Homestudy Craziness!

We had our home visit with our social worker on Thursday and Friday. It is quite a relief to be done with it. I was such a nervous wreck, and really for no reason. I just like to worry about things and make them into a much bigger deal than they really are. I'm so thankful for my husband who keeps me quite balanced! He's always calm, cool and collective and can talk to anyone, no problem.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that the home study was going to be a big, scary interrogation about our lives and a very detailed inspection of every nook and cranny of our home. I was pretty worked up over this and spent a couple of days before our home visit making sure every inch of our home was spotless with a toothbrush. Okay, so I didn't really clean with a toothbrush, but I thought about it :)

So anyway, the visit went very well. I was worried for no reason. Our social worker was very nice and easy to talk to. We spent a few hours talking, Joel gave him a tour of our home and that was it. He didn't even open any closets, much to my dismay, because I spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing them and, hey, I was proud ;)

Thursday was quite the day though. Our social worker was supposed to fly out of Germany in the morning and be in Turkey in the afternoon. We had bought his tickets online and had forwarded him all the information he needed. Well, he got to the airport on Thursday morning and was told his ticket was canceled! WHAT?! We had no idea how that happened since we received a confirmation and reservation number and everything! Luckily, he was able to get another (of course more expensive) flight that was on the same schedule so he still arrived at the same time.

But that's not the end of it, not only had his flight been canceled that day, but also his hotel that we had booked earlier in the week. Apparently I canceled it. Let me explain. On Thursday I kept getting phone calls from someone and I couldn't understand who she was or what she was saying. She was speaking in Turkish, but was talking really fast and it's always harder to understand people over the phone. For some reason, I thought it was the airline calling to confirm our social worker's flight back. She kept trying to ask me if he was coming on Thursday and I kept telling her, "No, he's coming on Friday!" I had no idea it was the hotel calling to confirm his stay on Thursday night. So yeah, somehow I canceled his room. Ooops! So Joel and I were scrambling around at the last minute trying to find him a place to stay that night. We did find a nice hotel (again, more expensive) and it ended up all working out, praise God!

So to say the least, it is quite a relief to have this week be over and done with. We decided to go to the beach on Saturday to celebrate being done with our home study. It's always good to celebrate the adoption milestones; this can be quite a hard and emotional journey! So we drove an hour to the beach and the kids had a blast playing in the sand. It was way too cold to go swimming and we wore sweatshirts most of the morning, but it was still lots of fun!


















I actually took this picture and I really like it



And this is when we knew it was time to go home for a nap :)

Fingerprints - check!

We flew to Ankara last Monday to have our fingerprints done at the US embassy there. Whew, what a day! We took Vienna with us, but left Colson with Adam and Melanie, who were so kind to watch him for the day.

It was a LOOOOOONG day and we had a lot of time to kill because we arrived in Ankara at 8:15am and our embassy appointment was only at 1:30pm. But Vienna was such a great traveler! We spent a lot of time walking around and enjoying the city.

Everything went well at our appointment. It always helps to have a cute little baby along :) So now our fingerprints are done and we're ready to file our 1600A (the application for advanced processing of the petition to bring an orphan into the US).

Yippee, we're getting things crossed off our mile-long adoption to-do list!

In other non-adoption-related news, Ramadan (the month-long fast) ended yesterday. We are no longer being awakened every morning by the beating of the drums that are supposed to wake everyone up to eat their meal before the sun rises. The next 3 days are called şeker bayram (sugar holiday), which is a holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan. We are stocked up on candy and are expecting lots of little kids to be knocking on our door for some. We haven't had any yet, and if they don't hurry up, there might not be any left till they get here ;)


Here's some pictures from our day in Ankara. It was fun spending the day with just Vienna, but at the same time we really missed Colson.



Our kids have always preferred water bottles over real toys :)






Sharing some Starbucks with Mommy. Don't worry, she didn't actually drink any coffee; she doesn't know how to suck through a straw yet.



Sleeping Beauty passed out in the stroller.



Enjoying the beautiful flowers



She loves to ride on Daddy's shoulders




Having fun at the park








Vienna sitting with Ronald McDonald. It was her first taste of fast food, yes, all the rules go out the window when you're traveling :)

Conversation with Colson

This morning I took the kids to the park and while we were there a stray dog wandered by and got a little too close for Colson's comfort . . .

Colson: "Mommy, I don't like the puppy."
Me: "It's okay, he won't hurt you. He's just lonely; he doesn't have a family."
Colson: "Should we pray for him?"

So we prayed for the homeless puppy. Ahhh, talk about melting a mother's heart!! My two-and-a-half year old son is really learning how to care about and pray for people (and dogs . . . hehe). It just blessed my heart!

Family pictures and some good news!

