To Switch or Not to Switch?

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted anything. It's been a rather frustrating several months on the adoption front. There have been some referrals out of China through CHI, our agency, but not the number I would like to see. However, we have moved up in line. Quite a bit, actually. There are now 481 families ahead of us in line. But, the movement is not due exclusively to referrals of real live babies or toddlers. The numbers just don't add up. Instead, it's a combination of referrals, some families choosing to adopt special needs kids, and other families just giving up and dropping out. The dropping out is bad for them, good for us.

I anticipate the wait lengthening for us, too. No one has told us this. CHI still says it's around 39 months. BUT, given the number of referrals we've seen (not many), and the number of families still waiting (a lot), I just don't see how we could possibly be ready to travel 16 months from now. Like I said, the numbers just don't add up.

We talked about switching countries. That's difficult to do without sounding disingenuous. All of our documents reveal to all who care just how much we love China, how much more we love little girls from China, and you can bet your butt a lot of our money is already in China. All of these things are true. But as we wait and wait and wait and very little happens, we started to wonder if we are doing the right thing.

So we talked. And I talked to our agency representative. Neither of us really wants to switch countries. But we wanted to know our options. Turns out, we don't have any options. In order to switch countries, we would essentially have to start from the beginning, and we would forfeit the money we've spent so far. Starting from the beginning is just too ominous a project to consider seriously.

My biggest concern, and the thing I'm having to work to get my head around, is that fact that as we wait, we age. Yes, it's true. :) When we started this, I was 35, Brent 38. That put us well in the range to be paired with an infant. We're now 38 and 41. As we age, we also end up outside the acceptable parent/infant age ratio. Essentially, we are too old to get an infant and instead will likely get a child around the age of two. Much different!

Don't get me wrong. The two year old will be as awesome and wonderful as an infant would have been.... it's just a different experience and one that we didn't start out thinking about. Now we are.

In the meantime, we've already done an amendment to our home study, had our fingerprints taken twice, and received a new, updated I-171H form (the one that says we're "clear" to adopt). We will likely have to go through that process again, maybe twice, maybe more, before we get our referral.

We don't know what the hold up is. CHI won't speculate and discourages us from doing so. We thought it might have something to do with the Olympics, or the massive earthquake. It doesn't. CHI mentioned China wanted to "wait out" the swine flu. Whatever.

We will have been logged in 23 months on Thursday. As crazy as it seems, we are making progress toward that day when we board the plane to China.

Logged in 19 months today!

566 Families Ahead of Us!

And CHI received Hague Accreditation. Woo Hooooo! Maybe we'll start rockin' and rollin' again soon. Merry Christmas 2008!

Hague Accreditation

From Children's Hope yesterday: (this is very good news)

Dear China Families,

Children’s Hope International is extremely excited to announce that we have received Hague Accreditation!!!!!!!!!!! In a letter dated December 10, 2008, Richard Klarberg, President and CEO reported that, “I am extremely please to notify you that the Council on Accreditation (COA) has granted Children’s Hope International’s application for Hague Accreditation pursuant to the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA). Your achievement of Hague Accreditation demonstrates your commitment to the children and families you serve both here and abroad.” A formal notification letter, certificate and sample press release will be mailed to Children’s Hope within 2-3 weeks. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support! Our office in Beijing is aware of this news and will be working directly with the CCAA on various matters including the Waiting Children program. We will also be communicating with all families who need to file an I-800 A to discuss details of this process within the next several weeks. More information about our Hague Accreditation and this process to come!

Referrals!

Finally, referrals! Following is a note we received today from CHI:

"Children’s Hope International is proud to announce the arrival of 8 referrals for our 02/17/06 LID families. All of the referrals were beautiful little girls from the Jiangxi Province that ranged in age from 8 to 13 months, with one referral being 3 years, 5 months old. The referrals also included one set of twins. The family that received the 3 year old requested 0-18 months though the referral fell with the CCAA age guidelines. These families waited 33 long months from log in date to referral. We expect these families to travel in about 8 weeks. Congratulations to these families and all our China families who have moved up in line! Children’s Hope International’s next log in date is 03/02/06."

Here are the CCAA age guidelines. I have no earthly idea how old our child will be when she is referred to us.... could be as old as 3 I assume. I will likely not be 40 yet. Brent will be between 42 and 45.

30-40: 0-18 months

40-45: 12-36 months

45-50: 36 months +

585 Dossiers Ahead of Us!

Just got an update from CHI.... there are now 585 dossiers ahead of us. Still stuck on that 2/17/06 lid -- that's the next one up for referrals and has been for months........."patience, patience, child," as my dad used to say. :)

Yesterday Brent and I met with a social worker from CHI named Ashley. She came to update our home study. This is necessary in order to get a one-time free extension on our I171-H form...the form from China that says we are eligible to adopt a child. It expires after 18 months, in our case, December 6, 2008. Our fingerprints also expired, after 15 months, in August of this year. We head to Kansas City on November 12 to get the FBI/USCIS check on the fingerprints again.

