Updating the Home Study

We are updating our Home Study because we have moved to CA. I would recommend not updating a HS unless you absolutely have to. Not letting the across-the-country drive slow us down, we completed forms and made copies of the various HS and Dossier documents and mailed them from Memphis TN to the agency in CA who is helping us with the update. We have found an adoption agency in CA (Across the World Adoption - ATWA), and a great social worker in the San Diego area was recommended to us.

I say don't update the HS unless absolutely needed for a couple of reasons.

#1. Updating it is state specific. CA requires a full HS redo (essentially repeating everything). Much of the info already with AWAA will carry over, but there are various forms that don't.......and then there's the finger printing. We both had to get finger printed because the background checks (all 3 - CA, FBI, and Dept of Justice) do NOT carry over from AWAA and must be redone. This has added $211 to our expenses total along with the $850 fee to ATWA. Our AWAA Family Coordinator will get everything. Needless to say, repeating everything is just a wee bit frustrating.

#2. Our USCIS case must be transferred from the Norfolk office to the San Diego office. That sounds simple, but we've heard it could take up to three weeks. This is required because our updated HS needs to go through the local USCIS office. From there, our update will go through the National Visa Center to the Embassy in Ethiopia. We have no idea how long this takes, but it doesn't sound short.

That's as far as we have discovered so far. We'll keep the updates coming as we figure out the extent of the HS update.

The Dossier is on the Way to Ethiopia!!!!

One clock stops and another begins.

The folks at AWAA finally made it through the winter tundra of the DC metropolitan area! Our Dossier made it through the State Dept and is on the way to Ethiopia.

The paperchase clock has now stopped! 19 weeks and 1 day ago we began the paperchase of our adoption journey. The waiting clock officially begins! I say "officially" because the term "wait period" is used to describe waiting for the Referral after DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia).

Our move to CA may add time to the current waiting period estimate (3-6 months). We have to update our Home Study and submit that update through USCIS. From other families who have had to do this, we've heard the update process has its challenges. That's my polite way to say "it adds too much time and frustration dealing with layers of bureaucracy when all we want is our son." We have worked hard to get through the paperchase quickly, and we'll apply that same mindset to get through the update as quickly as possible.

The Dossier is Complete!!!!!!!!

17 WEEKS!!!!!! All of the forms are finally in, and the Dossier is complete! It's been 17 weeks since we received AWAA's e-mail chocked full of forms to officially begin our adoption journey.

Alicia overnighted the Dossier and a bunch of copies to America World today. Now the real waiting begins. For the past four weeks, we have been waiting on USCIS to complete their review of our paperwork (the I-600A Form and the Home Study) and fingerprints. We're lucky to have that office here in town so I could go by and talk with the lady who actually does the review. I learned the local office actually does the review and issues the I-171H Form. Armed with the knowledge that the 171-H only has to travel about 10 miles through the mail system, I naively believed we would receive the form in a matter of no time. Taking into account that no bureaucracy moves at the speed of light (or even the speed of an eager adoptive couple), I guess three weeks could be considered "no time."

As I've said before, the "real" waiting begins because now our Dossier makes its way through the Ethiopian government. Once we're accepted by their system, we wait for a child to be referred to us. We're hoping for an infant boy (younger than 2 yrs), and the latest estimate for wait times is 4-6 months. Before anyone starts counting on a calendar and thinking we could have our son before September, there are two not-so-small details that will only add time to this process.

Detail #1: The Ethiopian government shuts down for holidays from sometime in August to late September / early October. Even if we get our referral before they shut down, we won't be able to travel to Ethiopia until after the government recess. The corollary to Detail #1 is after the referral, the Ethiopian judicial court formally reviews the case of our child to determine beyond any doubt whatsoever that the child is a legitimate orphan and may be legally adopted. The court date usually is about 4-8 weeks after the referral. The good news is the day of that successful court date, the child is legally ours!

