Baby Steps

Being in the adoption process feels like taking a step at a time. In Kenya it feels like baby steps, one at a time. Even worse, during the months of January and February we felt like we took one step forward and two steps back. The Post Election Violence slowed the whole country down to a crawl.

But this week all the little steps we have been taking since November, completed a big step. Wonderful Relief.

In November we opened a file at the US Embassy called an I-600 a. To complete the file, we turned in an application, lots of documents, initiated a criminal background check on ourselves complete with handprints, etc. But we were missing a US Home Study. Since March of 2007 when we brought Chloe home our Kenyan Social Worker has been writing a Kenyan Home study about us. In November, I started stopping by her office more regularly asking what info she needed from us. That slowed down in December with the holidays and January with the violence. Since February, I stop by every Monday afternoon on my way home from the grocery store. I try to greet her pleasantly and ask how things are going, and what info does she need. I think the only thing I haven’t given her is our dental records! Good Grief!

In April, she asked if I had applied to the Carolina Adoption Agency. Nope, I had to explain that unless she tells me this stuff, I can’t know what to do next. I had asked about this months ago and was reassured that the Carolina Agency would contact me. Not so. So I printed the application on line, filled it out, sent it with someone to be posted in the states. I need to send a personal check which isn’t safe to do through the Kenyan postal service. Instead I stamp an envelope with US stamps, ask someone traveling from Kenya to the states to carry it for me who than mails it within the states. In this case, it was mailed to my mom. I needed a photo of Ryan and me for the application. We took mug shots of ourselves, seriously a worse pic of myself does not exist but good enough. Uploaded them to Walgreen’s near my mom, she picked them up. Received the envelope from me with the check and application and than posted it to Carolina.

Baby Steps.

The Carolina Adoption Agency received my application this week. Next my Kenyan Social Worker emailed my Kenyan Home study to Carolina this week. That is a big step. They for a nice price will rewrite it into a US Home study, asking questions along the way, needing more info from our social worker who will probably wait till I stop by on my way home from groceries on Monday. Eventually, hopefully no longer than a month, it will be completed. I take this expensive Home Study to the US Embassy which they add to my I 600a file. They will process my completed file and either approve or deny our ability to do an international adoption.

Of course by the Grace of God they will approve our application. We take this approval to our Kenyan Lawyer who submits it along with all our other paper work to the Kenyan court and asks for a court date, twill be our first court day of possibly 2-3 court dates that we will go through before we are finished.

In the meantime, life goes on at home, Chloe and the boys are oblivious which is a wonderful thing. When we are all done legally adopting Chloe, we can visit the states.

My goal is to do little updates of this process. This needed to be a big one just to give you the scoop of where we are.