USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) is awesome. We didn't get their letter with an appointment for fingerprinting, but instead of "oh well" an officer called us and made sure we could get this paperwork expedited. (Dr. van Bosse in Philly had written a letter to help us speed up this process and they had not only read it, but wanted to help!)
The officer asked why I had missed our appointment if this adoption was special needs and a medical case and all that. What letter? I thought this phone call was going to tell us our appointment date, not that we'd missed it! What to do? I immediately got off the phone and burst into tears... for a long time.
It's hard for me to be on top of everything going on around here. Laelia's IEP is coming up. My husband is just finally getting his brain back (he had surgey and the pain meds make it hard to concentrate so I've been solo on a lot of this stuff) plus there are still a few things Charley can't do physically that I have to do for him until April 17th when he's recovered, plus I have a job (part time) and a house to keep up and all that. It was just getting overwhelming. Charley's job is to sort through our mail, but it's just one more thing that he was doing the best he could but he wasn't at 100%. We also have a friend staying with us who was bringing in our mail for him, but since Charley wasn't doing it he forgot she did it and then it sat in an untouched pile. Along with many other responsibilities this was one I should have taken over for Charley but just didn't think to. I found the two unopened immigration fingerprinting appointment letters under two unopened birthday cards.
Our officer suggested we just show up without an appointment. So the very next morning we showed up at the immigration office after dropping Laelia off at school. Oh and I was sick with what turned out to be a tummy bug. So it was not fun. Charley and I could have combined our physical and mental abilities that morning and still made less than one fully functioning person.
Now you *need* an appointment to even go into the building, and the letters we had in our hands were for four days ago, but everyone was completely understanding. The front desk guy (who weeds out people who don't have appointments, etc.) was super nice. The wait was surprisingly short. The lady who did my fingerprints said she even saw a special on TV about the kind of foreign special needs adoption we're doing and then she told me God would help us. And he certainly was!
The next day after fingerprinting our officer called back to say she got our results that she went out of her way to be watching for and we were going to be approved with immigration! (This usually takes a few days or longer for the results to even get back to her office, but she was waiting for our results and moved quickly.)
We just got our letters with appointment dates today for fingerprinting on April 24th. I laughed because we're already done and approved and don't have to wait the extra two weeks!
This puts us about three weeks away from being completely done with our approvals and paperwork and apostilles and all that. (Three weeks away from Step #15 in the adoption process.) There was some kerfuffle with our state police clearances so that's probably the thing that will make this process take the three weeks. But I see a light at the end of the paperwork pregnancy.
USCIS is awesome.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Adoption updateness
We're still waiting on immigration (the US side of things) and a federal fingerprinting appointments that should be ready in a week or so (hurry up!!!), but we've compiled half our dossier and had it apostilled!
Every single document so far in this process except for one or two (no joke) has had to be redone or re-notarized including our freaking home study. It has been frustrating. Once we get a form back, we notarize it and scan it and email it to our adoption team. Then after it's approved we need to get it apostilled by the state. So I got a sitter to watch my husband who just had surgery a couple weeks ago and my daughter and then took off for LA to get my 19 documents apostilled last Friday. The trip took a total of 8 hours. According to Google maps it *should* have taken two hours one way. TRAFFIC WAS TERRIBLE!!! Highway 101 should be renamed Parking Lot 101. But on the plus side I found a wonderful brown rice and tofu bowl place that also served blueberry banana smoothies. Worth it.
Once apostilled I then scanned them all and sent them to my adoption team again. Thankfully only one of my apostilled documents has to get redone. To apostille something just means that after it's perfect and notarized then I have to get the state of California to stamp it and confirm the notary. I practically cried to the state employee, read her a list of common apostille mistakes (I'm sure she loved me) and then told her how important this was. Poor woman.
