How it went - The Home Study

I'm gonna try a new style of writing today, let me know if you like it.

It was a beautiful day, so let me start there. It was cloudy and overcast, but not with pollution as it is so often in our city of DG. We haven't had rain our entire rainy season, so seeing those clouds was a
happy occasion. We got up extra early and did a quick sweep through of our house. Put away bed mats (we were sleeping on the floor downstairs because the air-conditioning upstairs was broken), put on clothes that were carefully laid out the night before, do hair, make-up, run outside and walk the dog.

Once all the little things we knew we needed to do where done, we made sure everything looked nice one final time before heading out the door. We still needed to catch a taxi, a bus would not do on a day like today. Buses save money, but not time, and time is what we were needing to save. We flagged down a taxi much quicker than we were expecting and we were on our way to Dynatown Mall where we were going to meet up with Eric. Eric is high up in a factory about 20 minutes away from the downtown area. He has a personal driver and he had offered to let us use this luxury for today.

We pulled up to the mall and paid the taxi driver. We got out, hoping Starbucks would be open at 6:30 am. In China, it doesn't open until 7:15, so we were out of luck. We went to McDonald's instead. I got what I everything that I can eat from McDonald's; eggs, a hash-brown and a coffee. David got whatever he wanted; an egg McMuffin, a biscuit and a milk. We also ordered food for our driver and Eric. They arrived soon after we got the food and we were heading over to Eric's factory in no time. Our driver needed to eat once we got to the factory, so he took 10 minutes to do that and we took a tour of the place. Eric's factory makes lamps for hotels. It was a really cool experience.

We got our GPS ready to go to Guangzhou airport and we were off. It took about an hour and a half to drive all the way there. We spent that time reading our adoption education book, "The Connected Child" and talking, all the while trying to keep ourselves from becoming over-anxious and over-stressed.

When we finally got there, we communicated (in horrible Chinese) to the driver that we wanted him to stay nearby and we would be back soon. We found the gate which our social worker would be arriving. We decided to scrawl her name on a piece of paper, just in case we didn't recognize her.
We took turns visiting the restroom and spent the time pacing back and forth still talking and joking, trying to ease the nerves.

Some people started filing around the exit corner and into the waiting area. An elderly couple, a family, lots of single Chinese people. Finally, the only person who was foreign enough to be her turned the airport exit corner. It was easier than we thought to recognize her, and we called out her name. We said hello and it all began.

We got in the car and drove back to Dongguan. Our nerves were quickly calmed as we began to just talk. At first we were still feeling the pressure to present ourselves in a positive light, but as we got to know her and she got to know us, we were much more comfortable. I offered her a snack I had packed which led to a conversation about nutrition. We talked for some time about the importance of nutrition when adopting. The fact that I had packed Gluten free pretzels, a Soyjoy and some water boded well for us! David even took the opportunity to brag on me for my dietary and nutrition expertise!

We talked about all kinds of things, but here are the big topics I remember; we talked about the level of support we felt we had from friends and family, our plans for discipline, how there could be issues with attachment after adoption, the special needs in a child that might arise with any international adoption, what we planned in terms of childcare, how we were planning financially, and so much more. We actually knew the answer to every question asked! We spent time talking in the car, in our living room and while eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant down the road from us.

She met Aubie and Luna and they were on their best behavior. She loved them! She said "I knew I would like you when I read about how your greatest accomplishment was saving your kitten." I felt a kind of kindred spirit thing going on with her. First on the topic of nutrition and now with animals!

She looked around at safety features in our house and pointed out some things we might improve on. The best thing she said all day was "I don't need to check every little safety feature, because I know you will love your children more than I do and will want to protect them more than I would."
Honestly, it made me feel capable.

There weren't many concerns for safety about our house, except the balconies. Our social worker suggested either getting some sort of lock for everywhere connecting to a balcony or these wire nets I often see around the community. David and I are looking into that now and we will see what we can find and afford. She gave us advise on the process, told us what it would entail to get official approval for the home study and offered help for certain parts of the process.

After that we took her out to get some stuffed toys for her kids, gave her a Kombucha scobi to take home with her, then drove back with her to the airport. By the time we got back home, we were exhausted. It was 7 or 8 at night and all we could do was feel proud and sit on the couch and watch tv until it was an acceptable time to go to bed.

Overall, it was a really good day. The best part about it was after all our talking she said, "I'm going to approve you for 2 kids up to age 7," which is exactly what we wanted to hear. Verbal approval. We were so excited!