Once these things are done, we are good for another 18 months. Keep fingers crossed that we get a referral before then, so we don't have to do this again.

Happy Halloween :)
Krista

We've been logged in at CCAA for 14 months today!

We've been logged in for 14 months now with CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) so I thought I would take a minute to update you on where things stand.

Our fingerprint clearance expired in August. Our I171-H form (the form from China that says we are eligible to adopt one child) expires December 6, 2008. So, we are currently in the process of renewing that.

We get one free extension of that form but in order to get it, we have to submit an updated home study. That sounds easy, and it is relative to doing all of this the first time, but still so much work has to be done to get the documents necessary.

I'm currently working on updating our financial statement. This involves everything from looking up the value of our cars to gathering all our financial statements (401ks, salary letters, mortgage statement, latest tax return, etc.)

We have to get new statements from the local police, stating we are felony-free, be cleared by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and get clearance from the Division of Family Services saying we are not guilty of any child abuse or neglect.

We also have to meet with a new social worker (the one who did our original home study is no longer working with CHI). This person has to come to our house (from St. Louis) and meet with us in person. We have to pay for her rental car. We can't go to her because she has to see our house.

We are heading to Kansas City for re-fingerprinting on November 12, at which time we will also turn in our papers for the extension of the I-171H.

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with CHI before February 15, 2006. The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with CHI before February 28, 2007. Current Wait Time: 33 months from Log In Date (LID).

All this paper chasing, yes, but don't overlook the fact that we have been logged in for 14 months! That is progress....we're almost half-way there. Our LID is August 23, 2007.

Best,
Krista

593 Dossiers Ahead of Us!

Just got an update from CHI. There are now 593 dossiers ahead of us. That's a change of 30 families since the last update on August 14.

What’s Happening in International Adoption and with Children’s Hope?

What follows is a lengthy email we received from Dwyatt Gantt, executive director of Children's Hope, our adoption agency in St. Louis. It is well done and answers a lot of questions. If you take the time to read it, I hope you find it interesting, at least. :)

Dear families,
I sincerely want you and all families working with Children’s Hope International to have assurance and understand the restructuring that Children’s Hope is going through because of certain changes in international adoption.

Basically, all adoption agencies are scrambling to re-invent themselves according to the new realities. So is Children’s Hope. Here are some examples of what is happening.

China referrals have slowed to perhaps 1/4th of what they were. The current wait time for referrals is 32 months and still climbing. Vietnam adoptions continue for families who already have referrals but no new applications until if/when the U.S. and Vietnam authorities sign a new memorandum of agreement. Guatemala was the second largest destination for adoptive families and it has been closed to new adoptions. Most countries have been very slow in giving referrals causing the wait time in most countries to increase. Korea is making announcements regarding closure of international adoptions by 2012.

International adoption agencies are reporting that new restrictions and fewer referrals are creating a crisis for them and that is certainly true with Children’s Hope. This year the Hague accreditation process was inaugurated for certain countries which have signed to be in that process.

Of the countries where we work, that includes only China and Colombia.

These are the only two countries we work with that require Hague Accreditation in order to accept new applications. Because we have not get received Hague accreditation, that means CHI cannot take new applications, but all CHI families with dossiers already in the country are ‘grandfathered’ in and can complete their adoption using Children’s Hope. Not to worry.

We have a few families in process of completing their paperwork for China and when we receive those they will be transferred to a sister agency who will submit it in country. Otherwise the CHI families with dossiers already in country should complete without any problem.

We are still able to submit dossiers to Colombia as long as the family has an I-600a. Any others we will work to submit through a sister agency.

It does NOT apply to Russia, Kazakhstan or Ethiopia. These are not “Hague Countries” and we are pleased to say everything is proceeding reasonably well. At this time there is no need for you to be concerned at all about “Hague” accreditation in these countries; Russia is slow but moves forward steadily. Kazakhstan is slow and has its own requirements. Ethiopia is all sunshine.

Vietnam is in its own category: It does not require an agency to have Hague Accreditation but it is now closed to all agencies in regard to new applications until a new Memorandum of Agreement is signed between the U.S. and Vietnam. When/If that agreement is signed, it is likely that Vietnam will require Hague accreditation. Meanwhile, the CHI Vietnam dossier waiting list remains the same. Everyone keeps their place in line and nothing changes. If/when Vietnam decides to return all the dossiers logged in with DIA, those dossiers will be held in our HCMC Vietnam office until a new agreement is reached. When the new agreement is reached and if CHI does not have our Hague accreditation, we would work with one or more agencies to smoothly transition families to those agencies to complete their adoptions. CHI will not abandon you and you will be taken care of through the end of your adoption.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Is Children’s Hope International continuing to seek Hague accreditation through the COA (Council on Accreditation)? Yes, we are. Vigorously.

