The Dossier paperwork is complete! We mailed everything today to our agency. From the agency everything gets sent to Nepal for translation. We are thrilled! Now we wait.

Yippee!

So what's next

This week we finish up our dossier and a million signatures all needing to be notarized. We send the dossier which includes the home study to AGCI in Portland for their review. Nepal is a very picky program so everything will be 

carefully scrutinized to be certain all information matches up. Next AGCI will submit the entire packet to the Ministry of Nepal. Then we wait and wait and wait. We really do not have any idea how quickly this new Nepali process will go. The Ministry of Nepal process' the info and they seek out the child best suited for our family based upon our request. From there we will receive a referral. This will include a picture and whatever background and medical history they have on the child. Then we work with an international pediatrician to rule out any health issues. We will have two weeks to accept or deny the referral. From the acceptance of the referral we will have approximately four weeks before we must travel to pick her up. The in country stay will be 7-10 days while we complete immigration paperwork and obtain a Visa for her to exit Nepal and enter the USA. So that's the process from this point on all subject to change of course :)

Having doubts

What a weekend of adoption chatter. It was so great to again dig into the nitty gritty with Bob about why we are doing this. First of all we do not talk about this journey without admitting to one another that we are terrified of the unknown. Who isn't? After all life is filled with unknowns and it makes us all uncomfortable at times. Both Bob and myself have the moments of looking around in sheer panic as to how we are going to stay patient and capable with one more little person in our midst. We are already just a wee bit busy, active, tapped, tested, etc.  The best answer we can give ourselves and others is this. We are more terrified to not see this adoption process through. It may sound silly or strange but we know that we have been lead as a couple and a family to adopt. What started out as a need to have a girl in my world has morphed into so very much more. It is now a calling and a longing to do what God knows we should do. It is a longing to grow our family with a child that would have no love or opportunity if left behind. With great gifts comes tremendous responsibility and we feel very grateful that our hearts are open to the plight of the orphan. There will be bumps and doubts but we ready. Funny thing... it seems that the boys are ready too. Hayden so deeply wants to go to Nepal to see where his sister will be coming from. This weekend he asked Bob if the three passports on the table were mine, Bob's and his. Bob chuckled and Hayden grinned from ear to ear.

A Big Day

This has been one of the best weeks I can recall in a long while.

The kids returned to school after an amazing Christmas break, I returned to a morning routine which generally scares me thanks to Owen, but found myself pleasantly surprised, Bob and I returned to trying to get kids to bed on time (yeah right) and both Bob and I decided to dive back into the adoption paperwork for a final push to get it completed. Do not misunderstand, we have no hesitation about adopting but two things have been going on for me. I have been on the list serv for AGCI receiving all the various emails from the many families enrolled in the Ethiopia program. Many of you may know that Ethiopia pulls hard at my heart strings and the choice between Ethiopia and Nepal was very difficult for us. In any event the Ethiopia program is thriving and moving along rapidly. Many families will leave this month to pick up their children. So I was bummed a bit. I felt a little lost and certainly frustrated that I still we still did not have what we needed to move forward in completing our Nepal paperwork. Secondly, I was overwhelmed every time I opened the giant binder of home study or dossier information. After all, we had decided to take a paperchase break in December, so trying to revisit the scene was challenging. So I explain all this only to get to the good part... My week changed as I continued to ask God for patience and guidance and of course peace about a process I certainly do not control. By Wednesday we had received the very important phone call from the agency outlining all the paperwork needed for Nepal's final dossier requirements. I spoke with the caseworker who manages Nepal and felt so much better about where we currently stand.  By yesterday I was finally able to spread everything back out on the floor and number it all so that I could make sense of the documents. I was even able to explain it all to Bob. Whew! Today Bob headed to downtown GR to obtain original birth certificates and I finally requested mine from the Toledo Hospital. Now we need a million passport photos, a few documents from our home study social worker and many items notarized and we are ready to roll. We can actually submit the paperwork to AGCI and they will submit it to the Ministry of Nepal. We are getting closer to knowing who will be joining our family.

Home Study Complete!

Our home study is complete! What a miracle. It feels like a major feat to have made it this far along in the process. Now the agency knows everything there is to know about all five of us. In many respects the process has been easy just tedious and long. With all we do as a busy family, if we can do it anyone can. The boys seem ready to get moving forward. I think the novelty of the idea has worn off and they are wondering what is taking so long. We are partway through the many documents required for the dossier and one of the required documents is the home study. So now we wait to hear from our agency regarding the final word on what the government of Nepal is expecting for the dossier. Then we make many copies, sign our names a zillion times, have everything notarized, ship it to All Gods Children in Portland and wait. The waiting should be short but at this point the Nepal program seems too new to tell.

Where Do Things Stand?

Many of you have recently asked where things stand with the adoption.

Well here is the latest...

It is important to know that Nepal has been completing adoptions for many 

years up until eighteen months ago. At that point due to adoption problems and 

suspected trafficking and illegal actions within agencies, the Nepali government 

completely shut down the program to make major changes. As of September 2008 Nepal is open once again to conducting international adoptions. Their government was very particular in terms of what agencies they would allow to work within their country. They eliminated many agencies and have finally allowed only 58 agencies worldwide to work within their country. All God's Children International (AGCI)  was one of the top on the list as they had ethically worked within Nepal for nearly eight years prior to the shutdown.

So why Nepal? It is a very long story but the country is one that makes great

sense for our family situation. Many countries have very tricky policies regarding the sex of the adoptive child when the parents already have three children of one sex at home. Plus we had to eliminate many countries due to the fact that the in country stay in order to complete 

paperwork was long. Some countries require a 4-7 week stay. That would certainly be impossible with three children and Bob's business. Nepal is a very good fit. The children are

well cared for within the orphanages that AGCI worked with previously, it is possible for us to adopt a female who is under the age of 12 months and our in country processing should be manageable. 

So here is the answer to the original question... How are things going? The answer is a positive one, although right now things are moving a bit slow. During the month of November we did meet with our social worker twice (two three hour sessions with the kids all present ha!) to complete all the interview questions necessary for her to write up our home study. In addition we had to complete nearly 25 documents such as FBI clearance, questionnaires, passport copies, investment info, resumes (even a current resume for a stay at home mom- seriously!). So our part of the home study is complete. Now for the country dossier.

We thought we were pretty cool keeping up with collecting the necessary documents for the dossier since many matched what we needed for the home study. Wrong! After creating quite a stack of what our agency thought Nepal wanted , Nepali government officials sent out a revised list of dossier documents. Now everything must be an original and every document must be notarized. So this is our first big glitch in the system and we are hoping that Nepal releases their new and revised dossier requirements soon. AGCI feels horrible for the families, such as us, who are on the top of their list for Nepal but they did not see this coming and the communication coming from AGCI has been consistently accurate. So during the month of December we decided to hold. We are focused on the busy season and enjoying all the fun with our kids. We do hope to see updated information regarding the dossier in early January and we should complete the dossier paperwork within one to two months. Then it is all submitted to ACGI and they then send it on to Nepal. From there we wait for them to process and translate the documents before sending us a referral of a child we can call our own.

So it is quite the intense process and one that requires great faith, persistence and patience. We will get there but the road is slow. We will be eager to share the next steps in this journey. In the meantime we are working hard to embrace the spirit of this magical season. Today everything was cancelled and three little boys were unable to be Shepherds in our Nativity story told as a play at church. It was bittersweet news. Instead of the church rush we were able to lay low, sip hot coffee, let the guys build a fort in their room and just hang in our pjs until we could resist the call of the snow no longer. Wow that was some kind of sting when that wind hit our faces this morning!