Well the past few days has provided me with an unwanted reality check. I had been hoping we would be travelling on our first trip to L's country in February or March of 2013 and complete his adoption and have him home in the Fall of 2013. (I know some of you who have already adopted are thinking how optimistic this was...Those of you who aren't involved in the adoption process are probably thinking this was pessimistic). I talked to the training coordinator for our Home Study agency and found out that the parent training classes that are require aren't available until this spring and some of our paperwork can't be filed until these classes have been completed. This sent me on a quest to find out what this meant for our travelling and this was my discovery:
The Homestudy optimistically will be completed the middle of December (as long as our fingerprint clearances are received)
Once the Homestudy is completed we will file the I-800a (This is an immigration thing) which takes 60-90 days to get back!!! (Uggg, this is the one that is hurting me right now!) This means mid Feb to mid March, 2013
After the I-800a approval is returned we can send the remainder of our dossier to L's country where it will be translated and then wait for approval
The story is that we can hope to travel about 2 and 1/2 months after submitting our dossier. This means travelling May or June 2013 for our first trip.
My second reality check was from a friend in Colorado who is also adopting from L's country through the same agency who told me start to finish their adoption will be about 17 months. 17 MONTHS!!! That's just shy of a year and a half. Oh my stomach aches.
Third reality check (I know...I'm starting to feel like a complete idiot at this point for being so disillusioned) I had kind of harbored the idea that if I completely was going insane wanting to see Lance that maybe I could take an extra trip early to meet him unofficially. Well, apparently his country has what is called closed orphanages which means adoptive parents can't visit until they have officially received a referral (Basically we aren't allowed to see our little boy until May or June)
Some POSITIVE notes:
I had sent the international adoption Clinic at Children's hospital in Denver Lance's medical certificate and the short video I have of him and got to hear back and talk to the doctor this afternoon. He didn't tell me much more than I already knew, but it was nice to know there weren't any surprises and he was very supportive and encouraging.
We got our half of our apostilled documents back from the state which means they can be sent to L's country next week! This is a baby step, but it means one less thing to be waiting for.
HI,
ReplyDeleteWow, that is disheartening to hear. We are also adopting from the same country you are and we also live in Colorado. I was hoping that it would take about a year. But maybe that isn't realistic for us either. What agency are you using? We live in Highlands Ranch. Where do you guys live?
Hi Kelly,
DeleteWe are using CCAI as our homestudy agency and About A Child for our placing agency. Where in the process are you? Who are you using?
Hi Melissa,
ReplyDeleteWe are using IAN for our homestudy. We are using AAC too for placing. We are just about done with our home study. We are just waiting on our fingerprints and child abuse clearances to come back. We only need one class because we needed 55 hours of training to foster for Arapahoe county. So there is just one class about international stuff that we need to take. We were supposed to have it last Saturday but the instructor got sick. My email is kellym9999@aol.com We live in Highlands RAnch....where do you guys live?