Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Here we go again!

Our dossier reached Ethiopia on August 18, 2008. However, we INITIALLY sent our file to the province for approval in March of that same year. After waiting weeks and weeks for approval we received our approval letter and I noticed a mistake had been made. It said that we were approved to adopt a female infant or siblings from Ethiopia when in fact we had not specified gender. Thankfully I noticed the error but we had to go through our local agency to get the mistake taken care of at the provincial level. This of course took more weeks and weeks to fix. Finally we received our letter of approval, our dossier was ready to go and I spent a weekend in August tracking it across the world until it arrived and was signed for in Addis.

When Imagine give each family a number in last month based on when their file was received Ethiopia we were # 43 on the single child list and #16 on the sibling list. After the recent referrals I THINK we are about #34 or 35 on the single child list and #14 or 15 on the sibling list (not following it too closely but I know my blogger peeps will figure it out for me, lol). Because we may or may not receive a referral before our documents expire in August we will probably have to update our dossier documents (notarized documents, etc)...I'm just waiting to see what happens. Supposedly we won't have to update them IF we have a successful court date before then (or just a court date, I'm not sure which it is).

Because referrals are happening sooner than expected and in good numbers I am getting concerned about making sure our paperwork is in order in time to receive our referral.

Because we adopted Josina last year we obviously need to have a homestudy update done for our file with a new letter of provincial approval. This isn't surprising and makes good sense. After the bankruptcy in July I waited to see what was going to happen with our Ethiopian adoption before paying $ to have an update done. I called our local agency in November and they suggested I wait a few more months because it wasn't pertinent then as we didn't know then that the referrals were going to start happening so soon. I called them again today and have told me that our provincial documents (criminal record checks and medicals) have expired in the amount of time that we waited since I first called and we need these for our updated provincial approval. We JUST got the criminal record check done in the summer for the court papers for our domestic adoption and this annoys me to no end. This means more time and $$$ that we just don't have (on top of paying for the homestudy update). Quite annoying really! They told me that criminal record checks now need to be updated every 6 months. Beside the fact that criminal record checks cost $ it also involves loading my daughter up in the car, driving to downtown, paying heavily for parking and braving the cold.
If I had continued with the update when I wanted to I wouldn't have had to worry about it. Grrr.

Aside: at least our provincial intervention check doesn't have to be updated. We had that updated in the summer for the court documents for our domestic adoption. That took 3 months!!! YEP....one piece of paper with one signature took 3 months! It kept getting 'lost' and we kept having to get another from the agency. Here's the process for an intervention check.
1. Call the local agency for the form.
2. Agency sends the form in the mail.
3. Fill out the form and have someone WITNESS your signature. Grrr.
4. Send the form to the LOCAL AGENCY.
5. The local agency sends the form to the provincial government.
6. Provincial government approves the form and sends it to you in the mail.
7. You send the approved form to the local agency.

This summer we filled out 3 forms! It kept getting 'lost'. After waiting a month and we hadn't received the form I called our local agency and it 'was lost'. So we'd get another form, fill it out, get it witnessed, etc., etc. and again and again it 'was lost'. I have no idea where. The local agency or the government. But it took 3 months! Thank goodness that form hasn't expired and we can use it for our Ethiopia adoption. Sheesh!

Back to the homestudy update: So we've booked an appointment with our social worker for next week to do the update and we'll get the criminal record checks and medicals done hopefully soon. What concerns me is how long it will take to get provincial approval again. How many months this time? I don't feel like I have too many months to waste before we expect a referral(which I guess is a good thing, lol). What did ease my mind a bit is that the government said that if Imagine is awaiting approval in order to give us our referral that I can contact them and they will confirm our approval to Imagine. So that's good.

Dont'cha just love paperwork! But I'm still thrilled that I GET to update paperwork...It means we can adopt from Ethiopia! It still seems so surreal after the heartbreak in July of learning of the bankruptcy.

