Well, it will be two weeks tomorrow that we had our fingerprints taken, so I emailed our local USCIS office. An email came back saying we are approved and that we should receive our approval paperwork within the next two weeks. TWO WEEKS!! That seems like an eternity!:0 We have everything else done. Most of it is translated.
There are rumors about the government of Ukraine imposing a moratorium on adoptions soon. Then, some people with definite appointments to submit have had those dates moved to several months later. It's stress enough trying to do the paperwork to meet all these crazy changes that the State Department of Adoption is imposing without the added stress of waiting!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
ONE YEAR HOME!
Today marks Karina's one year anniversary in America. We weren't home the whole day. We flew the good portion of it. If I remember right, we arrived at JFK around 4pm or so. We spent a few hours in the Atlanta airport where Karina slept a good bit. We landed in our home airport between 10:30 and 10:45pm, exhausted. At least I was. I can't sleep anywhere there is noise and stirring.
Karina has come a long way since that time. She knew very little English and probably nothing about having parents or siblings. I still don't know how much she still doesn't know about that, but she seems to be settled in. She has made a complete transformation from where she was a year ago. We know several Russian and Ukrainian adoptees and it amazes me how they totally change over time. How they can totally assimilate into American culture.
I never thought back then, that we would be thinking of going back already!
Karina has come a long way since that time. She knew very little English and probably nothing about having parents or siblings. I still don't know how much she still doesn't know about that, but she seems to be settled in. She has made a complete transformation from where she was a year ago. We know several Russian and Ukrainian adoptees and it amazes me how they totally change over time. How they can totally assimilate into American culture.
I never thought back then, that we would be thinking of going back already!
Fingerprints DONE!
We did the last thing we needed to do for our dossier this morning, take fingerprints. Now we wait for the I-171h, have it apostilled, then off to Ukraine to finish up our dossier:)
Friday, April 10, 2009
Today's the Day!
The day we received our fingerprint letter anyway:) It has taken 4 weeks to arrive. Now that we have this letter in hand, we can go to the nearest fingerprint facility for USCIS and have our fingerprints taken. Our oldest son has to go also since he is 20 now and lives with us.
Once our prints are taken, it should only take about two weeks to receive our I-171h. That is the final paper for our dossier!
Oh, another thing. The bulk of our dossier was mailed to Ukraine last Wednesday. According to the tracking on the USPS website, our package left Chicago on an International dispatch yesterday. Hopefully, we will be receiving an email from our facilitator soon that our package has arrived.
Once our prints are taken, it should only take about two weeks to receive our I-171h. That is the final paper for our dossier!
Oh, another thing. The bulk of our dossier was mailed to Ukraine last Wednesday. According to the tracking on the USPS website, our package left Chicago on an International dispatch yesterday. Hopefully, we will be receiving an email from our facilitator soon that our package has arrived.
Music fixed on 2nd Video
The music has been replaced on our second video. If you've ever been to Ukraine, you will recognize the 'style'. If you are going, this is the 'disco' type music you can expect to hear, though with Russian words to it.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Announcement
Well, I guess it's about time to announce that we are going to Ukraine for a second adoption. If anyone is still following, you were given a hint a couple of posts ago. We have been busy starting the process again the past couple of months. Today, I mailed a big packet of documents off to be apostilled. Not everything, because we are waiting on our fingerprint letter from USCIS and our updated home ownership letter, but a nice thick envelope of papers. There was almost not enough room to fit a prepaid soft priority envelope and the money order in there! There are only two documents left. The home ownership letter was done today, but the notary didn't think about her stamp shortening the life of our document. It will make the paper expire in less than 6 months instead of a year. You have to watch those things. Anyway, we should receive our fingerprint letter this week or next week at the latest. Our area is pretty quick about those things. We received our I-171h within 2 weeks of taking prints for our first adoption.
There have been some major changes to the dossier. Most things are the same with minor details, but the things that have changed are more difficult to obtain. These new documents have to meet very specific requirements. I fretted about a couple of them, but our facilitator we chose helped narrow things down to make them easier. Plus we have some great friends to help us:)
Things are going so quickly this time it's amazing! We had our home study in hand around a month after our home visit. That was lightning speed! Our Social Worker is the sweetest lady. She was so helpful. We are also going independent this time which is so much less expensive. Of course, we've been through this once, so many things are familiar which has helped things go faster as well. It took us 4 months to get our home study in hand after starting, 8 months to get our dossier submitted (bundle of required paperwork for Ukriaine) and 10 months to get to Ukraine for our SDA appointment. This time, it took a little over a month to get our completed home study, two months to get our dossier together (about the same as last time) and our papers should be in Ukraine before the end of April, three months after starting! We don't know how long it will take to get a submission date, but many families are traveling within 3-4 weeks of being submitted. That is super fast considering we didn't learn our travel date last time until 2 months after being submitted!
We are going to try to adopt the little girl who told us 'no' when we adopted Karina. She came and visited us during Christmas for a little over 2 weeks. She is older and a little more mature. I think she regrets her decision to stay. We'll see. It was very devastating when she refused to come with us. But she still called us Mama and Papa the whole time we were in Ukraine. She acted like she changed her mind just before we left, so we decided to give her another chance and brought her here for Christmas. She will be 14 on her next birthday. Children 'age out' of the orphanage at the end of the school year after they turn 16. So, she doesn't have too many years and there are not many choices for girls as far as careers go.
We are praying she says yes, but prepared for if she says no. We won't come home empty handed.
There have been some major changes to the dossier. Most things are the same with minor details, but the things that have changed are more difficult to obtain. These new documents have to meet very specific requirements. I fretted about a couple of them, but our facilitator we chose helped narrow things down to make them easier. Plus we have some great friends to help us:)
Things are going so quickly this time it's amazing! We had our home study in hand around a month after our home visit. That was lightning speed! Our Social Worker is the sweetest lady. She was so helpful. We are also going independent this time which is so much less expensive. Of course, we've been through this once, so many things are familiar which has helped things go faster as well. It took us 4 months to get our home study in hand after starting, 8 months to get our dossier submitted (bundle of required paperwork for Ukriaine) and 10 months to get to Ukraine for our SDA appointment. This time, it took a little over a month to get our completed home study, two months to get our dossier together (about the same as last time) and our papers should be in Ukraine before the end of April, three months after starting! We don't know how long it will take to get a submission date, but many families are traveling within 3-4 weeks of being submitted. That is super fast considering we didn't learn our travel date last time until 2 months after being submitted!
We are going to try to adopt the little girl who told us 'no' when we adopted Karina. She came and visited us during Christmas for a little over 2 weeks. She is older and a little more mature. I think she regrets her decision to stay. We'll see. It was very devastating when she refused to come with us. But she still called us Mama and Papa the whole time we were in Ukraine. She acted like she changed her mind just before we left, so we decided to give her another chance and brought her here for Christmas. She will be 14 on her next birthday. Children 'age out' of the orphanage at the end of the school year after they turn 16. So, she doesn't have too many years and there are not many choices for girls as far as careers go.
We are praying she says yes, but prepared for if she says no. We won't come home empty handed.
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