Adoption journey...June & July 2007

Alright.....so, where did I leave off? Oh, yeah...June 2007. Now, we have a slight complication. Here is a copy of a letter I sent to family and friends to update them and ask for prayer support:

Well, as you all know, we are in the process of an adoption from the country of Uzbekistan. It is very new to international adoption, so we knew there might be a few bumps in the road. Our paperchase is complete, it took about 4 months. It is on the way to Uzbek as we speak. Things seemed to be going well until my adoption agency called me today. I should have known it was not so good news since she doesn't usually call me. I will try to explain this, but I apologize if you get lost because it is really complicated. What it all boils down to is that we need your prayers for our adoption process. Pray that things go smoothly and that the people along the way remain open-minded.I received our 171 approval, which is the government approving us to adopt an orphan, but only box #1 was checked because in our state they don't normally check box #3 until you receive the information about your referral of the specific child you are going to adopt. For Uzbek, we need box #3 checked so a cable is sent to the US Embassy in Uzbek telling them we are approved before our coordinator in the country can do anything on her end. Well, my social worker had talked to the appropriate people and we thought we had it worked out that they were going to issue the 171 with box #3 checked early for us, so the cable would be sent to the US Embassy in Uzbek. Our dossier, adoption paperwork, is on its way to Uzbek right now, so I started to think that I better get the second 171 approval soon or my dossier will get there before the cable. It turns out in our state for a proxy adoption, where you don't meet the child before the adoption is final, they not only need the medical information about your child, but also proof that they are an orphan to issue the 171 with box #3 checked! That means that it is basically impossible for us to adopt an orphan through an orphanage because the coordinator doesn't get the information about them being an orphan until the adoption is final! But box #3 has to be checked for us to adopt! So, we will have to do a semi-private adoption in Uzbekistan. Which, will be a little more expensive since the child will be in foster care longer, but has the advantages of more pictures and better medical care.The other issue with all of this is that our dossier can't go to the MOE in Uzbek, Ministry of Education, until we get this "coverletter" from the US Embassy in Uzbek, which is normally issued once they receive the cable. My social worker is writing a letter to the US Embassy in Uzbek explaining the laws in our state, and we are hoping they will issue this "coverletter" without the cable or else our dossier won't be able to go through the MOE until we have our referral and we get USCIS to send the cable. Therefore, it could add 2 months to our process!We are okay with doing a semi-private adoption, we are just sick of dealing with all the buearocracy involved with the adoption process. I don't know why our state has to do things so differently than every other state. But, without this complication we wouldn't meet the child that is suppose to be ours. So, I try to not forget that God is ultimately in control and knows what needs to happen for us to find our next daughter. I am just worried that there aren't many women in Uzbekistan who are wanting to give up their child for adoption who will be open to an international family adopting them. Pray they will be open minded!

Well, since I sent that letter I learned that it might work if we get an orphanage referral for the coordinator to write down what she knows about the child being an orphan. We will just have to wait and see. Also, right when all this happened, the MOE in Uzbek stopped receiving dossiers unless they already had a referral. So, our dossier couldn’t have gone to the MOE anyway.

After dealing with all that craziness, we got everything notarized. Then, I took a trip to our state capital to get everything state certified and then sent off fo DC to be authenticated at the Uzbekistan and US Embassies. Which, it is all really ludicris because when you get something state certified they are just verifying that the notary is valid. Then, the US Embassy verifies that the state seal is valid and the Uzbek seal validates that the US seal is valid! Sometimes I think our government is just trying to see how far they can push adoptive parents before we snap! Well, I wanted to get everything certified in bundles, to save money, but of course no one in the state capital had heard of this. So, after about 5 phone calls to Victoria, we realized that we could have them certify the top copy in each of my bundles, which is essentially bundling, but they didn't think they were bundling. I also got everything sent off to DC that same day.

About 5 days later everything was back in my hands with the proper seals and after I made copies of everything, I sent it off to Victoria at AAC. On July 9, 2007, our dossier left CA for Uz and got there on July 13th.

What a relief to have all that done! Now, I thought I would just have to wait patiently and was pretty optimistic that by the end of the year we would have a referral. Boy, was I wrong....Stay tuned....