Closer to a Bun in the Oven

A little progress on the adoption that is making it feel real.

We received a fingerprint appointment from US Immigration (USCIS). AGCI's new requirement is that families must have immigration approval before going on the waitlist. After the homestudy is complete, this means approximately 3-4 more months of waiting before being waitlisted. I told my sister, in adoption world, going on the waitlist is like finally getting pregnant after a long time of trying. It doesn't quite feel real until you're on that waitlist.

USCIS scheduled our appointment for the second week of June. Dodd will be on a business trip that week and neither of us wanted to wait that long anyway. Many families on the AGCI listserv have posted about going to USCIS before the actual appointment, hoping to be fingerprinted early. We decided to give it a shot. We had nothing to lose.

I took Monday off from work. Bear and I met Dodd downtown. The USCIS woman was not thrilled when we told her our story but said they would try to squeeze us in with no guarantees they would have time. She warned it could take an hour, or it could take 3, there was no way to predict. We said we would wait. Then we walked upstairs to sit in the waiting room as our 22 month old rambunctious boy (who by the way is still not a US citizen, I MUST file those papers!) ran around to investigate as much of this new place as possible and jabber talked to the many hopeful immigrants in the room. I was not sure how we would contain him for 3 hours.

5 minutes later we were buzzed back downstairs. It took about 20 minutes for both of us to be printed. And then we were finished. That was it. Ah, one thing in the adoption process that went faster than expected.

The fingerprints go now to a central location that completes an investigation to determine if we are qualified to bring a foreign born child into the US. We have been warned that the investigation process is taking longer and it might be another 1-2 months before we receive the clearance that allows us to be waitlisted.

I left the next day for a business trip and, while traveling, received an unscheduled call from our caseworker. Because USCIS processing is taking longer than expected, AGCI made an exception and is allowing families who have been fingerprinted to submit their dossiers! That means the waitlist! Oh, but.....RATS....I was traveling and could not get our dossier paperwork pulled together! And there is one more step I've been waiting to complete so notarizations would not expire....state authentication. I called the Wisconsin Secretary of State Office as soon as my plane landed back on Wisconsin soil Thursday. I spoke with the woman who completes authentications. She said they would be closed 4 days for the Memorial Day holiday and then she is going on vacation. I asked to be transferred to the person who would be her backup while she's out. Without much concern she told me there is no such person. She's it. Ah, government services. How a state function can come to a grinding halt because one person goes on vacation is beyond me. My sister is having her reference letter notarized (thanks MB!) and we wait for this one last step with the state, maybe 2 weeks, then we can bestow a pile of paperwork on Toni at AGCI and finally get on that list again. Don't ya love adoption drama? I know this process and know there is much more difficult waiting ahead but it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement of it all.

Our new family picture infront of the immigration office in Milwaukee. We tried to explain to Bear that the first time we were there it was just Mama and Dada and we were getting ready for HIM. You can see he was more interested in the truck across the street. :)

After this was taken, Dodd went back to work and Bear and I played for a while at the Betty Brinn's Children's Museum. Lake Michigan was shimmery and the Milwaukee tulips looked like electric lolipops set against the open wings of the Calatrava. We ate an ice cream sandwich and delicious tamales from a street vendor. Then we went home and took a nap. Happy day!

Three Weddings and a Ring-Bear-er

This has been a year of weddings in our family. In the past year, three cousins on my side have married. Bear has had lots of fun traveling about to different states, meeting up with grandma, grandpa, auntie and uncle each time, to witness the cousins make this most important commitment.

Justin and Vanessa had a beautiful wedding in Napa Valley

Katie (our flower girl, can she really be married now?!) married Jacob in Kansas

My aunt and uncle walked two daughters down the aisle inside of 8 months. Easter weekend, Katie's sister, Jannie, married Andrew. Bear had the honor of being a ring bearer with cousin Jack in their wedding. I want to share this highlight video that Jannie's Uncle Jeff put together because 1) it's done really well, 2) you can see Bear running (and falling) down the aisle with cousin Jack, and 3) this is a special couple with a sincere love for each other and for God. I smile each time I think of them. I don't usually get too emotional at weddings but I have a hard time watching this one without crying. Especially when Andrew surprises Jannie with a song during the ceremony. Hope it makes you smile too!

Jannie & Andrew's Wedding Highlights Video from Image Harbor Productions on Vimeo.

A post to get back in the groove

Jeesh, the longer you go without blogging, the harder it is to get back. I am ovewhelmed with much living. Here's a little post just to get going again.

Ethiopia Update
Adoptions have not come to a screeching halt as feared in March, but there is still uncertainty. We are preparing to wait a long time for our second kiddo. The process, when all was said and done, took about a year to adopt Bear. Dodd and I are preparing for 3 years this time. Hopefully sooner, but preparing for longer. If you are praying for this country and her children, please continue.