So we're going to send off half the documents to U (my son's birth country) and then send the rest when all the people we're waiting on get around to getting back to us. I'd say we're about a month away from being done with it all before waiting for travel dates. It seems to be taking 6-8 weeks lately for people who are totally submitted to get travel dates so now our new timeline is being done with paperwork by Mother's Day and traveling this summer, hopefully in late June or early July. Everything subject to change. As always.
I'm so sick of being paper pregnant and ready to hold this baby boy! Thanks to a wonderful friend (thanks Samantha!) we have a lot of boy clothes and a bouncy seat and a couple of small car seat bases and hopefully soon a crib! I LOVE LOVE LOVE hand-me-downs! Thanks to another friend (thanks Barbara!) we have a great bottle for feeding Roland and access to baby food if he's past the bottle stage. My daughter is talking non stop about her brother nowadays since she was told that after daddy's surgery we'd be gearing up to see him. Little did we know a few things would go wrong in our paperwork game so that we'd still be collecting stuff at this late date. (State police clearances are our fault, but there are a bunch of other things that are just plain not our fault and we just have to wait.) But we're ready and working hard. Almost there.
Want baby. Now.
Every single document so far in this process except for one or two (no joke) has had to be redone or re-notarized including our freaking home study. It has been frustrating. Once we get a form back, we notarize it and scan it and email it to our adoption team. Then after it's approved we need to get it apostilled by the state. So I got a sitter to watch my husband who just had surgery a couple weeks ago and my daughter and then took off for LA to get my 19 documents apostilled last Friday. The trip took a total of 8 hours. According to Google maps it *should* have taken two hours one way. TRAFFIC WAS TERRIBLE!!! Highway 101 should be renamed Parking Lot 101. But on the plus side I found a wonderful brown rice and tofu bowl place that also served blueberry banana smoothies. Worth it.
Once apostilled I then scanned them all and sent them to my adoption team again. Thankfully only one of my apostilled documents has to get redone. To apostille something just means that after it's perfect and notarized then I have to get the state of California to stamp it and confirm the notary. I practically cried to the state employee, read her a list of common apostille mistakes (I'm sure she loved me) and then told her how important this was. Poor woman.
So we're going to send off half the documents to U (my son's birth country) and then send the rest when all the people we're waiting on get around to getting back to us. I'd say we're about a month away from being done with it all before waiting for travel dates. It seems to be taking 6-8 weeks lately for people who are totally submitted to get travel dates so now our new timeline is being done with paperwork by Mother's Day and traveling this summer, hopefully in late June or early July. Everything subject to change. As always.
I'm so sick of being paper pregnant and ready to hold this baby boy! Thanks to a wonderful friend (thanks Samantha!) we have a lot of boy clothes and a bouncy seat and a couple of small car seat bases and hopefully soon a crib! I LOVE LOVE LOVE hand-me-downs! Thanks to another friend (thanks Barbara!) we have a great bottle for feeding Roland and access to baby food if he's past the bottle stage. My daughter is talking non stop about her brother nowadays since she was told that after daddy's surgery we'd be gearing up to see him. Little did we know a few things would go wrong in our paperwork game so that we'd still be collecting stuff at this late date. (State police clearances are our fault, but there are a bunch of other things that are just plain not our fault and we just have to wait.) But we're ready and working hard. Almost there.
Want baby. Now.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
And where are they now?
We are still waiting for our federal fingerprinting appointments. (That is Step #12 in the process.) We sent them a medical expedite letter and everything. WAITING IS HARD. In the meantime we are gathering our dossier (pronounced doss-ee-ay if you don't want to sound dumb like me) documents (Step 13) so they'll be ready to get apostilled (Step 14) so we can submit them (Step 15) and wait a long time (Step 16). We're doing all this to get to Step 17 which is traveling to meet our son. Our new timeline says that this may happen in two or three months. Right now we are distracting ourselves from this long process by having lots of surgeries. Everyone in my family has had surgery in the last month and a half except me. *knock on wood*
So there's our update. We still have no word on our son's condition, no recent picture, no information whatsoever, and no families in country have been able to visit him that I know of. There was a scare that he was taken somewhere which turned out to be another child and me freaking out and not accurate.
