Faith, Hope and Love….

Since it is Wednesday and this particular one is going to be absolutely crazy for me (as in I have meetings scheduled on top of meetings) I thought I would post now and not later. First, thank you very very very much for all of your support on the last post. Some family has come forward  indicating that they know the pastor of the local Korean church (they do the entire service in Korean - our baby might like that even though Mom and Dad would not understand a word) and can get us in touch with some other people who may be able to help us out. I think my fear is that my child will lose their heritage and I have no desire to have that happen, I want them to know where they came from and be proud of that heritage as well as know where they are and be proud of that heritage even though I am still not sure how to balance the two. But as you all mentioned the Korea program is SOOOOOO different from the Vietnam program, it is crazy. I had become accustomed to the constant changing of how things are done, time frames for waits changing almost daily, and the general unknown. That is NOT how it works in this Korea program, while there are still a few unknowns many things have worked the way they currently are for MANY years, heck Korean adoptions have been happening for over 50 years. Here was our checklist for Vietnam: (1) Complete Homestudy (2) Gain approval from DCFS (3) Gain approval from USCIS (4) Compile Dossier (5) Have dossier certified by county, state and country officials - after approval from our agency (6) Send Dossier to Vietnam to be translated (7) Log Dossier in with DIA ( Wait for referral (9) Accept referral (10) File I600 (11) wait again (12) receive I600 pre-approval (13) wait to travel (14) travel to Vietnam (15) attend G & R and adopt baby on the spot (16) wait for passport and via approvals (17) travel home (1 file yearly reports with Vietnam until the child is 18! Wow that seems like a lot - but really I have seen that the majority of that is waiting. Now with Korea here is what it looks like (1) Choose country and get added to the Korea referral list - though you cannot receive a referral until you are paperwork ready (2) Complete homestudy - or in our case a homestudy change and update as we switched countries (3) Become foster to adopt foster parent licensed (4) Get approval from DCFS - once again just a re-approval in our case (5) Get approval from USCIS - in our case just a change of country as we already have our I171h (6) Wait for referral - but since we would then be paperwork ready we move to the bottom of the short list of people who are paperwork ready - unless referrals slow down at that point we should not be on this list long at all (7) accept referral ( File I600 in Chicago which will then go to New Hampshire for approval (9) wait again for I600 approval and visa approval for the baby (10) Receive visa for the baby (11) wait again for the travel call (12) Receive travel call - our social worker will say “You will be meeting your baby at the airport on x date at x time” (13) wait the usually 3-7 days that you have to after the travel call (14) Pick up the baby at the airport (15) come home (16) have reports sent to Korea until the baby has been home six months (17) complete an adoption finalization in Illinois.

There are many steps both ways but you will notice that there is no dossier requirement for Korea, matter of fact our agency matches us with the children. Our homestudy will not go to Korea until we have been matched if I understand correctly. Also, I noticed on one of my Vietnam boards that there was a referral of a six week old baby girl, due to a law in Korea to promote inter-country adoption the babies cannot be place for international adoption until they are five months old. Don’t worry unlike Vietnam where the baby would spend that time in an orphanage, in Korea the baby is sent to live with a foster family where they are the only foster child in that family for that time. Last night I asked our social worker about the age of the child when we pick them up at the airport and it just so happened that she has a baby coming in to meet his/her forever family TODAY and that baby is almost ten months old, the baby could be younger when he/she comes home it all depends on how fast the paperwork is processed, but nine or ten months seems to be the norm.

So where are Aaron and I in this process - well we are completing all of the updates and becoming foster to adopt licensed (meaning the only child who can be placed with us is the one we are adopting) as soon as we have all of this we can be put on the short list though we cannot accept a referral until June 27, 2008 but everyone is optimistic that we will have a referral before my birthday in September - though trust me I hope it is sooner as then we can be sure we will not be celebrating Christmas in January! We should be paperwork ready prior to June 27, 2008 unless our paperwork just sits somewhere and we have to push someone. So I am praying for a July referral - that would be the best anniversary gift EVER!!!!