Now what's next? We've been approved for two kids by our social worker, but we still have some paperwork to finish, send in, get approved, cleared and so on. We are currently sending in Child Abuse Clearance paperwork for SC and TN. David is also working on completing his adoption education so he can earn his certificate. After that our completed home study document will be sent in to the Central Authority in the US and hopefully approved without investigation (think IRS checking on validity of taxes, but with adoption paperwork). If they ask for proof of something we only have a short period of time to respond with the needed paperwork. If we fail to comply there are consequences, such as having to re-do the whole home study.  We are praying that they will not ask for proof. By the time mail found its way to us, we would only have a few days to comply because of being in China and the reliability of mail here.

If we can sail smoothly through the home study approval, our next step is to attain all the paperwork we need for our dossier. If you want to know more about what is included in a dossier check out what our agency says here.

Accepted!

The email came today! We've been accepted by our agency! We applied Sunday night as soon as the money we sent home was in our bank account. We were so excited!

Here's the email I received:

"Danae & David, I have reviewed, processed, and approved your application for an adoption from Bulgaria! I was excited to see that your family had filled it out – I loved having the opportunity to Skype with you over the phone a couple of weeks ago! If you choose to move forward with an adoption from Bulgaria, the next step to becoming a full client with MLJ is to submit your executed Adoption Services Agreement, signed fee sheet and initial payment according to the attached fee sheet. We will also need an original signed copy of your application. I've attached a copy to this email for you to print, sign and mail into the office. I know that you’re living abroad and sending documents internationally is a little bit more difficult. We will need original copies of your documents, but if you’re wanting to move forward quickly, you can email me scanned signed copies of the Fee Sheet and Adoption Services Agreement before you put them in the mail. We can take checks for the first payment, but we can also do a direct debit from your checking account, or charge a credit card (3% credit card fee applies, but is waived on the application payment). I do want to let you know that this application process is only an initial screening based on the limited information received. There are other approvals you will need throughout your process in order to bring a child home. These approvals come from your home study, Bulgaria, and the US State Department. The application approval is not a substitute for a home study assessment approval and does not screen for any laws specific to a state or country of residence other than Indiana. This is an initial screening and does not guarantee future approvals. Please let me know if you have any questions!"

Man I love this agency! I can't wait to begin this journey to bringing our kids home with them! Please continue to pray for our process!

Exciting, Scary Progress.

Cha-ching.
This is the thought going through David's mind this week.
So close. So real. So very.... scary.
These have been my thoughts.

We've been researching and researching, planning and saving, for almost two years now! I've found a sort of contentment in the planning, in the preparation, and even in the not having kids yet. We've worked really hard to try to figure out what we need and want to do to prepare for kids, and now it seems like the process it really going to get started.
So far, it's been a lot like a wandering walk in the park, looking at things we want to look at, discovering new things and finding things that can help us along the way. Now it seems like that relaxing, slow paced walk is over, and it's about to turn into a full sprint to the finish line. I realize the adoption process could take years to complete, but even still it's going to go quickly for us.

We had a Skype date with MLJ adoption agency's representative. It was really super encouraging, and I must say that I was dancing (and bouncing) around our house that night to the point I could hardly sleep at all! They work with expats, and they want to be super flexible with us, knowing that we live in China and that's different than if we lived in the states. Our finances, insurance and life-style looks totally different, and it was so nice to hear that it wouldn't be a problem! They showed us a list of referrals that they had received from Bulgaria in 2014, they talked about how Bulgaria is very reliable compared to some other countries and they had one more bit of news that pushed me over the edge of excitement and nervousness; with how much we are open to for our adoption, we could wait as little as three months for a referral! This comes after all the home study and paperwork stuff is taken care of, so we have at least until 2015 before any of this really comes into play. They also sent us an expense sheet, and the overall total is around what I had said before, $30-40,000.

The thing that really made this REAL for us is when we saw the costs broken down, when they were due and how much was due each time. Talk about David going crazy! He was not at all happy to find out that the money we have been saving and raising will only cover the first payment! All of which should be going to the agency within this month! That's our other piece of really big, encouraging news! I don't have to wait to get started on this process.

Now, before we were informed by a different agency that we both needed to be 25 years old. I had emailed this agency before (MLJ) and gotten a similar response, but I'm thinking they believed me to be single, because the representative informed me Tuesday night that since David is 26 and we're married, it will be ok to get started. There is a small part of me that is a little frustrated with this information since this means we really could have gotten started about a year ago. However, the bigger part of me (thankfully) is happy that David and I have had this time to become more informed, to pay off school bills and to become more financially prepared to take on the task of raising children. I think God placed this misunderstanding in our path to lead us in a better timed direction.

