Showing posts with label adoption approval. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adoption approval. Show all posts
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
To Big Not to Share (Even at 12:26 am)!
Today we left for California to start our vacation. We left pretty late, at about 3:30 pm, and at just about 3:45, I got a call. It was from Amy, the liaison helping us figure out what is delaying our adoption approval. She said had an update for us and had just spoken with Commissioner Clark, who is in charge of our paperwork (though I was told it was transferred, so I'm not sure what happened there). After months of hearing nothing, I am sure you can imagine how excited we were!
Amy said that our paperwork was signed TODAY and as of today WE ARE APPROVED!
Wait, let me repeat that last part. WE ARE APPROVED!!
Did you see me just do a happy dance, cry some happy tears, and say a very thankful prayer?
It is only in the state of Arizona, meaning we still need to get approved in India, but we are so excited! It is a big step forward, and now nothing will be holding our adoption up (well, until our paperwork gets to India, that is ;)). We won't get the "official" paper approval for a week or two, since it still needs to go to another department, but I was told we are approved!
Thank you for being here to pray for us, pray for our (soon-to-be) little girl, support us, and love us. We are so very thankful to have so many people on our side rooting for us! God is good..... WE ARE APPROVED!
Amy said that our paperwork was signed TODAY and as of today WE ARE APPROVED!
Wait, let me repeat that last part. WE ARE APPROVED!!
Did you see me just do a happy dance, cry some happy tears, and say a very thankful prayer?
It is only in the state of Arizona, meaning we still need to get approved in India, but we are so excited! It is a big step forward, and now nothing will be holding our adoption up (well, until our paperwork gets to India, that is ;)). We won't get the "official" paper approval for a week or two, since it still needs to go to another department, but I was told we are approved!
Thank you for being here to pray for us, pray for our (soon-to-be) little girl, support us, and love us. We are so very thankful to have so many people on our side rooting for us! God is good..... WE ARE APPROVED!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
My boring but productive day, our little blessing, and a HUGE prayer request
First I want to start off with the prayer request. If you pray, I need you on this! Baby Evangeline was due to be born in a few days. She has spina bifida. Today, her mother was in a car accident that was caused by a drunk driver. I am not sure how they are doing, and they need your prayers. You can follow Evangeline's story on her mother's blog at http://mrskugler.blogspot.com/ .
Today I decided I needed to get some adoption paperwork out of the way and be productive. It helps me feel like I'm "doing something" for the adoption. In case you do not remember, our adoption agency sent us our dossier paperwork even though we aren't officially approved, since our approval in Arizona is taking so long. Yesterday I sent away for certified copies of our birth certificates and pulled out the certified copy I have of our marriage certificate. Today I decided I would tackle the bank, which ended up being a 1 1/2 hour trip.
India requires that you deposit $1,000 in to an account in the name of the child you are trying to adopt. That poses an interesting problem, though, as you cannot open an account for someone that is not a US citizen, does not have a social security number, is not in your care, and has no last name. They also want financial statements from your bank with all of your balances, your average yearly balance, and all of that converted to rupees. Fun, fun! I went to the bank today with the information on what we needed and prayed for the best. The man who helped us was really a blessing. He had two friends adopt internationally and knew pretty well all the hoops they had to jump through to be able to do so. He was willing to jump through hoops to help us figure out how to handle the paperwork and account information we needed. He was really amazing.
He got us the information we needed, converted to rupees, and got it notarized for us. Then he helped us tackle the account problem. Basically we ended up opening a checking account (fee-free) in my name, with Rama as the secondary. We used our last name as her last name and her estimated birth date for her birth date. Then we filled out some paperwork that they use to get people accounts that do not have a social security number. After that, he typed up a letter stating we had deposited the money in to an account for her and had that notarized as well.
The whole process took about 1 1/2 hours, which was not fun, especially with the kids in-tow, but I'm thankful to have it done. The kids did really, really well, which was great. One of the tellers gave them a sucker and later brought them crayons and coloring paper to help keep them busy. I rewarded them with some sorbet at Yogurtology when we left because they did such a great job.
