Certified documents received from Secretary of State

What an exciting day! State certification on all of your notarized documents is a requirement for the adoption process for proof that the notaries you used are legal. We sent 31 notarized documents to the Secretary of State for certification on Thursday, Nov. 19. On Friday, Nov. 20, the department called me and said they would process them right away since they knew we were on a tight timeframe. We got them back the very next day - Saturday, Nov. 21! And they look amazing! The Secretary of State seal, and signature, is so cool. Thank you, Sam Reed and your staff!

We have 5 more to send for certification. I need to send my birth certificate's (must have two) to Idaho for certification, and then our marriage certificate's (must have two) to Oregon to certify. (These couldn't be certified by Washington because they must be certified in the state where the events took place.) I'll send these on Monday (Nov. 23). Then, once I get our USCIS approval, I need to get that notarized, then sent for certification. Also, there were two of the 31 I received back today that didn't have the gold seal on them for some reason. So, I'll send those back with the USCIS document. No biggie.

We're getting soooo close to having our dossier done! Hallelujah!

USCIS Fingerprinting: Nov. 30!

We received our fingerprinting dates today! On Nov. 30 in Yakima (1pm for me, 2pm for Andrew), we'll be getting fingerprinted for the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to capture our biometrics as part of the USCIS approval process. The USCIS approval is the USA giving us approval in advance to adopt an orphan.

After they receive our fingerprinting, we should receive our I-171h form quickly, which is the official approval we need from the USA to adopt. And, it's also the very last document that is needed for our dossier! After we get that, our entire packet will be off to our agency for translation, then on to Nepal!

Whooooo-hooooo!

Nepal Program Update: Good news on the horizon

I’m a part of two Yahoo! adoption groups. One is through my agency, Adoption Ark. The other is one that someone created awhile ago for people that are adopting from Nepal from all over the world! The Yahoo! group is called, “nepaladopt”. Through this group, I’ve met people from Italy, France, UK, Sweden, Norway, Canada and the USA. It’s great!

There are several prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) in this group that have been waiting to be matched to their child since January 2009. Worse yet, there are a few people that have been waiting three and four years! Part of this is because they submitted their dossier before 2008, which is when Nepal closed their program. Nepal re-opened in January 2009.

At any rate, because of the long wait, and political unrest, I asked my case manager at Adoption Ark if she had an understanding of why the referrals were taking so long, and what their experience has been with Nepal. I shared that we were not told that it would take so long to be matched when we signed in to the program, and it concerned me that other families (with other agencies) are having to wait so long.

My case manager answered my questions. In a nutshell:

• This isn't true. There may be some case who applied earlier, and then the adoption program closed for about two years. It re-opened in January 2009, and now it won't take that long. If everything goes well, the PAPs will receive their referral by December 2009.
• The Ministry has given special orders to complete all the cases ASAP.

Such wonderful news to this prospective adoptive mommy!

Nepal Program Update

There has been much unrest in Nepal over the last month. The unrest comes from their current political situation. This has affected the progress of waiting families receiving referrals for their children. You might wonder, why would political unrest affect the adoption process? The reason is because dossiers first go through a government department, the department of Women, Children and Social Welfare, before going to Nepal’s matching committee. Thus, if there is political unrest, it affects the governmental department position that initially processes the adoption paperwork.

I inquired of our agency, Adoption Ark, as to how things are looking for the Nepal adoption program. My case manager wrote back on Friday, Nov. 13, to all of us adopting from Nepal though Adoption Ark. Please continue to pray for matches to be made for the waiting families, particularly because the slower the wait for them, the slower the wait for the rest of us when our dossier’s arrive to Nepal in January.

• 22 families have received their child and completed the process
• 40 have received a referral, but have yet to receive their travel approval from Nepal
• Another 40 have been matched by the Ministry, but the matches haven't been mailed out yet
• The Ministry and matching committee are working to complete all the matches
• May complete all the cases within a month or so

Tests confirm: We're not crazy!

Another requirement for adoption is having a psychological evaluation and taking certain psychological tests to confirm mental health. This isn’t required by all countries or agencies. In fact, Nepal does not require this, however Russia does. At any rate, even though this is not a Nepal requirement, our adoption agency does require it, so we needed to do it.

The psychological evaluation must be performed by a clinical psychologist and must include the following:
• Interviews
• MMPI-2 test (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2)
• Rorschach Ink Blot Test
• Summary report for each of us describing the interviews and test results

All interviews and tests are deemed to describe our emotional stability, fitness for parenting, social history, feelings about your parenting skills, strength of marriage, self-esteem, commitment level and values.

At first, Andrew and I were a little bit annoyed that we needed to do this since Nepal didn’t require it. Especially since we had to provide so much information for our home study, and the home study interviews and home inspection were so detailed, that, if one could not determine mental health from all of that, then wow! On top of that, it was hundreds of dollars to do the interviews and tests, so that part was frustrating too. (We understand needing to pay for the services, but to pay extra for something that Nepal didn’t even require was what was frustrating to us.)

