Adoption News

It's been about 7 weeks since I've written about what is going on with our adoption process. I would call it a "saga" but since I think our experience so far has been pretty typical, it doesn't really deserve that title. There have been some changes since I last wrote. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but we were having some trouble with our social worker (the woman who was doing our home study). I'd write her an email with a bunch of questions, and a week later she would finally write back, but only answer one or two of them. Well, in the beginning of December we got an email from AWAA saying that she was leaving and that a new woman would be taking her place (we'll call her A). Oh! Well, that made sense. I guess no matter what job people are in, they often "check-out" before actually leaving. I sent an email to A and got a response immediately! Yes!! So far, she has been great. Answered a lot of our questions, and always in a reasonable amount of time. At the end of December, we finally got all of our Home Study application documents completed and mailed it to her. On January 7, we had our first interview. For the home study, the social worker meets with you in your home on three or four different occasions. It's nice to have the first one out of the way. We did learn a few things during this interview that are a little discouraging.

1. When we first started our home study process in October, our original social worker (the one who quit) had us send her information on all of the States we have lived in the past 10 years. For our home study we have to have a criminal background clearance from every state. She said this can take a month or more for certain states and she wanted to get it started. We have lived in 5 states and I guess that is pretty unusual. Well, at our home study meeting this week, we found out that she never initiated these background checks. Very frustrating. They should have all been done by now. So now A has to get them done, and we can't move forward until all of the clearances come back.
2. Although A has been a social worker for a very long time, she has been working with domestic adoptions for the past 17 years. A lot has changed in International adoptions since she last worked with them. She was very open and honest and let us know that we are the first case she is working on from start to finish. She knows a lot about Texas adoption specifics, but not a lot about USCIS and other government procedures. However, she is incredibly competent and is learning as much as she can. One thing she is really unsure about is the background checks. Oh, if only social worker number 1 would have done them. She did say, however, there are many people with AWAA who DO have a long of experience with them and can help her out.
3. Although we would like to begin our Dossier paperwork for Kyrgyzstan, the director from our adoption agency (ICF) advised us to wait until our home study is completed. The reason for this is, first, because she wants to make sure we are favorable to be approved by the Kyrgyz government. They do prefer that you own a home (which we do not). It shouldn't be a problem, but she wants to read our home study draft first. Second, since things are still a little up in the air with whether or not adoptions will continues as they had in the past, we might as well not waste our time and money gathering the documents and then not be able to adopt from Kyrgyzstan anyway.

I mentioned in my last post that adoptions with Kyrgyzstan were up in the air. The problems going on in Kyrgyzstan are pretty typical. When countries start out with international adoption, the programs are really small. The government may not have laws or rules for doing it. But if the country becomes more popular for international adoptions, things become more complicated and they have to sit down and decide how they want their program to proceed. This is what is happening in Kyrgyzstan. In 2005 there were 4 children adopted from Kyrgyzstan. In 2006, there were 10, in 2007 there were 54 and in 2009 there were 78! Huge jump in the last two years. As of now, they seem to have figured everything out (which part of the government is responsible for what) and say that they will start everything back up this month. But it is still a 'wait and see'.

Before we started this process, I didn't really know what a 'home study' or 'dossier' was. I figured I should explain them briefly. Your dossier is the collection of paperwork (for Kyrgyzstan it's about 20 documents) that you send to to the country. Almost all documents have to be notarized. These documents include physicals, financial information, employment letters, immigration documents, FBI clearances, etc... One of the documents included in the dossier is the home study write-up. The home study is completed by a social worker licensed in your state. There are about 20 documents you have to include in your home study (some which overlap with the dossier, but most which do not). Make sense?