Fun fun, right?
So there's our update. We still have no word on our son's condition, no recent picture, no information whatsoever, and no families in country have been able to visit him that I know of. There was a scare that he was taken somewhere which turned out to be another child and me freaking out and not accurate.
Fun fun, right?
"Rescue"
This is a blog about semantics. Symantics are a kind of dark magic that can negatively charge the tone and meaning of some pretty inocuous words. Words like "orphan rescue."
We're a fan of the newspaper. My husband works for our local newspaper. We've recently been in our local newspaper. We know the reporting work and effort for accuracy that goes into these pieces. When the Hometown Weekly, a newspaper serving Massachusetts, posted a story on the exact process we are starting it was exciting. (We found out about it here.) Hey! We are also going through Reece's Rainbow! We were also able to raise the necessary funds quickly! We also hope to rescue an orphan! It was like reading the next steps in our own story. It was entitled, "Saving Andrey” and talked about his rescue from the orphanage.
But lately I've been hearing from several people, both those who have adopted and those who know nothing about it, that apparently it's not appropriate to use the word "rescue" when referring to your adoption. Ever.
I disagree. And I realize I'm disagreeing with people I respect so let me explain why. Of course you wouldn't say you "rescued" an orphan in all cases, but definitely you can say that of these adoptions from EE. For some of my close friends, the term "rescued" applies exactly to their situations. One of my friends (who is part of an advocacy group with me and four others) rescued her son from a mental institution. It was hell. He is healing. Slowly. But he was rescued. Period.
Oh and the adult mental institution with the horrible conditions was her little boy's punishment for being born with stiff joints. He was six.
The country that my friend's little son and my own little son are from offers no hope for children with disabilities. If I imagine my daughter in an orphanage like the one my son is at now, heading for either a lying down room (if he's not in one already) or an adult mental institution in a couple/three years, it makes me panic. I would never leave her there. I would pray everyday that she would be rescued.
Here's a quick post about conditions children like my son are in or will soon face.
So why not call it rescue? You've only heard my side, but (if I can do it justice) I'll give you the other side's point. Saying an orphan is being rescued brings thoughts of ethnocentric "White hero" US families swooping in and taking these children out of their cultural heritage. No one likes that. And if you have a religious affiliation then it's almost worse.
I would hope no one would interpret what I'm saying as a cultural or religious superiority. (Eww.) For one thing my own country did the same thing to our "undesireables" only 60 or so years ago that these countries are doing now. When I talk of rescue I'm talking about discarded, abandoned and orphaned children from countries where there are a lack of resources. These countries also suffer from a broken system the people inherited from those who saw children with disabilities as having no hope and no future. They are seen as "less." Less worthy of love. Less than human. And while I'm encouraged at how things are getting marginally better, they're still broken. The only way I know to help my son is to adopt him. Giving my money to help better fund the orphanages (and we have and that's a good thing) does not fix the problem, and it doesn't save my son from the life he's living. There are still orphans in orphanages after all. Those without the focused love of a parent suffer mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Institutional living is harmful.
There are so many stories of children coming out of that situation and starting to grow with no medical attention or special treatment other than having someone love on them. Love brings physical growth! Neglect stunts growth. Wow. Our physical bodies respond to experiencing love. So amazing!
From the president of Reece's Rainbow from this article, "When I found out what happens to children with Down syndrome and special needs when they are born abroad," Roberts said. "There is a very high rate of abandonment. They are transferred to mental institutions at 4 and a great many of those children do not survive their 5th birthday."
That's another thing I will mention. These children die. By the droves. Being transferred to the institution is like being led away to death.
