Road Closed, Detour Ahead

It’s been a while since my last post, but not much has been happening until recently.  First, we've been waiting for our home study to be approved by DCFS.  That’s been taking much longer than expected.  When DCFS reviews it and marks it up with their changes, they send it back to our home study agency to be revised, and it goes back and forth until DCFS is happy.  The review process isn't exactly swift.  So we wait, twiddling our thumbs. 

The other reason for our wait is that a few months ago, we received news that the adoption process was changing in Colombia – the Colombian  government decided to get involved with ICBF (Colombian Institute of Family Welfare) and the adoption process.  As a result, referrals were taking a very long time to be processed and wait-times were climbing (4+ years), specifically for families wanting children 0-6 years old.  There was an adoption conference last month in Colombia with the representatives of the Central Authorities from countries adopting from Colombia (for us, US Dept of State) to discuss these changes.  And this, my friends, is where we've hit our first roadblock.

One of the outcomes of this conference is that Colombia is no longer accepting new applications for families wanting to adopt young children, 0-6 years old.  Since we don’t have our dossier completed, that means us.  The reason for this change is so they can work on the referral process for the backlog of families that do have applications submitted.  Colombia says this restriction is temporary, but they are very vague as to their idea of temporary.  One year?  Five years?  Who knows? 

Bulgaria.  Capital - Sofia.

So now what do we do?  Fortunately, we have an amazing case worker, Nichole, at CHI who has been very accommodating with our calls and questions.  While Colombia is no longer available to us, Nichole also happens to be the director of adoptions conducted through Bulgaria.  The Bulgarian program just recently opened to CHI within the last year, and looks to be very promising.  So it would appear we’re doing a country change.  Bulgaria, here we come!

For those that are curious as to the location of Bulgaria, it is located directly above Greece and Turkey, on the Black Sea.  Two 1-week trips will be required when we travel, as opposed to one 5-week trip required by Colombia.  Knowing nothing about Bulgaria, I did some brief online searches; it's a very beautiful country rich in culture - the Balkan Mountain Range, the Vratsa Cliffs, Chudnite Mostove (The Wonderful Bridges), just to name a few.

Chudnite Mostove

Rose Festival

Fortunately for us, we are in a spot where a country change will be a fairly easy process.  We haven’t submitted our forms for immigration papers yet (because we’re waiting on the stinkin’ home study to be approved) and we won’t have to re-do anything we've accomplished thus far.  Any fees currently paid will be applied to the Bulgarian program.  Plus, Nichole has told us that the dossier is much simpler for Bulgaria as opposed to Colombia, so there may be steps we won’t have to do that would have been required for Colombia.  There is a silver lining!  The only downside, now we have to do a home study update.  Grrr!  I shake my fist at you, home study!  I wish it was as simple as replacing the word “Colombia” for “Bulgaria”, but somehow I doubt DCFS will be that accommodating.

Bulgaria in relation to other countries.

While a couple of months ago I figured we’d have to do a country change, I was still surprised that I felt a pang of sadness at not being able to adopt from Colombia.  For the past year I've been picturing a child from Colombia as part of our family.  It’s as if I’m saying good-bye to that child, even though the child we would've received isn't even conceived yet.  I now have to shift my mental family picture to a sweet little Bulgarian child.  I continue to have faith that God will make this happen for us; He’s just leading us down a different path than what we first envisioned.  I’m very thankful to the family and friends that continually shower us with their love and support.  You keep our spirits lifted!  Thank you!

Home Study, Part 2

It’s been a few months since I've last posted and people are beginning to ask again how the adoption process is going.  In a word – slowly.  And it’s not due to any problems with our home study agency or our placing agency; it’s a matter of timing – birthdays, holidays, busy seasons and whatnot.  But now we’re back on track and getting things accomplished.

During the past few months, Sam and I have completed three of the four required interviews for our home study.  As you know, the first one wasn't nearly as catastrophic as I was envisioning it to be.  The other two interviews were as equally uneventful.  Stephanie, our case worker, met with me and Sam individually.  She asked questions about our childhood, our parenting styles, our values and beliefs, how we met, what is our reason for adopting, etc.  She even asked what we thought our spouse’s weakness was.  Sam’s response:  “Her arms.”  So yes, it’s also her chance to see what our personalities are like in a relaxed environment.  Thankfully, she’s as laid back as we are and also has a sense of humor.  Our goal is to complete our final interview during February and hopefully have the rough draft sent to our placing agency for review at the end of February. 

Meanwhile, Sam and I have to complete our 10 credit hours of online education and get CPR certified.  The online courses go over topics like learning to recognize signs of grieving and loss in your adopted child, especially one that may be older and has been adopted internationally; learning to recognize attachment disorder, which can be common in children that have been in many foster homes and haven’t learned the importance of attaching to a parent; what to expect when becoming a trans-racial family; and addressing medical issues for international adoption.  After reviewing each topic, we are tested online and given a certificate of completion, which will be included in our home study and our dossier packet.  We also have to be CPR certified, which will be a good review since the last time I went through CPR training was when I was in swimming lessons as a kid.

Sam and I went to get fingerprinted for our State and FBI background checks, and two out of the three of us have completed our physicals.  Ahem, Sam, anytime you want to get that done would be great.  So that’s where we’re at right now.  After we get our home study complete, the next step will be submitting an I-800 form, which will explained more in a future blog.

As always, you can ask us anything about the adoption process.  This is exciting for us, so we’re happy to talk about it!  And if you’re interested in contributing to our fund-raiser, please visit www.gofundme.com/schmitzfamily.  Any more updates, I’ll be sure to let you know!