A Few Bumps in the Road

It has been awhile since I posted last because I wanted to work through a few significant issues on our adoption journey, and also because I went on a much needed vacation and I am just know able to find the time to post again.


Shortly after our Adoption Consultant received our Dossier for review, she called me while I was driving the kids home from school. The road I was on is notorious for bad cell reception and the call was dropped before she could let me know why she was calling. A few minutes later, I was able to drive up a hill, above the tree line, and call her back. Unfortunately, she had bad news. She said our Immigration approval would not work in Ukraine and that she could not submit our Dossier. What?! We were approved for up to 3 healthy children with an age range of 0 to 12 years old. She said we needed to be approved for special needs children because all orphans in Ukraine are classified as special needs. Basically our adoption would go through just fine in Ukraine, but we would not be able to get VISAs to bring the children home. Big Problem! She said we would need to get a new Home Study Addendum and re-file Immigration. I was able to end the call and drive home and make it to my room successfully and shut the door and then I just lost it. I threw a total temper tantrum. I mean the throwing things including myself down on my bed sobbing kind. (This is not something I normally do, by the way...I can normally hold it together. Yes, I cry easy, but this was different. This adoption roller coaster experience had my emotions going totally crazy.) I thought we were in the clear and just had to wait for Ukraine to invite us over. All of the careful time sensitive work we had done to put together the Dossier, I thought, was ruined! After an embarrassing 20 minutes of sobbing I found myself on my knees pleading with my Heavenly Father to help me get through this. I have no doubt that my family is meant to go through this process, but I needed stronger faith to overcome all of the obstacles that kept finding their way into our path. I committed to dig in and try to leave all of the overwhelming emotion out of it. I would do what I personally could do and trust that God would take over the rest and be okay with whatever future problems happened. I needed to leave all the emotion out of it for now so that I could be there for my family. As I have mentioned in other posts, I really have a problem with trusting others to do their jobs. My faith has really been tested and strengthened through this adoption process. This heartfelt prayer and the peaceful answer of everything will work out the way it is supposed to really strengthened me for the next couple of weeks.


The next day I got on the phone and tried to contact our Home Study social worker. I found out that she would be out of the office for the week. I emailed her and she responded that she was indeed out of the office for the week and that she would return on Monday, but would be involved in meetings all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was going out of town on Thursday for several weeks so I asked her what the possibility of her completing the Home Study Addendum by Wednesday was so I could drive in and pick it up on Wednesday afternoon and Apostille it on Thursday on my way out of town? (All Apostilles have to be done in the State Capital). She agreed to try. I got a call on Tuesday night saying that she was done with the Addendums. Thankfully my Adoption Consultant wrote word for word what need to be added into the Home Study Addendum and sent it to my Home Study social worker. (I need three copies, one for Immigration and two for our Dossier). She said their notary was on vacation, ah summertime, but she could find someone to notarize them for me so I could pick them up on Wednesday. I happily drove nearly 2 hours in traffic to her office on Wednesday afternoon thinking everything will work out perfectly. My social worker was in a meeting, but had left the documents with a lady at the front desk. Knowing from experience in the past, I looked over the documents before I left and noticed that only one of the Addendums had been notarized. I needed all three notarized! I mentioned the problem, and the nice front desk lady interrupted my social worker's meeting to let her know of the problem. Their solution was for me to come back around 8pm that night to pick them up because their notary could not show up until then. I didn't know what to do. I needed them now. I didn't have time to come back again by 8pm. My oldest son had a playoff game starting at 7pm and my husband was out of town. I decided to call my friend who lived in the area to see if she could pick them up for me at 8pm and then I would drive out to her house to pick them up after the baseball game. Being the awesome friend she is, she agreed. So I fought rush hour traffic home, losing a total of about 4 hours in traffic for nothing, and went about my evening getting ready for my trip and preparing for my son's game, etc. I received a text from my angel friend, Alicia, who had agreed to pick up the notarized documents, which just made me cry! A good cry.  The I can't believe that I have such an awesome friend cry. Here is the text she wrote:


      "Me being firm with you...I will pick up the paperwork at eight and I'm going to say this and I don't want you to argue because this is. I will drive it all the way to you. You can't say no. Sorry for being bossy ;)"


I just LOVE Alicia! Everyone should have a friend just like her! With no other option other than to accept, I agreed to her terms. My son's game was cancelled due to a nasty storm approaching so I was able to pack before 8pm. I tried to let Alicia know that I was now available to come get the paperwork or at least meet her part way, but she insisted on bringing the paperwork to my door. She made good time too, because I was on my way home from dropping off my dogs to the pet sitter when she arrived at my house. I thought I would be home before she could get there. She left the documents safely on my front porch, knowing I would be home soon, with a HUGE chocolate bar for me and called me before heading home. a two hour round trip at that time of night! She even texted the next day to make sure that I was able to get the documents off okay and that I was on my way out of town. Fabulous friend!