These children in many cases have been thrown away, either thoughtlessly or after much grief. Then they end up in a place that amounts to a baby warehouse where they are often given only two diapers a day, they are not held or rocked as newborns, their cries are not answered--it's not logistically possible, bottles are propped and the care they receive would not be described by you or me as "basic." Imagine (as one of our adoption classes had us do) a long line of high chairs, maybe 30 or so, and one caregiver giving one bite to each child as she makes her way down the line of children who, like my son, cannot feed themselves. Now they have 20 or 30 minutes to eat before they need to move on with their schedules. If a child spits out his food ten chairs down do you think he gets to make up that bite? Does that make this orphanage worker mean or cruel? No! It's the system these children need saved from.
There is an orphan crisis.
And I think the people who disagree with me calling it "rescue" mostly just don't want us to ever treat our son like he's some lucky champ who will owe us for the rest of his life. I can guarantee we will not make Roland feel "forever grateful" or that he owes us anything. He will not be treated like some ministry we've signed up for. He will be part of our family. In that way our adoption of him is selfish! Yes selfish! We GET to be his parents. The rescuing part is something we would do without a second thought for anyone in our family. When people tell us how lucky this little boy is (and he is getting an awesome big sister so they're pretty correct on this front) we often add how lucky we are too!
After his rescue and initial recovery from his former life, he will become just a typical part of our family. Our goal is to be boring. :) It's true. One of the biggest worries we had when Laelia was born was that she would grow up to be an inspirational speaker! I know that's nutty, but we strive to give our kids normal childhoods. We will of course celebrate each of Roland's successes just like we have with our daughter (and these will be special and inspirational), but we will not raise them any differently than we would any typical kids in our family.
I want to end with this link of a blog post I just loved. In preparing for all of the post-adoption "stuff" and as I study about what's to come I realize how my attitude and thinking have completely changed from when we first committed to Roland. This adoption that started out as half rescue and half baby craze has become a deeper, more meaningful thing to our family. Sometimes we think we can swoop in with our capes and save children with our love. But the fact is that our family will grow and change with the contributions this little man brings with him. And we will find ourselves rescued from the "less" we once were. It goes both ways.
I hope others will help rescue these orphans from situations that range from lonely to terrible. It is a worthy thing to do. And a great need. And I hope these children get the chance to save us from our apathy and short-sightedness. I long to see us all do for each other what we were meant to do.
So because I think we can agree on the basic points let's put semantics aside and focus onrescuing adopting these children. They need it.
We're a fan of the newspaper. My husband works for our local newspaper. We've recently been in our local newspaper. We know the reporting work and effort for accuracy that goes into these pieces. When the Hometown Weekly, a newspaper serving Massachusetts, posted a story on the exact process we are starting it was exciting. (We found out about it here.) Hey! We are also going through Reece's Rainbow! We were also able to raise the necessary funds quickly! We also hope to rescue an orphan! It was like reading the next steps in our own story. It was entitled, "Saving Andrey” and talked about his rescue from the orphanage.
But lately I've been hearing from several people, both those who have adopted and those who know nothing about it, that apparently it's not appropriate to use the word "rescue" when referring to your adoption. Ever.
I disagree. And I realize I'm disagreeing with people I respect so let me explain why. Of course you wouldn't say you "rescued" an orphan in all cases, but definitely you can say that of these adoptions from EE. For some of my close friends, the term "rescued" applies exactly to their situations. One of my friends (who is part of an advocacy group with me and four others) rescued her son from a mental institution. It was hell. He is healing. Slowly. But he was rescued. Period.
Oh and the adult mental institution with the horrible conditions was her little boy's punishment for being born with stiff joints. He was six.
The country that my friend's little son and my own little son are from offers no hope for children with disabilities. If I imagine my daughter in an orphanage like the one my son is at now, heading for either a lying down room (if he's not in one already) or an adult mental institution in a couple/three years, it makes me panic. I would never leave her there. I would pray everyday that she would be rescued.
Here's a quick post about conditions children like my son are in or will soon face.
So why not call it rescue? You've only heard my side, but (if I can do it justice) I'll give you the other side's point. Saying an orphan is being rescued brings thoughts of ethnocentric "White hero" US families swooping in and taking these children out of their cultural heritage. No one likes that. And if you have a religious affiliation then it's almost worse.