With all this new information comes a responsibility for us to get our butts kicked into gear to raise the money we'll need to complete our home study. Thankfully, after we have the home study completed and approved, we can apply for all sorts of adoption grants that will help cover significant amounts of the cost of international adoption. We are talking with family in HHI and Bluffton to start on some community fundraisers, one of the first is an outdoor movie night with hamburgers, hot-dogs, and apple cider. One that we'll will be doing in February is a Silent Auction/Dinner with a movie night for kids. If you have any ideas to help make these better functions, let me or any of my family members know! If you would like to donate an item (a product you or your company makes) for the Silent Auction, it would be such a blessing! I really appreciate your prayers and can't wait to see how God moves in this special area of our lives!

The Adoption Process - Five "easy" steps

Some people have asked about what the process of adoption will look like for us. So I'm going to try to break it down (as much as I know anyway) and explain some of what we will have to do and the fees that will be required along the way.

STEP ONE: The first thing we had to do was choose a country. Now I know that seems like the easiest part, but how do you choose one over another? Aren't all the children from all the countries equally in need of families? We had to start by narrowing down ones we knew we couldn't adopt from yet. Now, at the time we were under the impression that as long as you were of age for that particular country, you could adopt with the help of an agency from the USA. When we started this it was partially true, but this summer (2014) that all changed. Because of the new Hague Convention being heavily enforced in America, we have to comply with a Hague accredited agency. This means that the pool of agencies that we were looking at got significantly smaller. It might have been fine had we lived and adopted from the US, but at this point it does affect us. The Hague convention is doing amazing things to protect the children involved in adoption, as well as adoptive parents, so I don't want to come across as if this is just a huge unnecessary obstacle I wish would be taken away. The main problems it presented us with at the time was that 1) most agencies that were Hague accredited would only accept potential parents 25 years or older, 2) it took several countries we were considering out of the equation entirely.

While I'm talking about choosing the country, I must mention a few we considered and why we decided against them. The first one was China. This was shot down almost immediately because China requires adoptive parents to be 30+ years, and have many requirements like taking the child to the country your from instead of staying in China.

The second we really wrestled with was the USA. The main problem we encountered was the lack of information of expats adopting from America. We weren't sure if we could even qualify. The other thing that led to us not pursuing information heavily was that since we were considering adopting a toddler to an older child, the adjustment might just be too much. Going to a new country with a new family that doesn't speak your language and then moving to ANOTHER country that speaks an entirely different language. Coming from an American foster system, there might even be HUGE behavioral problems created by the handing off of the child to family after family. While we believe these issues could be over come with love the requirements for expats was to sketchy and varied from State to State.

We also considered countries closer to us like South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, etc. But they didn't pan out for different reasons.

The country we originally landed on was Poland. The reason for this was a book we had read A Guide To Almost Free International Adoption, which outlined a way to adopt without an agency. It was TONS cheaper, and we knew we had the motivation to do it on our own with just an attorney's help. However, while inquiring with an agency about a home study, we found out about the Hague convention. It was required for all international adoptions to go through an American Hague Accredited agency starting in 2014. We knew we would not be able to complete our adoption with less than a year between us and the new rule, so we decided to open our options again and pray about other countries.

After much research (which before you pry into an adoptive families reasons for NOT choosing another country, know that it is a very, very difficult decision) we decided on Bulgaria. Our reasons for Bulgaria are outlined in another blog post. See (http://d-carrs.blogspot.sg/2013/12/decision-on-which-country-bulgaria.html)
But also know that we could have chosen a number of other countries, but felt led towards Bulgaria. I can't describe it much better than that. We went over cost, location, race, ages available, why they were orphans, and facilities for orphanages. Some of our reasons might seem trivial, but like I said, it was a very difficult decision for us, and you really can't get started on the next step until you decide firmly.

STEP TWO: Choosing an agency proved harder for us than I would have thought. There was just a list on a website that told about agencies that offer adoption from Bulgaria (like I said, the country decision had to be made first, or we wouldn't have had a way to search for a good agency to help us). We had to look for a Hague accredited agency that would work with expats, provide a home study for expats OR allow another company/agency to perform the home study, be available for our time zone, and show integrity in their adoptions. We had to look at a ton of little factors too; things like Christian vs secular, location in the US, technology use, adoptions per year, and many other things.