US Update
The homestudy is complete and we are waiting for a fingerprint appointment from US Immigration. We were relieved the US government did not shut down last month since it would have included Immigration. This time around we are required to have immigration approval before we can go on the waitlist. Last time we waited for immigration at the same time we waited for referral. Adds about 3 months to the process.

Family Update
We are holding it together but just by the skin of our teeth. Work is good, Bear is great. My job requires travel this year which is causing some family synching problems. Nothing terrible, but it throws off our routines and adds some pressure for all three of us. Both of us love our work and we are crazy about our boy so it's all good. Just not much margin at the moment for anything else besides the two. Trying to cut back a little to restore some balance and maybe talk to some friends from time to time!

Bear Update
I don't even know where to start with the new things he is doing, seeing, learning, how much he's growing. Instead, here is an interesting random tidbit. To appreciate it I'll provide some context. My husband loves books and loves learning. As a result, he has without exaggeration, a couple thousand books in his library.

There is one book Bear chooses of the hundreds of books within his reach on the shelves...Ethiopian Amharic. It's the tiny little translation book we took with us to Addis. We forgot it was even on the shelf in the study. Dodd sometimes turns it around so the spine is facing the back wall just to see if Bear is really choosing it specfically. He will spot it, even backwards. There's not much in it to attract a kid other than the colorful cover. But we frequently find him carrying it around the house and carefully turning the pages inside.
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You can't take Ethiopia out of the boy. Or a picture without a runny nose!

Leaves are FINALLY about to burst in Wisconsin. Happy Spring!

Ethiopia

I thought my next post would be an update on the adoption process for our second child from Ethiopia. Instead it will be an update and a request for your help. Here's a picture of Bear and Mama at the county jail last weekend where Dodd and I had a new set of fingerprints taken for FBI background checks.

Last week we wrapped up our homestudy paperwork while events affecting adoptions were unfolding in Ethiopia. At the same time that we were writing statements about how Ethiopia has become part of the fabric of our lives, how strongly we feel that our second child is in Ethiopia, and how much we want Bear to have a brother or sister who shares his cultural heritage, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs was announcing plans to reduce intercountry adoptions by 90%.

Our caseworker from the international agency called last week to check in and answer any questions. She said because we signed our contract very very recently, we are eligible to move to another country's program. This took me off guard. Dodd and I have never, never thought of that as an option. I explained that our hearts are in Ethiopia and that we are committed to seeing this through. And then, quite unexpectedly, tears began flowing from my eyes.

It's hard to tell right now how the situation will shake out. We are paying close attention to what's going on and praying. We hope the intense attention this has drawn will create the momentum needed for positive and necessary systemic changes in Ethiopia and the agencies it works with. We also hope that this can be done without bogging down the process causing children to wait unneccessarily in institutions. And we pray for the families we know who are in those last painful stages of waiting. This is excruciating news when you are so close to knowing and bringing your children home. And of course, we pray for the children. Always praying for the children.

We remain hopeful. I am taking the last packet of paperwork to the socialworker tomorrow with a big Ethiopian flag pasted to the front.

There is something you can do if you would like to help. The Joint Council on International Children's Services needs electronic signatures for a petition that will go to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. This is an organization I trust and I support their work. The petition takes just a minute to fill out. They will ask for your info but they won't use it for any purpose other than substantiating your name as a real person. Here's a link to the petition.

What follows is a statement from JCICS on Ethiopian Intercountry adoption. It represents our viewpoint well. I think the weeds analogy on the troubling issue of corruption is a good one.
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Post from Tom DiFilipo, Executive Director of JCICS


March 9, 2011



Statement on Children and Family Services in Ethiopia



The work of Joint Council on International Children’s Services includes the development and implementation of the highest standards and ethical practices, the support of children living outside of family care and advocacy for permanency. As a leader in the international child welfare community, we are deeply concerned about the well-being of Ethiopian children and the integrity of the intercountry adoption process. Respecting Ethiopian culture and sovereignty, we offer the following for consideration as we collectively serve Ethiopian children and families and partner with others in supporting the efforts of the Government of Ethiopia.

Children need families – Who we are as human beings is largely influenced by our genes and our environment. The attention, affection, responsiveness, consistency, communication and interaction of a family have profound effects on all aspects of human development especially in the earliest stages of life. No institution, regardless of how well organized and funded it may be, can replace the nurturing, safety and guidance of a family.