I would hope no one would interpret what I'm saying as a cultural or religious superiority. (Eww.) For one thing my own country did the same thing to our "undesireables" only 60 or so years ago that these countries are doing now. When I talk of rescue I'm talking about discarded, abandoned and orphaned children from countries where there are a lack of resources. These countries also suffer from a broken system the people inherited from those who saw children with disabilities as having no hope and no future. They are seen as "less." Less worthy of love. Less than human. And while I'm encouraged at how things are getting marginally better, they're still broken. The only way I know to help my son is to adopt him. Giving my money to help better fund the orphanages (and we have and that's a good thing) does not fix the problem, and it doesn't save my son from the life he's living. There are still orphans in orphanages after all. Those without the focused love of a parent suffer mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Institutional living is harmful.
There are so many stories of children coming out of that situation and starting to grow with no medical attention or special treatment other than having someone love on them. Love brings physical growth! Neglect stunts growth. Wow. Our physical bodies respond to experiencing love. So amazing!
From the president of Reece's Rainbow from this article, "When I found out what happens to children with Down syndrome and special needs when they are born abroad," Roberts said. "There is a very high rate of abandonment. They are transferred to mental institutions at 4 and a great many of those children do not survive their 5th birthday."
That's another thing I will mention. These children die. By the droves. Being transferred to the institution is like being led away to death.
These children in many cases have been thrown away, either thoughtlessly or after much grief. Then they end up in a place that amounts to a baby warehouse where they are often given only two diapers a day, they are not held or rocked as newborns, their cries are not answered--it's not logistically possible, bottles are propped and the care they receive would not be described by you or me as "basic." Imagine (as one of our adoption classes had us do) a long line of high chairs, maybe 30 or so, and one caregiver giving one bite to each child as she makes her way down the line of children who, like my son, cannot feed themselves. Now they have 20 or 30 minutes to eat before they need to move on with their schedules. If a child spits out his food ten chairs down do you think he gets to make up that bite? Does that make this orphanage worker mean or cruel? No! It's the system these children need saved from.
There is an orphan crisis.
And I think the people who disagree with me calling it "rescue" mostly just don't want us to ever treat our son like he's some lucky champ who will owe us for the rest of his life. I can guarantee we will not make Roland feel "forever grateful" or that he owes us anything. He will not be treated like some ministry we've signed up for. He will be part of our family. In that way our adoption of him is selfish! Yes selfish! We GET to be his parents. The rescuing part is something we would do without a second thought for anyone in our family. When people tell us how lucky this little boy is (and he is getting an awesome big sister so they're pretty correct on this front) we often add how lucky we are too!
After his rescue and initial recovery from his former life, he will become just a typical part of our family. Our goal is to be boring. :) It's true. One of the biggest worries we had when Laelia was born was that she would grow up to be an inspirational speaker! I know that's nutty, but we strive to give our kids normal childhoods. We will of course celebrate each of Roland's successes just like we have with our daughter (and these will be special and inspirational), but we will not raise them any differently than we would any typical kids in our family.
I want to end with this link of a blog post I just loved. In preparing for all of the post-adoption "stuff" and as I study about what's to come I realize how my attitude and thinking have completely changed from when we first committed to Roland. This adoption that started out as half rescue and half baby craze has become a deeper, more meaningful thing to our family. Sometimes we think we can swoop in with our capes and save children with our love. But the fact is that our family will grow and change with the contributions this little man brings with him. And we will find ourselves rescued from the "less" we once were. It goes both ways.
I hope others will help rescue these orphans from situations that range from lonely to terrible. It is a worthy thing to do. And a great need. And I hope these children get the chance to save us from our apathy and short-sightedness. I long to see us all do for each other what we were meant to do.
So because I think we can agree on the basic points let's put semantics aside and focus on
Saturday, March 17, 2012
And the winners are...!
Third place winner is:
"the cain family."
The Cain family has won the sign language package!
