couple of families that have been waiting for 2.5 years so far.