I prepared the letter and form for Immigration before I left and put it on my hubby's desk for him to sign and mail when he returned from his business trip. I made it to the capital the next morning and Apostilled the documents for Ukraine and shipped them to my Adoption Consultant for review before she sent our completed Dossier to Ukraine (She actually shipped them to a contact in Romania who personally flew them into Ukraine to have them translated and hand delivered to the SDA (office of child services in Kiev) which is where they are now.) My husband signed the forms for Immigration and mailed them when he returned home and we received our approval for up to 3 "special needs" children age range between 0 and 12 years old by the time I got back from my trip last week. Problem solved (hopefully...right? I know better now than to assume anything.) Now we are back to what I posted on my last post...we wait!


I just wanted to share a couple of songs that have really helped me understand the importance of putting my trust and faith in the right place. One is "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)" by Hillsong United and the other is "Faithful" by Hawk Nelson. They remind me where to put my faith and what God is capable of. I shared both songs on this blog with lyrics on individual posts. If you have time, please listen to them. Great songs! Every time I hear them on the radio the same peace I received from my prayer accompanies it. When I put my faith in the adoption process, everything fell apart. Countless problems have arisen that could have made me doubt that what we are doing is the right decision for our family. Seriously, when we started this process Ukraine was not in conflict and was a relatively safe place to be. The steps to complete should have stuck to the outline we were given, but how many times have we had to re-do our Home Study or add an Addendum? I believe we are on 4 or 5. Immigration was done twice. 4 medical appointments for me. 3 different Home Ownership letters, and countless other blips in the process including changes in fees and policy. Nothing has truly been easy. When I put my trust and faith in God all is put into the correct perspective. I needed to grow. I needed to get closer to him. I needed time to educate myself about what problems we might face after our kids reach our home. I needed time with my birth children preparing them and enjoying our family as it is now because it is all going to drastically change. I have a feeling that all of these delays and problems are there to allow God's timing to work to find the children that are meant to be a part of this family and prepare us to parent them successfully. I hope I look back and say "Oh, that's why it took so long..." Thanks to those who read to the end. I know this is a long post, but I wanted to remember everything that happened the last couple of months and for my future kiddos to know what we went through to get them here and why it took so long!

Hawk Nelson - Faithful (Official Lyric video)

Hillsong UNITED Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) Lyric Video

We shipped our Dossier! What is a Dossier, you ask?

A Dossier is the collection of documents that is sent to the foreign country that the adoption will take place in. These documents are time sensitive and can take a lot of steps to complete. We started working towards our Dossier in September with the Home Study Process. Each new document that we completed went in a very specific place in our house that would be safe and out of the way. My husband and I protected these documents and never let them out of our sight when we had them out of the house. When others had to work on them we wouldn't let them touch them until we told them EXACTLY how to fill them out. One mistake and the document is invalid. Each document was anxiously awaited for when we had to send them through the mail. I never knew how emotionally attached I could be to these documents. The last week or so I have had trouble sleeping worrying about completing these documents. When I finished the last step of completing our Dossier yesterday I held it together until I got to the car and then I just cried because I was so happy to finally have this part done. This has been an emotional process for sure! Last night was the first great night of sleep that I have had in a long time.

Here is a list of the documents that we had to prepare, Notarize, and Apostille:

Home Study (2 Copies Notarized and Apostilled)
Home Study Agency License (2 copies Notarized as "true and exact copies" and Apostilled)
Social Worker's License (2 copies Notarized as "true and exact copies" and Apostilled)
Certified Marriage Certificate (2 Certified in County of Marriage License, Apostilled in State of Marriage)
Copy of 2013 1040 Tax Form (Notarized as "true and exact copy" and Apostilled)
3 Color Passport Copies per Parent (6 Notarized as "true and exact copy" and Apostilled)
Petition for Adoption (Notarized and Apostilled)
Home Ownership Letter With Real Estate License attached (Notarized and Apostilled (this had to be done
     three separate times due to mistakes...not the Realtor's fault. The Notary's commision expired before we
     could apostille due to delays, etc.))
State Police Clearance (Notarized and Apostilled)
Interpol Background Check (2 Notarized and Apostilled)
Petition to Use Personal Information (Notarized and Apostilled)
Employment Letter (under one month old Notarized and Apostilled)
Power of Attorney (4 non specific Notarized and Apostilled)
Power of Attorney (2 specific Notarized and Apostilled)
Consent (Notarized and Apostilled)
Consent for Adoption (2 Notarized and Apostilled)
Letter of Obligation (2 Notarized and Apostilled)
Medical Exam Report one per parent (2 Notarized and Apostilled)
Copy of I-171H -Notice of Favorable Determination (Immigration Approval) (Notarized as "true and exact
      copy" and Apostilled)