Let me just say that taking a family picture with two little ones is HARD! We took about a bazillion pictures and these are the few that turned out good.





















And last but not least, time for the good news . . .

I just got a call from the embassy in Ankara this afternoon. They said we can get our fingerprinting done there! They made an exception for us, they usually don't do fingerprinting for US citizens. So thanks for praying, your prayers definitely made a difference. If they wouldn't have allowed us to get fingerprinted there, we would have had to travel the whole way to Athens, Greece.

So we will fly to Ankara on Monday to have our fingerprinting done and then we can file our application with USCIS to bring an orphaned child into the US. Woohoo! One step closer to bringing home our child!

Adoption - the process

As promised, I wanted to explain a little more about the adoption process. Many people don't understand why it takes so long and why it costs so much money, so I will try to answer some of those questions.

Our first step was finding an adoption placement agency. This is an agency that will help prepare our Dossier, which is a bunch of paperwork compiled for the Ethiopian court that needs to be notarized and authenticated and state that we are legally allowed to bring home an orphaned child. We have applied and been accepted by Adoption Advocates International.

At the same time we found a homestudy agency. A homestudy is a big part of the Dossier. It is basically a long, detailed report written by a social worker who has interviewed us and deemed us as fit to parent. We had to find a social worker that could come to Turkey to do our home visit. We found a US licensed social worker based in Germany, so we're flying him in, hopefully the end of this month to do our home visit.

We also have to apply to US Citizen and Immigration to be approved to bring an orphaned child into the US. That is another whole ordeal in itself, because along with our application we need to be fingerprinted. We were told that we could be fingerprinted at a US embassy or consulate in Turkey. Well, there are 3 in Turkey and I called all of them and none of them do fingerprinting. BOO! So I talked to a very nice lady at USCIS in Athens, Greece (where we will have to send our application) and explained our situation. I asked her if there was any other way we could be fingerprinted rather than traveling the whole way to Athens. She gave me the name of someone I can talk to at the Embassy in Ankara (capital of Turkey). So I'm waiting to hear back from Ankara to see if we will be able to fly there and be fingerprinted. They would be making an exception for us, so please pray that this will work out!

So anyway, I got a little off topic . . . we should soon be getting our big packet of paperwork called a Dossier from our agency. It is a TON of paperwork and it may take us a couple of months to finish, especially because we have to send paperwork back and forth to our agency.

After sending our life on paper to Ethiopia, we will officially be on the waiting list for a child. We have requested a child 0-18 months, either gender. We will most likely be getting a boy because the wait for a girl is longer.

The wait is the hardest part. We could wait anywhere from 1 - 24 months for a referral! Those are the extremes, the typical wait time with our agency is 6-9 months. The referral is when our agency will call us and tell us they have a child for us!!!! YAY! Our agency will send us a picture and all the medical info they have on the child. Once we accept the referral we will be assigned a court date in Ethiopia, usually about 2-4 months after accepting the referral.

After we pass court, the child will be legally ours in the eyes of Ethiopia. We will then be assigned an Embassy appointment and travel dates to pick up our child! This usually happens 2-8 weeks after passing court.

We will actually travel to Ethiopia twice. The first time will be to see our child before the court date so that we can later bring him home on an IR-3 visa, meaning that the child was seen by his parents prior to the court date and he will automatically be a US citizen when he touches US soil. So we will get to see our child, but then we will have to return to Turkey until all the paperwork is finalized. That will be SO hard, knowing that the child is ours, but we're not able to bring him home yet.

After we travel to Ethiopia to pick up our child, we will head back to the US. We will stay long enough to get all the necessary paperwork for our child (US passport, SS number, birth certificate, etc.) and then go back home to Turkey, probably after a few months.

The total cost of our adoption will be somewhere between $18-000-$22,000, about the same amount as having a baby in a hospital with no insurance. It is so expensive because of the agency fees, paperwork, notaries, foreign fees, travel, etc.

Whew! That was a lot of info, is anyone still reading? :) If you are, you deserve to see some pictures . . .



Cousins holding hands




A cool shot Joel captured



Here's Vienna enjoying sitting in the grass at the park.




Here's Colson carrying our water jug to go and get it filled up. He's such a good helper!




Our beautiful blue-eyed-babe!




And last but not least . . .

Here's Colson sporting his latest cut! The other day he slipped on a book that was on the floor and went flying into the bookshelf. It bled a lot so I called Joel and had him come home because at the time I couldn't tell how deep the cut was. Promptly after Joel arrived home, I fainted because of the blood. I was so glad that Joel made it home before I passed out! And Colson was so brave, he didn't even cry very much. He was just fine and didn't need any stitches, praise the Lord!


Enjoy the weekend! And if you have any more questions about adoption, feel free to ask!


Charity