USCIS Fingerprinting

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."  These are the words we saw written in the room where swearing in ceremonies happen in the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) building.

Yesterday began early...4:15 a.m. to be exact.  We had a 9 a.m. appointment at the USCIS office that services our county.  Why are we up so early then?  Because that office happens to be 2-1/2 hours (one way) from our house, and we had rush hour traffic to contend with as well.  Mark and I dropped off our children (The paperwork requested that due to limited seating availability, we not bring anyone with us that did not need to be there for the appointment.) at my sister-in-laws' house and started the drive.  

We arrived 30 minutes early and went through security with our appointment notice and ID, (You are not guaranteed admittance into the building without your appointment notice and an ID.) and were seated in the room where swearing in ceremonies for new US citizens is done.  Our US flag and emblems from each of our armed forces are on display, along with the phrase quoted at the beginning of this article.  Unfortunately, no photos are permitted in the building, so I do not have those to share.  Mark commented that we were seated in a room that is important to a lot of people, and where they have become a US citizen.  Though in some ways the room was nondescript, it reminded me that for some, this room represented a dream come true. What a privilege it is for us to have been born in this great nation!

 By Jnn13 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 

We were called in to a smaller room a few minutes before our 9 o'clock appointment time, given a short form to fill out, and then called to a kiosk where an attendant took our digital fingerprints.  Within twenty minutes, our appointment was completed, and we were on our way home. It was a five hour round trip for digital fingerprints! 

Now, we are again at one of the many waiting stages during the adoption process.  It has been said that adoption is the "paper pregnancy", and that has been very accurate so far.  Fingerprinting was the last of what was needed for the completion of our immigration application: now, we wait for our case to be assigned and approved or denied.  We have recently learned that immigration processes seem to have been very slow lately, taking up to four months for a verdict.  If ours takes that long, it could be January before we know if we have immigration approval or not.  Please pray with us for two things:1) approval from immigration for an international adoption and 2) that our approval will not take such a lengthy time to process.  

We will continue to keep you updated on how things are progressing.

USCIS* Notice

 Triple Falls, DuPont State Forest

Today's update is short with only a little bit to tell you about, but it's part of the process, so...

We took a mini vacation for three days this past week (which is not part of the adoption process :D.  We had a great time, and I will include a few pictures of out trip at the end of the post.  The picture to the left was taken by Mark).  When we came home, there was a mail notice from USCIS* acknowledging receipt of our I-800A (Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country) form.  We were also informed that USCIS* will schedule bio metrics (in plain English, electronic fingerprinting and/or photograph) appointment.  We should receive the notice for the time,date, and place in the mail - hopefully sooner rather than later, but you never know.  This notice is not an approval from immigration for the adoption but we know that they have our application! Please continue to keep our immigration approval in prayer as we wait for a decision to be made (yes or no...of course, we need/want a yes!).

We are also working to get grant applications out.  We have mailed two of them out and have complete a third online.  There are three or four more that we hope to get in the mail in the next week or so.  We will probably not have any information regarding the applications we have sent out for eight weeks or more. Thank you to those who have provided the requested references for us to send in with the grant paperwork. Please pray that we will be able to be approved for one or more grants: this would be a tremendous help for the adoption costs.

Thanks again for joining us!

* United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

 High Point, DuPont State Forest

 Triple Falls
(It rained at the beginning of our hike, so we were a bit damp.)

 At the Apple Orchard

Immigration Paperwork Is In

By Jonathan Joseph Bondhus via Wikimedia Commons

     Since the last time we updated you, we have received the hard copy of our home-study.  Yay!

     Today, we received an email from Lifeline stating that our next batch of paperwork had been received by them and they have submitted it to immigration.  We submitted form I-800 A along with copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, home-study, and the immigration application fee.  Form I-800 A is used for those who are planning to adopt from a Hague Convention country.  As stated on the I-800 A application form, this is basically  "for determination of suitability to adopt a child from a convention country". So, now we are waiting for approval from the US immigration office to be accepted to adopt internationally.  The adoption process is full of paperwork and waiting!!  Please pray with us that we will be approved through US immigration without a problem.


     And...speaking of paperwork, we are now collecting what is needed to complete our dossier (pronounced doss-ee-ay).  The dossier is a collection of information about us that will be sent to Hungary and translated into Hungarian for approval from Hungarian officials for us to adopt from their country.  (Once you are approved by the US for adoption from a particular country, you are likely to be approved by that country for adoption.)  Many of the same pieces of information that we have already collected, we will need to get again.  We will need another medical form from our doctor (this is time sensitive and cannot be done too early or it will "expire"), certified copies of birth certificates and our marriage license, financial  information, immigration approval form (once we get it), photos of ourselves and our home, copies of our passports, our home-study, and the dossier fee (there is a fee for pretty much everything you submit throughout the adoption process) are all included in the dossier.  If you are new to the adoption process, I recommend that you ask your placement agency at the beginning of the process (before you do the home-study) how many certified copies of your marriage license and  birth certificates you will need for the adoption process.  You may be able to avoid having to get this information multiple times and it is likely to be cheaper to get all the copies you need at once.

