Thursday, October 31, 2013

It's a Halloween Miracle!!!...almost.

Wahooooo!  Our notarized copies of our homestudy came in the mail today!  Well...mostly.  We were supposed to get 4 copies and they only sent 3.  I'm a bit nervous to send off the 3 copies that I have to the various places they need to go (immigration, with our dossier, to our placing agency) and not have my copy already in hand.  So, I sent off an email and hopefully I'll be able to get that tomorrow so we can get this ball rolling!  I feel like I should cackle with excitement or something (being that it's Halloween and all)!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Trying to wrap up the homestudy

So, our caseworker with WIA submitted our written homestudy to AGCI for approval (pending receipt of my BCI) two weeks ago today.  As far as that stinking BCI (background check) goes...apparently my first one was rejected because one of the fingerprints wasn't done properly.  So another set of fingerprints had to be submitted and we just have to wait for that official all clear to come in saying I'm not a criminal.  After AGCI received our reviewed it and sent revisions that need to be done.  Some of which included:
  • Our case worker needing to verify birth certificates for all of our children (and adoption decree for Noah).
  • A written statement from us including various specifics on discipline tactics we won't use.  (For punishment we will not withhold food, require strenuous excercise, use mechanical or chemical restrains...and all sorts of other awful things.  Sad they even have to include those things.)
  • State that our fire evacuation plan is posted somewhere in our home.
  • State that our firearm is located separate from ammunition (duh).
  • And verify my brother's income (since he and his wife are designated as guardians of our children should something happen to both Mark and I).  Asking your brothers income - that's not awkward.
ANYWAY!  We've got this list done except that we haven't posted our evacuation plan yet, and for the life of me I can't find Max's birth certificate.  I've got the rest together, but if I cannot find Max's then I'll have to order another one from Nevada.  Of course this is ironic because...I WAS JUST NOTIFIED A FEW MINUTES AGO THAT MY BCI JUST CAME IN!  I'm so happy to hear that!  However, that means the ball is back in our court and things will move super fast finishing up the homestudy, getting papers sent in to immigration, and finishing up the dossier as soon as I can prove that Max actually belongs to us.  *sigh*

We just want to get this paper chase done (for now) and actually start the waiting process!!  It's  been exactly one year and two weeks since we started this paperwork and we just want to get things moving closer to bringing our baby girl home.  Such a long wait ahead of us still...

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Thrown a bone.

I had my scheduled phone call with my case worker Toni on Monday (they are every other week).  Most of the conversation wasn't worth recounting, but one thing she told me helped me to feel a tad bit better.  I was worried about things taking so long to get this homestudy wrapped up with us still needing to get all of our things done with immigration (which can take up to 6 weeks, I believe) in order to hit our November 16th deadline with the agency.  She told me that once the homestudy is done that we can finalize the rest of the dossier and only have to show proof that we have send our paperwork in to USCIS in order to be waitlisted.  Whew!  I thought we had to have that back before we could finalize and submit our dossier.

So!  I do need to compile our photos and get passport pictures taken, but we're really just waiting on that BCI to get our homestudy complete and see if we need any revisions on it or our dossier and we're going to FINALLY be offically waiting! 

Sigh of relief.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Follow up.

Since I did some griping earlier, I have to give a bit of credit to our case worker at WAI.  While I am still frustrated to be waiting on our BCI (probably not their fault), and I am even more frustrated at being told that it was in when it wasn't...at least our case worker agreed to write up a draft of our homestudy pending the receipt of that last little document.  And instead of taking 2 weeks to write it up, he did it today.  Yup, I got it today (so why exactly was that going to take an additional 2 weeks after we receive our BCI?)  Anyway!  I spent the last couple of hours editing it and, taking some notes, and making a few changes.  I just sent him off those revisions now and will be curious what he has to say.  I am pleased that we're able to at least get things in place so we can go ahead and just quickly certify things when the documents we're waiting on arrive...so we can move on to the next technicality before submitting our dossier for translation.

Oh, how I want this paper chase to be done and to at least know that our wait has even BEGUN.  Hurry up and wait, right?

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Grrrr.

I know that relative to other problems with international adoptions this is just a snag, but I'm feeling frustrated...and this is where I get to vent!  When Mark hand delivered all our remaining documents for our homestudy we were told that everything was in.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that (meaning that our BCI was in), but I emailed just to verify that was indeed true.  I got an email back stating that yes everything including our BCI was in.  I was later told that our homestudy should be complete within 2 weeks.  I was a little disappointed that it would take so long once everything was in, but I went with it.

Well, I just emailed to follow up on things and now I'm being told (this is all by WAI) that our BCI is actually not in!  What the what?!  Then I was told that whenever they get our BCI in that it will be 2 weeks after that before our homestudy will be done being written.  I wrote a civil, but firm email back explaining my frustrations and my concern about our pending deadline with our other agency.  Plus we still have to submit paperwork to USCIS (immigration) and request their federal fingerprinting - and that can't be done until we have a certified copy of our homestudy.  The latter process can take several weeks (up to 6 if I remember correctly).  Our deadline is November 16th...6 weeks from now.

So, I just barely got an email from our caseworker saying he double checked and our BCI is indeed not back yet (why was I told it was in the first place??), but that he'd work on a draft for the homestudy today anyway.  I guess that's good, but I'm feeling frustrated that we're just waiting on some stupid document stating that Mark and I aren't criminals.  And why is it taking so long.  It makes me wonder if our paperwork sat on a desk at the agency for a long time before they filed it.  Considering the recent mistakes I wouldn't be surprised.  I'm not feeling too impressed with this agency right now, but we're kind of bound to them at this point.  Not only with the homestudy, but we've already pre-paid for our three post placement assessments too.

Oh!  And I should mention that today marks exactly one year from the day that we turned in our application for adoption to AGCI and began this paper chase.  On that note, here's to hoping we get that document soon.