However, once we took the tests, did the interviews, and read the reports, we were so glad we did it. We learned so much about ourselves!

The MMPI-2 test was a true/false test with 457 questions! It took about 1.5 hours. The interviews, Rohrschach and other test (can’t remember the name) took about 2 hours. All of the tests and interviews were very interesting, especially the Rohrschach and other test I can’t remember the name...we’ll just call it, “storytelling”.

The Rorschach test consisted of 10 different cards that you had to describe. Each card had an ink blot dropped onto it, then folded in half and re-opened creating an image. You had to describe what you thought the image looked like and why.

The “storytelling” test was six different illustrated pictures of people in different settings. You needed to tell a story about the people/setting...what was happening at that moment, what precluded it, and what the future was.

The psychologist told us that both the Rorschach and the storytelling tests were “projective” psychology tests. Our responses would give him an idea of our unconscious wishes, desires and emotions, especially from one person to another. Isn’t that interesting? When he first told us that, I thought, “Yeah, right! Sure it will!”

Well...

First of all, the tests nailed us! They described our strengths, weaknesses, emotional stamina, marriage, self-esteem, etc., and even gave hints as to what type of parents we would be!
Second of all, our psychologist pinned us! Based on the interviews and tests, he basically knew exactly who we were. I guess a doctorate degree, 40 years of experience, and some really great, tried-and-true tests actually do work!
Third of all, we found out that we weren’t crazy, and that we’re actually pretty neat people! Yes, we have weaknesses and there are things we need to continue to allow Jesus to transform in us. But the strengths the tests and interviewed showed were pretty eye-opening, and quite special! As the psychologist described what he found in the interviews and tests, I felt like my Father God was sitting across from me saying, “I like who I created!” It was actually very healing.
Fourth of all, we’re smart! I always knew that about Andrew, but haven’t necessarily thought of myself as “smart”. Apparently I am!
And finally, and most importantly, the tests actually showed that Andrew will be a “fun and loving parent” and I will be a “happy and loving parent”. If there was anything that moved me, it was that.

Home Study Report to USCIS; Update on Where We're At in the Adoption Process

Besides receiving a favorable home study, we need approval from the USA to adopt a baby. The approval goes through the USCIS department – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. (And even when we receive our referral of the baby, the baby referral will go through the USCIS to confirm with Nepal that our baby is indeed an orphan. The USCIS will require Nepal to show them documentation that this baby is an orphan.)

The governmental form to complete for USA approval is the I-600A form, “Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition”. You complete the form, and send in the following items with it:
• Birth certificates
• Marriage certificate
• Home study report
• Social worker credentials
• Home study agency credentials
• $800 application fee

You can send in your I-600A form and money with all of your documents before having your home study approved. Then, when you get your home study approval and report, you can send that along with the social worker and agency credentials.

I sent our I-600A form, certificates and money on July 14. We received a letter from the USCIS on July 24 saying they had received our application and would begin processing it. It also said they would not complete until our home study was received and they would not schedule our fingerprinting appointment until they received the home study.

Having received the home study report on Oct. 22, I immediately sent it, along with the social worker and agency credentials, to USCIS on the same day. They say it takes 6-8 weeks to receive USCIS approval, so I wanted to get the home study stuff in the mail immediately.

Now, we wait to get our date in which we to go to Yakima or Spokane to get official fingerprints taken.

We’re getting so close to having everything done! I am in the process of sending all of our documents to the Secretary of State to certify that the notary on our documents is a true person and a true notary. This process is called “State certification”. Once I get all of our state-certified documents back, and the USCIS approval to adopt, we will be done with all of our paperwork. This paperwork will be put into what’s called a “Dossier”. We expect to be able to send our Dossier by the end of November.

We will mail our Dossier to our case manager. She will confirm that everything is there, and everything is right. If we need to make any changes, she will let us know. After Dossier approval, she will send it to a native-Nepalese speaking translator. That person will translate everything. Then, it will officially go to Nepal in January and we will officially be waiting for our baby!

Home Study approved!

We received word on Monday, Oct. 19, that our home studies were approved! This is a huge part of the adoption process. We began working on the home study at the beginning of June. We had our interviews in Seattle on July 31. We had our home inspection on Aug. 28. We received the first draft of the home study report on Oct. 16. We sent changes on Oct. 19. Then, our case manager reviewed it for the week, and sent her changes to our social worker. Our social worker made the final changes, and mailed the final report to us on Oct. 20. We received it on Oct. 22. YIPPEE!

If the home study is not approved, you do not get to adopt. While we were sure that we would get approved, there is nothing like getting the actual document that says you’re approved. And, this 12-page final document represents four months of time, and hours of work for me and Andrew, and our social worker too. You might have noticed from an earlier post, we sent 88 pages of content and information in June to our social worker for the home study! Then, we traveled to Seattle for a day of interviews, and had a home inspection at our house as well. And since that time, there has been several e-mails between me and our social worker to answer additional questions, etc.

So...with approvals in hand (and a report of our lives summed up in 12 pages), we are well on our way to our Nepal baby!