It came out to be 37 separate documents that I shipped today along with other fees and an addendum to our contract. (See time line page).

I've been asked what Apostille means a few times.An Apostille is a form of Authentication/ Certification to be used in countries who are signed as part of the Hague Convention. The process can be different depending on what country the documents will be used in. It is basically a double to check to make sure the the Notary is current on their commission and that they notarized the document correctly. An Apostille does the same thing for certified documents like a Marriage License. An Apostille can only be obtained from the state the document originated in.

Our Dossier is on its way to our Adoption Agency where it will be reviewed for accuracy and then sent on to Ukraine for translation. Once it is translated it will be submitted to the Government office (SDA) that will invite us over to review files of children waiting to be adopted. Now comes the hard part: we wait.

We received approval from Immigration!

I am excited to say that we received our I-171H approval from Immigration today! It has been a stressful few weeks for us since I posted last. I thought we were on the fast track for getting this document, but shortly after I posted we received a letter from Immigration stating that we needed to provide "Proof of Evidence" for two areas that our Home Study did not cover. I swear our Home Study has been a challenge! It seems that our Home Study Social Worker left out two sections required by Immigration and our Case Worker at our Adoption Agency did not catch this. If you remember this is our third Case Worker with this Adoption Agency and the change happened right as our Home Study was completed. Seems that our Home Study fell through the cracks. Both our Home Study Social Worker and our Case Worker at our Adoption Agency were very apologetic and provided the needed revisions for our Home Study rather quickly, but it still took me writing exactly what I wanted it to say because the revisions were not as clear as I wanted them. While this was happening we had a scare with a work assignment for my husband that would have crushed our adoption plans for this year. After a little over a week of worrying we were able to resolve that issue. We were able to get our fingerprints taken at Immigration and send of our new revised Home Study back to Immigration about a week ago. I've been stalking the poor mail carrier this past week and our approval finally arrived today! When we opened it I just started crying! I was so glad that it had finally came and that all of our problems have been resolved! Unfortunately, our Home Study needs an addendum because it was officially approved over 3 months ago and Ukraine likes all of the documents under 8 weeks old. After that, all we need is James's Employment letter and then notarize and appostille everything. Our Dossier should go out in the next week if all goes well!

We have been invited by Immigration to have our biometrics taken!

We heard back from Immigration yesterday. We received our appointment date for fingerprints! Our I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition was received by the Department of Homeland Security on March 18, 2014 and our appointment date notification for fingerprints was dated on March 21, 2014. It only took 4 days for them to do this! We were told it could take up to 8 weeks! I am thrilled! Our appointment date is mid-April (I'll post actual dates after the appointment happens). This means we can submit our dossier to Ukraine as early as late April. Travel to Ukraine can happen as quick as 2 weeks from when we submit our dossier. I think it has finally hit me that we will meet our girls soon! Huge array of emotions right now! I feel we are as prepared as we can be at this point. The kids and I have learned 49 words and phrases in Russian, even our 4 year old. Thankfully, my husband speaks, reads, and writes fluent Russian and will be traveling with me, but we thought it might be helpful for the family to learn a bit before the girls get here. I'm working on several games that include pictures of people, our home, and community that will hopefully help the girls in their transition to our home and family. I can't do much more until I meet the girls in person. To make that happen we only have three documents left to prepare: both final Medical Exams, already scheduled, and an Employment Letter (they are very time sensitive so we had to wait. I got the go ahead from our agency to do these mid-April), and then we can notarize everything and get them apostilled. Pre-Adoption process here in the United States is almost done, then a whole new Ukraine Pre-Adoption process will begin. So excited!

Home Study Document Finalized, Immigration Documents Sent!