Birth families need accessible, efficient and well-funded alternatives – Relinquishing a child is a painful decision for any birth parent or extended family member. This is especially true in remote and rural areas where few alternatives exist. If intercountry adoption is to decrease over time, birth families need accessible and reliable social service programs to support them. To date, many adoption service providers and other NGOs, are filling this gap in Ethiopia. Joint Council partner-members are contributing over 16 million per year to family preservation and community development programs that strive to keep vulnerable children and families together. They are assisting 1.2 million vulnerable individuals per year that otherwise would not receive these services.

Institutionalization can hurt children – Quotas and other drastic measures mean that children currently living in orphanages will reside in an institution longer. Sixty years of multinational human development research on institutionalized children, such as the Bucharest Early Intervention Study, indicates that the longer a child is in an orphanage the progressively worse their social, language, fine motor and gross motor skills become. Any change to the intercountry adoption process needs to carefully consider its effects on all children currently in orphanage care and the length of time newly institutionalized children will reside in the orphanage to complete their adoption process.

There are nearly 5 million orphaned children – This is nearly 13 percent of the child population in Ethiopia. These children need a family for love and support so they grow into productive adult members of our global community and retain their inherent human rights. There need to be support services for vulnerable children including adoption. At present, intercountry adoption only serves .001 percent of all orphaned children in Ethiopia. This fraction of a percentage, while rising, is not disproportionate to the number of children in need.

Various manners to combat corruption – Corruption is deplorable in all its forms especially when children’s lives are at stake. There are numerous manners to prevent, discourage, and punish corruption without punishing children, families of birth and adoptive families. A gardener who wants to beautify a landscape does not cut the weeds in his garden by a certain percent. Rather, he mindfully detects the weeds and eliminates them from the root up. A quota, no matter how small, will not eliminate corruption. It simply reduces the quantity of ethical violations that can occur in an environment. In fact corruption, like a weed, can actually grow in a restricted environment if it is allowed to exist.

Children with special needs deserve special consideration – Children with special needs require care and resources that are not easily given in an orphanage setting. According to research conducted by Joint Council, 40% of children adopted from Ethiopia are considered special needs. When contemplating new policies or procedures, children with special needs deserve expedited processes or exemptions whenever possible.

Intercountry adoption is one of many solutions that can successfully assist vulnerable children. Forty years of outcomes research indicates that intercountry adoption is a positive solution for most children. While there are several other programmatic alternatives that can be designed over time, it is one of the few permanent solutions currently available that situates children in the optimal environment to reach their full potential as human beings – a family.

Have A Heart

Today was a pretty tiring day with my boys. I was easily irritated with both of them and craved some alone time. Neither one of them (entirely) deserved it. We've been cooped up too long with snow and cold.

Days like these I am glad to have photos like these that remind me that days aren't always like today.

I think I'll leave the hearts up a while longer to remind me to have one!

Happy end of February!

Big Day!

Just a little post because we are very proud of our boy. On Saturday he went pee pee in the potty for the first time! Yeah Bear! You are becoming such a big boy!

Little Hannah's Hope Reunion

We, like most others in the Midwest and Northeast, were snowed in today. Not even All Wheel Drive could get through the thigh high snow in the driveway and on the road, so Bear stayed home with Mama and Dada today and played hard. We took shifts, Dodd took him for an hour while I worked from home and then vice versa. The happy snow boy is sleeping soundly now, and I am posting for the first time in a while.

We spent Christmas in the Pacific Northwest with Dodd's parents. This allowed us to meet up with some families we share a special connection with. All of our children were at Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia at the same time, and they all came home within weeks of one another.

In an earlier post I wrote about spending Gotcha Day with the Andersen Family, friends from our travel group. We got to spend a second evening with them while celebrating the Gotcha Day of 3 more families; the Titus, Wenzel, and Nieunstraten families. It was a lot of fun meeting these families!

We first met Zuri, Zinnea, Bethlehem, Faith, and Grace (aren't those great names all lined up together?) in Addis Ababa just over a year ago. It is hard to explain how much joy there is in seeing kids you first met at an orphanage with their families. In witnessing how they've grown, and how happy they are.

Here are some beautiful kids.

Below you see Abigail on the left joining the Hannah's Hope posse. She is a good big sister. Zuri is on the move and Bear is not sure about hanging with all the ladies.

The beautiful girl holding Bear below is Grace. She captured my heart in Ethiopia. She was a little firecracker, and her smile and spirit stayed with me after we returned home. I felt especially compelled to pray for this little one with hope there was a loving family in her future. A few months later, I saw her unforgettable face on a blog and my heart beat faster. There she was with a mom, dad, brother and sister, living life American style. She met her family just 2 weeks after we were in Ethiopia and went home! I'm so happy to be able to watch her grow up thanks to her mom's faithful blogging. And now I've met her mom, Bonnie, who hosted this party and who inspires me with funny and insightful stories about parenting with grace and with Grace.

The moms and babes.

Happy Snow Day!