Detail #2: We're moving to San Diego - at the end of this month! I'm here in SDGO attending a Navy school, and I took a few days before school to find a home to rent. Isn't the view from the patio in the back yard pretty neat?! The move adds time because we must update our Home Study to reflect we're in a new home. We have yet to contact a social worker agency in CA to figure out exactly what is required for the update. Every state is different. I may have said this before, but the "update" could be a simple one-time visit by the social worker to our new home or a re-do of most of the Home Study. Obviously the latter will require more time.

You may notice when looking at our Timeline that I'm posting our expenses every so often. I'm including everything from AWAA program fees to copier and FedEx expenses. I'm doing this for couples who are thinking of adopting who happen to discover our web site. When we were "blog stalking" other adoptive families, their timelines helped shape our expectations on how quickly (or not so much) the paperchase would progress. I've chosen to add our expenses to the Timeline for the same reason. So far, our experience has matched AWAA's estimates. The biggest variable is the cost of the plane tickets. I hope we'll be able to speak to that later this year!

Almost There!!!!!

We are fingerprinted!!!! I planned to take a picture of us with our blackened fingers outside the local USCIS office......that's about all I can do to make fingerprinting exciting, but the office threw me a curveball. Our fingerprints were digitally taken! I didn't ask to have them taken the old fashioned way for the sake of our picture. I don't want to slow this final step! After almost 17 years in the Navy, I know my background is clean; now we just wait to see what's in Alicia's closet.

We are so close to the end of the paperchase we can taste it! We now wait for the all-important I-171H Form from USCIS once they complete our background check. We will easily wrap up the few remaining items before that form arrives. As soon as we get it, we'll mail our Dossier to America World (our agency). America World will thoroughly review it, walk it over to the State Department for certification, and then ship it to their folks in Ethiopia who begin the beaurocratic process with the Ethiopian government. Surprisingly, America World only takes about a week to get the Dossier to Ethiopia after receiving it. The date of Dossier to Ethiopia (DTE) is the next significant milestone. Then the waiting really begins.


We had a great Christmas with family in Florida, and we wonder how different our next Christmas will be. There is a small chance we will have our son by then. Even though we expect to be DTE by the end of the month, the Ethiopian government shuts down for vacation from mid-August to October. That vacation period makes our chances "small." The silver lining about waiting is we can distract ourselves with moving to San Diego!

Finalized Home Study!!!!!!

This is me with the FedEx envelope as we overnight our finalized Home Study to USCIS. Since it's Saturday, it won't get out until Monday for delivery to the USCIS office in Texas on Tuesday.

This is a significant milestone in our adoption journey. The Home Study is the key ingredient for both the USCIS approval as well as our adoption application (the "Dossier") that is submitted to the Ethiopian government. With the Home Study finalized, we only have three items left to get the Dossier to Ethiopia.

We received the Home Study from our adoption agency (AWAA) today - just 52 days after our Home Study Orientation at the AWAA headquarters in McLean, VA. USCIS needs this to finalize our application. With any luck, we'll get fingerprinted in January and shortly thereafter receive the Immigration approval form (the all-important I-171H Form) that we'll take with us to Ethiopia. This form allows us to legally bring our son into the country for the first time - kind of important! That means we can't lose it while we wait to travel.......which will probably be about this time next year.

AWAA periodically updates the waiting time for the various age ranges of boys and girls who are adopted. Last week's update showed the wait time for infant boys at 4-6 months, considerably shorter than when we first started (about 9-12 months). The official start of the wait time is when the Dossier gets to Ethiopia. That's why we're anxious to complete all of these steps as quickly as possible. If we can get our Dossier to Ethiopia in January, then we may have a referral (the Ethiopian Govt nominating an infant boy to us for adoption) around July-ish.

We're not holding our breath for a referral just yet. We have a lot to do between now and then (just read my mini-tirade in my last posting). We head to Florida next week to spend Christmas with family. With any luck, I can finish shopping before we leave!

There's Always Another Form

So there I was......thinking we were near the end of the paperchase. We indeed are well past the half-way point, but I noticed a major form I had forgotten - the I-600A Form. Fortunately for us, another couple adopting from Ethiopia posted when they had submitted the form.