Oh hey! I should mention...Josina's adoption was finalized on January 6th! It's official! She's legally ours! Yay!

17 comments:

Katie said...

Congrats on finalizing Josina's adoption!!! That must feel so GREAT! can't wait until we get to finalize Owen's this summer!!!

Tammy said...

It is a wonderful feeling! Can't wait to see our names on her birth certificate. AND now we can apply to get $$$ from the government, lol. Wahoo!

BCMommy said...

I hate paperwork too! We just updated our homestudy and changed our age last week. Buh bye $350... our crim/interpol checks expire in August, as do our medicals, so we will probably have to redo those as well...unless, by some miracle there are 10 or so girls age 3-3.5 in the orphanages right now...I think we are anywhere from 6-11 in line for an older girl.
Don't forget when calculating your 'spot' to take into account the #'s that are missing. I forgot to do that and was all excited 'cause I thought we were 3rd in line...

BCMommy said...

Oh, and congrats on finalizing Josina's adoption!!! Great news!!!

Dianne said...

Hurray! She's yours! :)

Who is your SW? We're with Ashley... are you too?

emily said...

Oh my gosh, this sounds like the biggest HEADACHE. Ugh! So annoying. I feel bad for you, I'm horrible at getting stuff like that done!

And congrats on Josina's adoption!

Derrick, Alysia, and Levi said...

Congratualations on the finalization! That is GREAT! And have fun with all the paperwork renewals! We just had to get a homestudy update and update the criminal records and stuff this past October. Fun fun. Now we're trying to figure out what other paperwork we'll need for immigration once our baby is born. Does the paperwork EVER end?? I hope so!!

Tammy said...

Dianne, our SW is Alison...just love her! She was also our SW for Josina's adoption. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her!

Chad, Laura, Sara and Seth said...

Gosh I hope hope hope that we don't have to redo our homestudy, because this year it will have to be the big one - I just don't want too - I get wgat you are saying.

Congrats to you on Josina's adoption.

L

Jody said...

We are in the same province and our approval came in 5 weeks. We were suprised as we had been told it'd take 8-12 weeks.

Jody said...

forgot to add - that was in January 2010

Joy said...

Yes, this paperwork business is pretty confusing - trying to figure out what expires in which timeframes, and so on...it makes my head spin. And trying to figure out when is "best" to get going on it all - we're in the same boat (but with a longer wait until referral). Ministry approval expires in July, so I've intentionally been putting off updates so that the next homestudy, medicals, fingerprints, etc. will last as long as possible...but don't want to wait too long. Tricky.

Anonymous said...

YAY for official-ness for Josina! That's great news :)

Hopefully your approval will be done quicker than you think.

Long Journey Big Dreams said...

Congrats on Josina's adoption being complete! Also what a great feeling it must be to have your dossier all getting ready for another referral!!!

Jennifer said...

oh no...I just read this post and it made me sooo sad about the paperwork!--our DTE was Aug.18th/08 as well, and you just made me realize that I might need to check on all of that--BOO! I HATED that paperwork, we've done it twice already, and we STILL don't have a baby :( -We first started the adoption process back in Dec.2006, and tried adopting from States with no luck, had to update everything for Ethiopia, and now, you are making it sound like I need to do everything again--the hubby is not going to love hearing this!
Congrats on finalizing Josina's adoption!!!--That's happy news!

Sharla said...

That's great about Josina's adoption! I know that it was really just a formality but from personal experience, I know that it's such a relief once it's official!

Yuck on the paperwork though... I thought my days of adoption paperwork would never end but they finally have and someday, they will for you too.

Janice said...

Conrats. on the official notice. That is wonderful.

If only everyone could charge all these extra expenses for updating paperwork to those from the old Imagine who spent our money on luxury items for themselves and are the reason the updates need to be done in the first place.

I hope it's smooth sailing from here on in