Still waiting for a referral....

We try to be patient. We really do. It's hard.
I think I will email the adoption agency tomorrow and see what the status is. Last we heard there were "a couple" of families ahead of us waiting for a girl. We would just like to know if we've moved up the list, if ANYONE has received a referral in the past week. I try not to bug the agency often... I think an email once a week asking for updates is reasonable. Once we get the referral, we'll only have another stretch of what feels like forever to wait until we can bring our baby home!
Several folks have asked how we get a referral and what does that even really mean. Here's how it should go: One magical day in the hopefully not-too-distant future we will get a phone call from the adoption agency saying that we have been given a referral and that they have emailed us the information. We will then rush excitedly to the computer to see what they've sent. There should be some photos, limited medical information and, in some cases, even video of the baby. We then have 48 hours to decide if we will accept that referral. It is recommended that we have the info checked out by a pediatrician that specializes in international adoptions prior to acceptance to be sure there are no medical problems that could be identified by the med report or pics. We will contact the agency to accept the referral and anxiously move on the the next step.
While we proceed through the rest of the paperwork and court stuff at lightning-fast speed (we hope) the baby will be living with a foster family. The foster mother is paid (little) by the attorney, I believe. The government does not help care for the orphans. We should get monthly updates in the form of pictures and medical reports.
Now, if we could just get that first picture and medical report....

Nursery in progress

We got the new carpet installed last week. We love it!
Matt insisted on putting the crib up right away.

Catching up, part 2

The next steps:
1. The homestudy and INS: This included gathering a lot of information/documents to provide to the social worker so she can begin learning about us. We also had to write up info on our family health histories, do personal biographies and a biography on us together as a couple. State fingerprints had to be done, tax and employment info provided, doctor's letters of good health, 4 reference letters... all kinds of things. There was also a lot of paperwork for us to do to narrow down what type of child we were interested in adopting, considering factors like age, sex, medical conditions, etc. Next came the interviews! For the first one we went to the office in Grafton to meet with DeeDee, our social worker. She then came to the house the next week for another interview and to check out the house. We were a little nervous about her coming to the house. We went a little nutty for a couple of days trying to get everything as clean and in order as possible. In reality, she was just checking to make sure we had a safe, healthy environment for a baby to move into. It was very relaxed and everything went just fine. DeeDee is very nice and has been a great help to us. The interviews included a lot of discussion on attachment issues, how to talk to your child about adoption, what it means to be a bi-racial family and other concerns that may come up. I think it's great that they really try to prepare you for what may come, things we had not necessarily thought about, yet.
Once DeeDee had all of our information and interviews completed it took a couple of weeks for her to write it up and finalize.
While the homestudy was being done we also submitted to the US gov't our "Application for Advance Processing Of An Orphan." This is basically getting permission from our gov't to go abroad to adopt a baby. We then had to go to Pittsburgh to get another set of fingerprints done for the FBI.
All of this took place through March and April. We got our final copy of the homestudy May 10th. Our letter from the Dept of Homeland Security came May 23rd, stating that we were approved to travel for the adoption!
2. The dossier: While working on the homestudy paperwork we were also filling out the paperwork for the adoption agency. First was the initial application, contract, info release forms, etc. Once that was completed we began working on compiling our dossier. The dossier is the set of documents required by the Guatemalan Government to complete the adoption. It included a lot of the same stuff as the homestudy, plus more. The frustrating thing about this step was that a lot of the info needed was the same but they wanted it in a different format. For example the doctor's letters of good health, our reference letters and even our birth certificates all had to be done a certain way which, of course, was different from what had been done for the homestudy. So, we did a lot of backtracking, filled out even more paperwork and got everything ready. Documents for the dossier must each be notarized. Then each document must be certified at the county level, then authenticated at the Sec of State's office. Once all of that it done the papers all had to be sent to the Guatemalan Embassy here in the US to be legalized. Only then could the completed dossier be sent to the adoption agency, who forwards it to Guatemala. We sent our completed dossier on May 30th, they received it June 1st. We are now what they call 'paper ready,' meaning that all of our paperwork is done and we are now just waiting for the referral of our baby! It's been 16 days.... but who's counting?

Catching up, part 1

Here's some info on what we've done so far in the adoption process:
1. Gather information, and lots of it: We spoke with an agency in Grafton that had been recommended to us and looked up info online regarding different agencies, the process, and the various countries from which we could choose to adopt. We then contacted several different adoption agencies for more information about their particular programs, fees, etc. At the same time we were narrowing down the countries we were most interested in adopting from, comfortably deciding on Guatemala.
2. Decision time: We decided on Guatemala for several reasons. The fact that the children are mostly raised in foster homes was a very positive factor for us, as this helps the children to develop appropriately and helps them learn to form attachments to other people. We like that it is not that far from the US; visiting again later in life with our child should be relatively easy and inexpensive. The time that we must be in the country when we go to pick up the baby is short; only 3-4 business days are required. Some countries, like China, require 2-3 weeks of travel. I figured, we can only take 4-6 weeks off of work.... I don't want half of that time to be in a hotel. The culture of Guatemala is fascinating, too. Geographically it's beautiful, historically it's interesting.... The people are for the most part very poor. The majority of the children that are placed for adoption cannot be cared for by their mothers because the mothers can't afford it. It's very sad. Thank goodness they care enough to bring the babies into the world and then give them (and us) a chance to have a family.
We chose an adoption agency in Medina Ohio that handles Guat adoptions and used the agency in Grafton to do our homestudy.
All of this took place in Feb/March 2006

Our spoiled dog, Ali

We're not sure how she's going to take to having another baby, other than herself, in the house. We have daily talks with her about what we expect of her... she doesn't seem to be impressed

Well, here we go.

Hey! Thanks for checking in! We wanted to start this to help keep in touch better with friends and family, particularly with info on this adoption stuff. Hopefully this will help clear up what the steps are, what the heck takes so long and where we are in the whole process. We'll try to update regularly to help keep everyone posted. Thanks so much to everyone for all their prayers and help as we go through this!