The I-600A Form is what prospective international adoptive families submit to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) to begin the process of applying for an entry visa for the child. Like everything else, this form requires other forms to accompany it. We also have to get fingerprinted again. We've been fingerprinted already for the FBI's background check (which came back clean....scheeewww!). This fingerprinting session is for USCIS to do their own background check, just in case the FBI overlooked something. Of course, this isn't as simple as mailing another fingerprint form......oh nooooooo. We now wait for USCIS to contact us with our appointment. Yes, we'll travel to the local USCIS office and get fingerprinted. I'm just hoping that office isn't three states away.

This is where things could get complicated. I start my Navy school pipeline in February. Therefore, we really need the fingerprinting appointment in January. Here's the other complication - our Home Study isn't finalized yet, and we're not sure if we can get an appointment without the Home Study. Our completed report will be sent to America World next week for finalization. I decided to mail the form without the Home Study in the hopes of getting a fingerprint appointment without it because I figured it couldn't hurt.

We are still super-psyched to have come this far so quickly; keep tabs of our timeline on the right side of our website. We still hope to get the Dossier through the State Dept and to Ethiopia before the end of January. We've come to think that "Dossier" is French for "ginormous packet of forms that requires hundreds of signatures and notarizations."

And no....this hasn't sunk in yet. I think when the Dossier is finally to Ethiopia, we'll begin to realize we'll soon be parents of a wonderful boy.

Home Study Orientation

We completed the Home Study Orientation yesterday and remain supremely excited about this journey! It was very clear the entire staff is well grounded in Christ and works very diligently to ensure every T is crossed and I is dotted so our adoption paperwork gets through all of the bureaucracy as smoothly as possible. There are literally dozens of documents required for the Home Study and another few dozen required for the Dossier, so this is no small task!

Lesson #1 for anyone considering embarking on this journey : be super-aggressive in completing as many forms as possible before the Home Study Orientation. The Orientation is considered visit #1 of 4 of the home study process so it all starts with the Orientation. David worked very hard over the past couple of weeks compiling all of the information and forms - to include notarizing! Because we turned in so many completed Home Study forms last night, we expect the first in-home visit (technically Visit #2) by the social worker to be within the month. The Home Study Coordinator who conducted the Orientation last night expected us to be able to complete the Home Study before David heads to Newport, RI, for his Navy schooling in January. That would be fantastic and is what we were secretly hoping for!!!!!

We drove to the AWAA National Headquarters in McLean, Va, for the Orientation, and it was great to see the folks who will be guiding us through the next few months. We met our Family Coordinator, Caitlin, who was as excited to meet us as we were to meet her. She is one of three Ethiopia (ET) Program Family Coordinators, and she currently represents about 40-50 families. The ET Program has nearly doubled every year for the past few years, and AWAA recently added a third Family Coordinator (Caitlin) because of the increased work load and to minimize the time consumed by paperchasing. She was so excited because she rarely gets to meet her families in person - as we're spread throughout the country. All of the Family Coordinators for AWAA work out of the national headquarters office. As we exchange what I'm sure will be dozens of e-mails with Caitlin as we compile the 20-30 documents required for our Dossier (official "adoption package" that will be routed through the State Dept and to the Ethiopian Govt), it will be nice to put a face to those e-mails.

Preparing for the Home Study......and Celebrating Alicia's Birthday!

Last week, we received the bulk of the initial paperwork required for the Home Study. This was in the form of two e-mails, each containing at least a dozen attachments. Most of what was sent were forms that we will review - many requiring our signatures. A few of the attachments were pamphlets that describe the process and which forms and fees are due when. That has been especially helpful.

We will attend an orientation at AWAA headquarters in McLean, VA (near DC) at the end of the month. We're not sure how often they are offered, but the orientation is the first step of the Home Study. Our schedules allowed us to make the trip this month so we figured we would take advantage of the timing and get the process started as soon as possible. In the mean time, we certainly have enough to read and keep us occupied. Another requirement is to complete an on-line course - the National Council for Adoption Hague Intercountry Adoption Online Training Course. All prospective adoptive parents are required to complete this course. Alicia has started, and I will start next week (I've been on three ships conducting assessments over the past 3 wks). Alicia and I did a good bit of research (along with a lot of prayer and discussion) before deciding to adopt, but the folks at AWAA have done a great job in presenting a ton of information in such a way that we're not overwhelmed. We feel very well-informed and prepared for each step.