     We are excited about the progress that has been made in the last month and look forward to moving forward in the months ahead.

Home-study Update #3

     We survived!  We had only a week between our second and third meetings and had a ton of education work to do, including a ten hour online course to complete. We had to complete it separately, so we spent

 a lot of extra time on the computer that week. Our third meeting with our social worker was on August 1st. This meeting included information about what health care (i.e. hospitals, doctors, etc.) is available in our 

area for the child we want to adopt, information about potential delays or problems that might come up throughout the adoption process, where to find further education about specific adoption situations, expectations for the adoption, discipline methods, our commitment to helping our child keep some connection to her roots, and religious beliefs. 

     For those who have looked ahead and wondered what to expect and whether or not this was going to be a terrible experience, I can assure you that it is not the monster it can sound like. That being said, I highly recommend that you take time to check out the agency you want to use.  Ask questions and do not be afraid to choose not to use an agency if they are not a good fit for you.  Check the agency's ratings on the BBB website, Google the name to see what you can find out about them (keep in mind that sometimes people who are disgruntled will post negative things, but those who have had a positive experience will not always put it out there for everyone to see),ask friends/others who have adopted which agency they used, and pray that God will show you which agency you should use.  We have had a wonderful experience with our 

home-study agency.  However, each agency has some latitude to determine what they ask or include in their

home-study interviews.

     A brief explanation..why do I keep mentioning a "home-study agency" and a "placement agency"?  A placement agency can help you with all the steps of the adoption, but in order to write our home-study, they must be licensed to do so in the state where we reside.  Lifeline is our placement agency, but they are not yet licensed in our state.  So, we needed a second agency,  to do our home-study meetings and write up the actual home-study document (which will consist of several pages) to give to Lifeline and be used throughout our adoption process.  These two agencies are working hand-in-hand to get this piece of paperwork completed.  After the home-study is done, CAS will not be involved in the adoption again until we have our post placement (meaning after the adoption is completed) meetings. We hope to have this document in hand by the middle of August.  Once the home-study is written, it will be approved by Lifeline before being finalized and released to us for use.

    My husband recently recorded an interview with Leo Gibbons, a family friend who has been involved in foster care and adoption for 15 years.  If you are interested in hearing it, you can find the interview here. 

     See you next time!

 

Home-study Update #2

       We are two-thirds of the way through our Home-study interviews!    Our first interview was on July 9th, and has been the longest one so far.  This interview included all of our family for a short part of it and just we parents for the rest of the 3-1/2 hours.  It also included giving our social worker a tour of our home.  We had a lot of questions about how this might work but were pleasantly surprised to see that the home "inspection" was not a rigid, white glove inspection of every aspect of our home, but more like a guided tour for him to see the layout of it.  Information discussed for our first meeting included such things as what led us to adopt, current children's personalities, current children's view of the upcoming adoption, and reviewing paperwork that was sent in previous to our meeting. 

       Our second interview was on July 24th and only included the parents.  Since we had to drive a little more than an hour from our home to meet our social worker, it was a great time to get a sitter to leave the kiddos with and have some time together during the drive. We met at a library.  The first part of this time was spent with all three of us talking together, then we had some separate conversations with our social worker for about 30 minutes each.  Some information discussed in this interview included childhood, our relationship with extended family, getting to know a more about our personalities and interests, our marriage, future goals, and areas of strengths and weaknesses for both of us.  Though we have heard that some of these interviews are really invasive in the information they ask, neither of us have felt that way with either of the two meetings we have had.  Our third and final interview is scheduled for next week, and we should have a written Home-study report ready to go within a few days after that.  We are excited about the steps we have been able to take in the last month to make this adoption journey a reality.  Thanks for following along!

P.S.  Our blog has a new look! Tell us what you think about it in the comments below.

Beginning the Interviews

         Finally! All of the paperwork and the fee for the Homestudy* is in, and we have the green light to continue with the second and last portion of the homestudy process. We will have three interviews with our social worker along with some online educational training to complete the Homestudy. Our first interview is scheduled for next week, and we are looking forward to completing this part of the adoption process.  Getting this far has taken much longer than we originally hoped, but its completion will be a big step in moving forward.

       Thanks to those who have taken the time to ask us how things are going, even when we have had little to say except "still working on paperwork".  Just knowing that you care enough to ask about it is a big encouragement! If you are a regular reader (or even if you're not), please comment on our blog.  We love to hear from those who are following our journey and appreciate hearing from you there too!




 *The purpose behind the homestudy is to be sure that you meet the requirements for adoption and to help prepare us to parent the adopted child. There are two basic parts to the homestudy: the paperwork and the face to face interviews with your social worker.  Each agency chooses in which order they want to complete it, with some gathering all the required documents first and others doing the interview process and then gathering paperwork.  With our agency, we turn in all of the papers, documents, and even some questions we have for them, first and then proceed to the interviews.  The purpose of the interview part of the homestudy is for them to get to know us so the best child match  for our family (and the child) can be made.
       

Video Update on Adoption Process

I just realized how often I said the word "paperwork" in this video!