We still have no news, but it did feel good to get some things out of the way. I don't know what God has up his sleeve, and I realllly wish he'd let me peek, but I do find peace in knowing His plan is perfect.
OH! I also wrote a letter to our senator today asking for help with getting our adoption approval pushed through. Hey, can't hurt!
Today I decided I needed to get some adoption paperwork out of the way and be productive. It helps me feel like I'm "doing something" for the adoption. In case you do not remember, our adoption agency sent us our dossier paperwork even though we aren't officially approved, since our approval in Arizona is taking so long. Yesterday I sent away for certified copies of our birth certificates and pulled out the certified copy I have of our marriage certificate. Today I decided I would tackle the bank, which ended up being a 1 1/2 hour trip.
India requires that you deposit $1,000 in to an account in the name of the child you are trying to adopt. That poses an interesting problem, though, as you cannot open an account for someone that is not a US citizen, does not have a social security number, is not in your care, and has no last name. They also want financial statements from your bank with all of your balances, your average yearly balance, and all of that converted to rupees. Fun, fun! I went to the bank today with the information on what we needed and prayed for the best. The man who helped us was really a blessing. He had two friends adopt internationally and knew pretty well all the hoops they had to jump through to be able to do so. He was willing to jump through hoops to help us figure out how to handle the paperwork and account information we needed. He was really amazing.
He got us the information we needed, converted to rupees, and got it notarized for us. Then he helped us tackle the account problem. Basically we ended up opening a checking account (fee-free) in my name, with Rama as the secondary. We used our last name as her last name and her estimated birth date for her birth date. Then we filled out some paperwork that they use to get people accounts that do not have a social security number. After that, he typed up a letter stating we had deposited the money in to an account for her and had that notarized as well.
The whole process took about 1 1/2 hours, which was not fun, especially with the kids in-tow, but I'm thankful to have it done. The kids did really, really well, which was great. One of the tellers gave them a sucker and later brought them crayons and coloring paper to help keep them busy. I rewarded them with some sorbet at Yogurtology when we left because they did such a great job.
We still have no news, but it did feel good to get some things out of the way. I don't know what God has up his sleeve, and I realllly wish he'd let me peek, but I do find peace in knowing His plan is perfect.
OH! I also wrote a letter to our senator today asking for help with getting our adoption approval pushed through. Hey, can't hurt!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Welllllll..... that makes sense, but I'm still bummed!!
Today I called Oasis, our homestudy agency, to see if they ever heard back from the Judge's office about our paperwork/approval. They still haven't heard back, and I guess the judge's assistant (not sure what they are called) is no longer there, which is who she had left a message with last week. She said that was a bad sign, but I'm not sure why, maybe because it will take longer or something. Anyhow.... Oasis had faxed in the pictures of our pool fence in July. The judge asked Oasis to also send in hard copies straight to her, so they did. Today when Oasis called, they talked to someone else at the courts (the people that oversee the whole process or something like that), and they said they have no records of the hard copy being sent in. Oasis is going to send it to that department now as well, just to make sure that everyone has what they need.
The problem, though, is that the courts have 60 days to respond (basically approve or deny your adoption petition) to the paperwork once it is submitted. Whenever you send something new in, though, that re-sets that 60 day waiting period. So basically, when we sent in the photos of the latches, that re-set the 60 days that they have to respond to us. That would mean that we should hear back by mid September, UNLESS sending in the photos to the other department will re-set it again, and then we will still have up to 60 days! AH! Not cool!
In better news, we went to the Children's Museum today and it was a blast! My friend, Mary, had free passes for us (THANKS MARY!), so Kyla and I took the kids. We brought Madi in her HKFOs (up ups) and helped her walk up the big climbing structure, go through the noodle forest, and all that good stuff. The kids really loved it! I also got to meet a local lady, Kiara, that has been a lot of support and help for our adoption, so that was really awesome! We didn't know she would be there but bumped in to her, so that was neat. Here's some pictures of our day:
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