We were between about five agencies so I emailed them all asking questions about their agency, the program for Bulgaria, and most importantly, did they work with expats! A few immediately answered that they did not work with expats, so they were crossed off the list. There was an agency that never answered back, crossed off. And then there were two. I was between two agencies that both looked great for us. I eventually had to be specific in what I wanted, be a little picky and I landed on MLJ adoption agency in Indiana.

There were several things that just really made MLJ appealing for us. The first was that they answered IMMEDIATELY every time. The second is that they had a much better website and were more liberal with the information the placed there. The third was the lady that is over our program is a Christian who has adopted herself named Lydia Tarr. And the last thing is that MLJ and Mrs. Tarr have blogs that are updated with amazing information constantly. All of that together was just reassuring.

STEP THREE: This one can look different for other adoptive families, but for us the next step is fundraising and saving money. The reason for this is that we have been working very diligently on getting out of debt, and the total cost of our adoption will be from $27,000-34,000. We have worked our way through Financial Peace University by David Ramsey, and we are on our way to being debt free, hopefully by the time we bring our kids home! We honestly struggled doing the fundraising BEFORE the home study because we didn't want to appear overeager and uninformed about how adoption really works.

We were a little afraid that people wouldn't want to help us so early in the process, knowing we hadn't completed our home study. On that note, I need to add that for if some reason we don't pass our home study and we are unable to adopt, we will donate the money raised to helping orphans in some form. We would really at that point like to try again, knowing what we had done wrong and continue our adoption plans, but we are open to just donating to another couple adopting or an organization helping orphans.

We have been saving money ourselves as part of the budget we came up with, and have selling certain things that proceeds our adoption. We have gotten some sweet gifts from family and friends as well, and there is a link on our blog and our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AdoptingaBurgundyWillow?ref_type=bookmark). Add us and follow us to find out about upcoming fundraising events!

STEP FOUR: The first thing we are saving up for is applying to the agency and getting the home study. We don't know exactly how much this will cost as our circumstance is a little different than most other adoptive families. For most people it costs around $3,000-5,000 to get the adoption started, and $5,000 for the home study. We now have enough money to cover that first fee (at least the $3,000) and we are confident we will be able to raise the money for the home study by February/March 2015.

STEP FIVE: This step is a little fuzzy to me, but I'll try to let you know what I know about it. This is the step that we submit a dossier (said "doss-ee-ay") and later in this step, we will accept a referral of a child or sibling group. At the point the dossier is filed and we accept the referral, we have to pay anywhere from $9,000-19,000 depending on circumstances. The dossier, in short, is a file about us. It will include all the paper work that is involved in adoption. It will have the home study, our financial and employment information, our marriage license, birth certificates, medical reports, immigration approval, reference letters and an adoption education completion certificate. In all it will have anywhere from 8-15 documents included, and all of it is sent to the country we want to adopt from. Once we send the dossier, we wait.
Here's where I found the information about the dossier:
(http://www.mljadoptions.com/blog/what-is-an-adoption-dossier-20130108)

We wait for a referral for a child or sibling group. We can also check out waiting children who have special needs (being an older child or part of a sibling group counts as a special need). Once we find a child(ren) that we are interested in we can let the agency know and see if they are still available for adoption. I actually set up an account already with a website, and it lets me know when children matching our profile become available. A few weeks back they sent a picture of these little girls that nearly broke my heart to have to wait for. It was comforting to pray for a family for them though.

The wait time for a child(ren) from Bulgaria, I'm told, depends entirely on your flexibility. The more special needs you are open to, the easier time they have matching a child to you. Once we accept, it will be about four to six months until everything is processed and we can move on to my favorite step!
Here are some wait times others have had from our agency: (http://www.mljadoptions.com/blog/flexibility-key-to-shorter-wait-for-families-adopting-from-bulgaria-20140707)

STEP FIVE: Travel! Oh, how this word excites me! This will be the point that we travel to meet our children, and set up a court date to go pick them up! We'll get to meet them, ask them if we can be their mommy and daddy and they can be ours forever, see where they've been living, play with them and give them some simple gifts! We will be there approximately a week the first time, and I think this might even be part of accepting the referral. The second time will be to get everything court official and bring our kids home! At this point we will need to pay a $3,000-6,000 fee, and I'm not entirely sure if that includes our plane tickets, translator and other transportation and accommodations.


Now that I've gone through the basics of what our adoption process will look like, can you think of any questions you would like answered personally or think that I should find out? I have done a ton of research, but there is still so much information out there yet to be found! I would appreciate any input or advice as well! I love hearing from you!