I am happy to announce that our Home Study process and document are finally finished! It didn't go as smoothly as we expected, but it is now corrected and complete! The date on our Home Study Document says February 4, 2014, because that was the day we were approved, but we didn't finalize that document until just this last weekend. Shortly after February 4th, the Home Study document was sent directly to our case worker with our adoption agency. We received a certificate in the mail giving us the basic information of what our Home Study approved us for (# of children, age range, medical status, etc.), but not the actual document, like I was expecting. I was so excited to have this part of the process done until I saw that the age range we were approved for was 0-12 months! Months! Please let that be a typo! We were hoping for 0-12 years! Of course we received the package on a Friday night so there was no chance of calling the Home Study to see if this was a mistake until Monday morning. We spent that weekend worrying that we might have wasted the last several months working on a Home Study that would be worthless in Ukraine. (Only children 5 years and older can normally be adopted out of the county). I called the office on Monday morning and was relieved to find out that it was in fact a typo. They promised to fix it and resend it. Whew! Meanwhile, our case worker with our adoption agency was switched again (our third one). We called the agency and asked for an explanation and was told that the first one, decided to only do Home Studies, and that the second one was over Bulgaria adoptions and agreed to take on Ukraine until another case worker was found, the third one used to handle adoptions from Russia until that was closed and now will be handling Ukraine. That's three different caseworkers in 6 months! I have to say I was bothered by this at first because I really was starting to connect with the second caseworker, but in my last post I mentioned that I felt strongly to pray for our caseworkers that would be helping us. I really feel that this new caseworker is an answer to that prayer. She is amazing with details and wording. She might not be as personable as the last one, but do I need another friend or do I need someone to get things done? She received our Home Study, reviewed it, sent it to some of her contacts in Ukraine to review it (not a normal thing), and then called us with some of her concerns. We had not seen the actual document so we were unaware of the many, many mistakes in it. Our new caseworker advised us to contact our Home Study agency to begin the editing process. When I called the Home Study agency I was surprised to talk to our social worker. I was told that she was going to be on leave for her wedding for several weeks, so I thought I would be dealing with her substitute while she was gone. I congratulated her on her wedding and she said that unfortunately it didn't happen yet because her sister passed away suddenly. She is postponing the wedding until later this Spring. She had taken some time off, but felt she needed to get back to work. I felt so bad for her! I know what it is like to lose a sibling so suddenly. She agreed to talk with our caseworker to address some of her concerns. They talked back and forth a bit, but our caseworker at the adoption agency wanted us to look at it, which isn't a normal thing to do until it is finalized, because it just didn't sound right. So our social worker finalized it and sent it directly to us instead of our adoption agency. Again, I was excited to receive the package and started to read the 16 page document. I started counting mistakes and stopped counting after 88 and I wasn't even finished with the document. I knew why our caseworker wanted it sent to us now. There were wrong dates of birth, ages (they listed me as 40, I'm 34. James was listed as 36, and he is 37), gender issues (she instead of he, etc.), and just plain things that weren't correct. It read like a Home Study of a couple trying to adopt internationally mingled with an older single lady trying to adopt domestically. Not good. Of course it was a Friday evening again when the package came so I couldn't call the Home Study Agency until Monday. So, I decided to not waste anymore time and go to work. I marked up the Home Study with a blue pen with all of the corrections that needed to be made, scanned it into my computer and then re-typed the whole document with the corrections and sent both as attachments in an email to my social worker. I knew she was going through a hard time right now so I tried to make this as easy as possible for her. I told her I wasn't comfortable sending in the Home Study as she finalized it and that I sent her the corrections that needed to be made and also that I re-typed it with all of the corrections already done. I asked her if she could either fix the corrections herself using the marked up Home Study or just review what I did and print it out on her letter head and finalize it again. I didn't hear back from her again for a few days because of the infamous snow days in Northern Virginia this winter, but she agreed to just print out the corrections I made on her letter head and have it finalized. She is an amazing person and I would work with her again and recommend her to anyone. I know it was just terrible timing for her. I can't imagine what it must have been like trying to complete our Home Study when she just found out that her sister died. I know it would have gone smoother if that wouldn't have happened. Who knows, maybe the Home Study process took so long (6 months) because our kiddos wouldn't have been available if it was processed earlier. We shall see. So with a completed Home Study, we sent in our immigration documents. Immigration can take up to 8 weeks. We will wait to hear back from them and then get our fingerprints done for Interpol and then send in our dossier to Ukraine. Hopefully we will travel to Ukraine to meet our kids by May or June.