Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Answering Questions

I love getting comments. Hint, hint :) and when I announced our dirty little secret I got a couple of questions in our comments section. I was going to email them privately but I decided that maybe other's were interested also. So in a bold attempt to get more comments I decided to post the answers.

The first question was about our old agency and our new agency. I don't know why I was so cautious about identifying either agency. I have been reading several blogs and many identify the agency so I have decided that it is probably ok. Our first agency was FTIA. Our personal experience with them was first rate. They were the perfect agency to have for the paper chase portion of our adoption. They were excellent with communication and had very detailed packets that helped with filling out the paperwork. Since we were only at the application phase of our adoption we were only out our application fee, which was worth it for the help we received. We were just too far down the list to expect a referral in the years time they originally quoted us. Our new agency is WACAP. They have just been licensed in Vietnam and have what they call a pioneer program. The initial process was not as smooth as I had hoped. It took almost a month and several phone calls on my part to get us accepted into the program. Part of the problem was I completed our dossier just days after I sent in the application so I was ready for it to be sent to Vietnam. They had to review our home study and parenting plan, and other agency requirements. I did live through it and in the long run it won't change our wait time.

The second question was about the age of children we are requesting. From the beginning we hoped to adopt twins. When I first talked to the intake person at FTIA, she said it was harder but possible. She told me that we needed to have our home study and i-600 approved for 2 which we did. I believed if we requested twins, and if we were willing to wait we would eventually get twins. After being in the program for awhile I talked to the Vietnam coordinator at FTIA and found out that it did not work that way. They do not maintain a separate list for twins, if twins are available they go down their list and they are offered to the first family approved for 2. So if we were at the top of the list we couldn't choose to wait until twins were available. I then started to ask about other options. Could we pursue a domestic adoption or an adoption from another country while waiting for our Vietnam referral? NO. Since the wait times for a Vietnam referral were getting so long, could we complete our dossier for a second adoption when we got the referral for the first child? No, we had to wait until we had our 6 month post visit. While I understand their intentions behind these rules it just made things seem hopeless to me. We are approaching 40 and I didn't want to be adopting a second child approaching 45. So when I started researching other agencies these were questions I asked. When I asked WACAP about starting our dossier before we had the referral of our first child, that was when I was told that they allow adoptions of unrelated children. We had to be approved by the director and I had to agree to take at least 6 months maternity leave. It is also not guaranteed. If two children are not available than we accept the referral of the first the second request is terminated. We are not allowed to turn down a referral to wait for 2 children. Our home study is written for 2 children 0-24 months. So the answer is we are trying to adopt twins or 2 unrelated infants.

So there you have it 2 very long answers to 2 very short questions.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

DTV!!!! DTV!!!!

I just got off the phone with our agency. I had to call and ask a question about a form I got in the mail today. She then told me she put our dossier in the mail about 5 minutes ago and she was just about to call me. They have sent 2 dossiers already and there hasn't been any major problems. They don't have a log in date but she wasn't sure if Vietnam does log in dates.

So now I wait and hope everything goes ok. We chose not to send one of the forms that may be needed. Our old agency didn't require it so we are going to wait and see if it goes through. Hopefully it doesn't cause us too much trouble.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Contract

We received our contract from our new agency yesterday. They have approved us into the Vietnam program and as soon as they receive our payment they will be sending our dossier to Vietnam. We overnighted the money today so they will have it first thing Monday morning. We are so excited to be completing such a major step.

Our new agency has sent in 2 dossiers and it took about a week for them to be translated before being sent to the DIA.

We are getting very close to be officially waiting. I can't wait to start decorating the nursery.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Dirty Little Secret

I haven't posted in awhile because I felt like I was harboring a dirty little secret. For the last 3 weeks we have been researching and then applying to a new agency. This was a decision we did not make easily. We really liked the agency we were with. They were prompt and impeccably organized. I never waited more than a few hours for answers to my emails. The problem is that there has just been a total lack of referrals. We were just too far down the list, and since we hadn't submitted our dossier it was now or never.

For those of you that may be reading my blog that have been posting about the ethics of adoption, we are listening. We didn't choose an agency promising young, quick referrals. In fact our new agency isn't making any promises. The reason we chose them is that they are a very established agency who was just licensed in Vietnam. The line is short but the ride may be very bumpy. I have confidence in them because they have started programs in countries that weren't open to international adoption at the time. They have many years of experience in international adoption just not with Vietnam.

The biggest change for us is that the new agency doesn't allow us to choose gender. This took a little bit of soul searching for me. Mostly I think because for the past 3 months I have planned on adopting a little girl. I have been thinking about little girl clothes and a little girl nursery. I am already starting to look at little boy clothes. The designers are doing a much better job of making cute boy clothes. The harder part is that I really can't buy anything. I figure if I find something dirt cheap I will buy it and then if we end up with the other gender I will donate the item to the orphanage.

The other change with our new agency is they will allow us to adopt 2 at a time. From the beginning we wanted to adopt twins so we had our home study and i-600 done for 2. It is not guaranteed that we will bring 2 children home, but we are excited that there is a possibility.

We hope we made the right decision. It is like standing in one line at the grocery store, the clerk is very well trained but she is having problems with the computer which is slowing up the line. They decide to open another lane but the checker there is unfamiliar with the system. She used to work at another grocery store so she has experience just not here. The line is a lot shorter. If the computer starts working in the first line that line it could go faster but the computer is unpredictable. Which line do you choose?