Cains, please email me at rolandquest(at)gmail(dot)com with your mailing addess.
Second place winner is:
"Sarah"
(There are two Sarahs playing so the winner was the one without a last name who gave $10 one day ago and left the nice note.)
Sarah please email me at rolandquest(at)gmail(dot)com and give me your last name and address (and which color you'd like your heart to be) to collect your prize.
Sarah, you win the heart!
And the grand prize goes to:
"Lisa"
Lisa has won the $100 Apple gift card!
Lisa please email me at rolandquest(at)gmail(dot)com and give me your address and last name to collect your prize.
Congrats to our winners! And thank you to everyone! We raised $510 towards Landri's adoption!
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Giveaway until St. Patrick's Day!
A big thank you to everyone who has participated in the giveaway so far! We raised $257! That at least covers the prizes so thank you! But we have another $3743 to go. The chances of winning one of our prizes is really good right now. Go here to donate. Just check out the list on the right to see who all is playing. Not much competition!
Remember every $5 donated is an entry to win.
For whatever reason PayPal was not set up so a lot of people couldn't give. Well my husband finally figured out how to set it up and now it's working! Because it was down for a day we have extended this giveaway for a day. Now we all have until March 17th at noon to get our entries in! All giving is secure!
My family put our heads together and decided to do a giveaway for this family. We are contributing all the prizes. Roland is fully funded for his adoption, but I remember all too clearly the panic and worry that accompanies not having all the financial barriers down. Our deadlines were all months away at the time, but this family's deadline is THIS MONTH. So please help me help them. It would mean a lot to me.
Thank you!
Remember every $5 donated is an entry to win.
For whatever reason PayPal was not set up so a lot of people couldn't give. Well my husband finally figured out how to set it up and now it's working! Because it was down for a day we have extended this giveaway for a day. Now we all have until March 17th at noon to get our entries in! All giving is secure!
My family put our heads together and decided to do a giveaway for this family. We are contributing all the prizes. Roland is fully funded for his adoption, but I remember all too clearly the panic and worry that accompanies not having all the financial barriers down. Our deadlines were all months away at the time, but this family's deadline is THIS MONTH. So please help me help them. It would mean a lot to me.
Thank you!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Apple giveaway!
The above cartoon is the story of Landri's parents. (Remember sweet little Landri?) Landri is a beloved princess with arthrogryposis who lives at home and enjoys her new ability of sitting up like a big girl. Landri's parents can and do provide for their daughter. They can afford her special needs. They could even afford her adoption. They went into this with heads, hearts and finances where they should be. (That's more than I did. I could not afford my adoption in the least without help. There are lots of people who have stock in my son. ;))
Well the story didn't end there. The attorneys fees and adoption agency fees were all triple what they were told
they would be. After they emptied their pockets they were still $3,788 short. And time is running out for them to pay it.
This giveaway is to cover that final amount. And it's a last minute effort!
For every $5 you give to their adoption fund, your name will be entered into a drawing. If you leave them a little note after you donate saying you shared their link (This one --> http://www.gofundme.com/ff0jk) on Facebook or Twitter then you get another chance at a drawing! (But you must first donate at least $5!)
If you've already donated to their account you are included in the drawing! As long as I can see your names and comments on the side bar.
The giveaway ends March 16th (Friday) at noon (California time).
First prize will get an Apple gift card worth $100! (That's $100 closer to that new iPad you want!)
The second prize is a handmade stained glass heart in any color the winner chooses. (Just give my cousin Laura a few days to order the glass and whatnot.) It will be about 6 x 6 inches.
And the third and final prize is a five-book bundle from DawnSignPress. If your kid is learning American Sign Language then the Signs for Me book is a good vocabulary tool to use! (Okay I know a lot of adults that learn from this book too!) The ASL Babies series are for little ones and make great gifts. :)
Okay so go here to donate to Landri's adoption! Then share on social media! Win some prizes! You have until Friday! (Your chances are good.) Go go go! Let's totally bless this family! (And let's hurry!)
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