On top of getting a lot smarter on the adoption process over the past couple of weeks, we celebrated Alicia's 40th birthday. Alicia loves the mountains so I planned a surprise celebration this past weekend at a place in the Blue Ridge. I activated the Surface Warfare Nuclear Officer part of my brain - the really meticulous part - and planned everything for the weekend, to include a nature hike, horseback riding and a celebration dinner. I also managed to fit in a little golf for myself......you know, a little something for the effort.

The entire weekend went perfectly thanks to my nuclear planning......and also to our wonderful friends who could celebrate with us! I'm especially proud of the fact I kept all of this a secret from Alicia because I started planning in mid-August. I only told her where we were going after we were on the road. She grilled me for details while she was packing the night before, though. After a secret phone call to the place, I then could tell her that hair dryers and bath robes were included in the room - a detail I never considered but I now realize it's a crucial element in a woman's packing strategy. To maximize the surprise effect, I didn't tell her some of our friends would join us!

When she ran into her brother out of the blue as we headed to dinner the first night, I knew I succeeded in surprising her. Before our nature hike the following morning, Alicia ran into two other couples who joined us for the celebration. At this point, she began to suspect that all of these folks didn't happen to choose the same place for the same weekend just by chance. She wondered who else she would discover as she turned around the next corner. I successfully resisted her questions!

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner Saturday night, where she met the last few couples who joined us for the weekend.

We continue to need your prayers for strength, determination, and an unquenchable enthusiasm for our adoption adventure. This journey is only just beginning, and we are just as excited today as we were a month ago!

Step #4 - The First of Many AWAA Paperwork Packages

We mailed the first of many packages to AWAA today. This package was very simple and only required three forms to be signed and returned. Once they process those forms, AWAA will assign us a case worker, and then the real paperwork begins! We have quickly learned that adopting isn't for the faint of heart. By the end of this process, we both will have gone through extensive background checks, physical exams, one home study with two additional in-person interviews, and a ton of more stuff! It is all worth every bit of it. For anyone considering a domestic adoption and how the expenses of that compare to international........From the research we did as we prepared for our adoption decision, we learned that domestic adoptions can be just as expensive as those from Ethiopia. Many of the European countries and China are much more expensive than Ethiopia (and domestic adoptions), but we discovered the range of average expenses for Ethiopia are comparable to those of domestic adoptions.

In the paperwork we recently received, we learned that the wait time for adopting an Ethiopian infant boy is slightly less than that for infant girls. At the moment, we are planning to adopt an infant boy. We say "at the moment" because Alicia would prefer to adopt a girl while David would prefer a boy. It's interesting we both provide the same reason for our preference: "Girls/boys are more fun." The home study is where we make the final determination as to our adoption preference. We hope to do the homestudy within the next month, but we won't know anything until AWAA processes the forms we mailed today. Based on feedback from other couples who have adopted from Ethiopia, we plan to keep a broad perspective regarding the age. We'll most likely say we're open to adopting in the age range of infant to 2 years old. As far as whether we'll put a boy or girl, we're still discussing that!

Our Church has a "Blessing of the Animals" every year in October. We call it "Animal Sunday" and we have been fortunate that our church here in Va Beach as well as the one we attended when we briefly lived in San Diego both observe this custom. Everyone brings their pets (of all sorts -- we've even seen a ferret!), and the pets sit in the pews for the entire service. I must admit that communion is a different experience with half the congregation on all fours. It's even more of an experience when a ferret is in the pew behind you.......and your dog knows it! Animal Sunday is this Sunday, and that gave us reason to look at the pictures from last year. Chloe has been our completely-spoiled-rotten dog for about seven years. It's hard to believe she's been with us for that long. She's a mixed breed we adopted from the local animal rescue society. She's got a lot of Chow and a little Shepherd which means we could vacuum every 15 minutes in the summer!