What is the COA? They are the accrediting agency contracted by the U.S. State Department to give approval for Hague.

Is Children’s Hope International accredited by COA? Yes we are, and in good standing since 2002, and are now reapplying through them for “Hague” approval.

Is Children’s Hope licensed / accredited / or approved by the authorities in China, Colombia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Ethiopia? Yes we enjoy the honor of being approved and commended by in-country authorities in all these countries.

Can you trust Children’s Hope to complete your adoption directly or with the assistance of a sister agency? Absolutely.. We are in relationship with sister agencies that have agreed to work with us if needed, to complete your adoption or to complete any portion. Also you should know that if your file is transferred to a sister agency, it will not negatively affect your scheduled referral at all. Your LID remains constant.

Why didn’t you get “Hague” approval this time around? We have now determined that it was because of two former Russia department staff who forged names and misused their notaries. In so doing they violated the law and the principles of this agency. That was more than 15 months ago, but we understand that Hague feels there needs to be more time elapsed before approval. We have put in place an approved Corrective Action Plan to ensure absolutely clear use of cross-checking and notaries on all documents.

Why did you close your branch offices? As you can see from the above or get from the nightly news and the Internet, International adoption has taken a drastic downward turn in the last 18 months. In an effort to adjust to these changes about six months ago we closed 8 branch offices to save money. As a part of our restructuring and necessary cost saving, we made the decision for all adoption processing to be centralized in the main office in St. Louis. We closed 8 offices at that time and 7 remained open only for Social Services such as post-placement reports. All families had been transferred to the St. Louis office but the branches continued to help families with social services such as home studies and post-placement reports. When the largest number of cased were resolved, the remaining were transferred to other agencies in that state.

Why have all families been transferred to the St. Louis central office? For two reasons: One, because we have a strong staff in the home office in St. Louis who are in touch with everything that is going on with the latest changes in the countries. The second is, that with the limited number of new applications coming, it was not financially feasible to keep the offices open. I understand how nice it is for you to have a more local person to work with and I regret that we cannot continue that – but we just cannot. We do promise to serve you well from our central office.

Are you going out of business? No! There is absolutely no such intention or danger by closing our branch offices and downsizing our staff. We are still strong and want to stay that way to serve you in the completion of your adoption.

Is Children’s Hope for sale? Unreal. We have talked with sister agencies about cooperating with them for services until we can get our Hague accreditation, but nothing more. Beware: Chat lists are not the sources of good information. We are a ministry to help orphan children find homes, health and hope. We are not a business. Our Foundation continues to find ways for thousands of orphans to be helped who will never be adopted. We have raised over one million dollars in goods and services in China alone the first part of this year and are praying to God for the means to help many more in many countries.

How many adoptions will Children’s Hope complete this year? Based on the first 8 months, it should be about 450.

Are we shutting down our Yahoo Groups? Yes, we can no longer maintain these sites. Please call your adoption consultants if you have a question or problem. They will be able to give you the correct information.

How can we help Children’s Hope?
a. Believe in us. We are your agency and are totally committed to completing your adoption for you. We will not let you down.
b. Support us in our efforts to make it happen for you. We are supporting you and will do whatever it takes humanly speaking. We pray daily as a group for God’s favor and wisdom in all things.
c. Pray for us. The staff is working hard and getting fired at, sometimes viciously, by some people who believe the rumors of chat groups – but refuse to believe the simple truth. How can that help? An email of support will go a long way toward lifting them up. I believe that probably 95% of adoptive families are sensible, understanding and rational. We would like to hear from you too.
d. Be patient. We didn’t cause the long wait in China or create the political snafus in Vietnam. Please don’t blame us. A wonderful child is waiting for you but not on the schedule you started with. How can it help to complain or blame?
e. Be understanding, please. In your own personal budgeting or in your personal business, did you ever have to make changes to make it work out? We did but we are still here and plan to be here for a long time to come.
f. Don’t worry. We are going to be here for you and have made every provision financially and otherwise to complete your adoption and see you through to the last post-placement report. Really! We cannot regulate what governments may do, including our own, but we can promise you that as long as there is a door open we will be going through it with you.
I plan to communicate with you at least every month about general adoption matters. Program directors will also be sending out regular emails regarding specifics within your program.

I pray that God will guide and bless you with success in your work and family,
Dwyatt Gantt

Referrals!

Children's Hope International received 22 referrals today. There were 21 girls and one boy in this group of referrals. The families that received referrals had LID's of February 9, 2006 and there was one Chinese expedited family with a LID of January 22, 2007. The children are from Beijing and the Jiangxi, Shaanxi, and the Guangdong Provinces. They ranged in ages of 5 months to 9 months old. In addition there was a 29 month old, a 3 year one month old, 3 year 2 month old, 3 year 11 month old, and a 4 year 1 month old. The parents that received the children over 24 months fell within the range of what the families requested or the parents were with in the age guidelines for a toddler.