BIG Chicken

Well, the FedEx package is out for delivery. It's currently in Lake Oswego, OR. (I just love MyFedEx!) It should be delivered to my new program director, Radu, today. SO, we are officially with our new agency, AA, now.
Why haven't I called CHI? Because I'm a BIG CHICKEN. Although my husband reminds me daily this was a "business decision" I am a people pleaser by nature, and cannot bear the thought of huring my CHI adoption consultant's feelings. I don't want to hear the disappointment in her voice, or have to answer questions on why we left. I don't want to leave via fax, email or letter, because that seems to cold and impersonal, given the warm relationship we have shared since April.
I know I need to do this, if for nothing else, then to try to re-coup some of our paid program fees. I should think of it like a band-aide -- the quicker you rip it off, the better in the end. Sure, there is the initial sting of the reality that the bandage has been removed, and likely a few hairs uprooted in the process, but then it's over quickly. Okay. that's not helping either.
Any BTDT advice??

World AIDS Day and new Contract

As most of you know, today is World AIDS Day. This is a day of awareness and hope. Many of the (Red) stores are sending a higher percentage of sales profits to Aids research. Do what you can to education yourself and others, start conversations, donate, buy(Red) (see banners on the side of this blog.) If you want more information on a family currently raising 2 HIV+ kids, please read Erin's blog, Full Hearts. Very informative and inspiring!!

In other news, we have signed the contract with our new agency. WOW. It feels so good to have made the decision and moved on it. I will be calling CHI later this week to let them know, and try to recover our program fees. I greatly appreciate your confidence in all this; please give me another week or so to get my ducks in a row before you let anything slip to anyone associated with CHI. Thanks friends!

We have gathered additional documentation for the dossier, and have to re-do our State Police clearance, because it is over 30 days (actually its dated in July), so the State Police won't certify it. Won't take long, and we are still waiting on our 171-H, so I'm cool with it. I still need Gregg's certified Birth Certificate, and am awaiting my Birth Cert from Indiana. I'm then FedEx'ing my cert to my mom, who will take it, in hand, to Indy to be certified, and then will FedEx it back to me. If we did this by mail, I was told it could be any additional 3--40 days.

I'm estimating our dossier will be all ready for Illinois certification by mid-January. I don't want to do a new prediction pool yet, but I have a strong feeling we'll see a referral by mid-March. That's just me though. I've "felt" for a long time that we would have our baby home by mid-May of 2009. We'll see.

We've made a decision?

I know it seems crazy, but I think we've made a decision on the "which agency should we move to" front. You are thinking, or rather, I would be thinking if I were you, that its only been a week so what's the rush and how in the heck could you have adequately researched everything in that time period. Well, it's actually been longer than a week, but it's only been a week since I've said anything publicly, or rather, privately since this is a private blog. The rush is that we haven't yet submitted our dossier. Once you submit your dossier, you are pretty much set with your agency, because you don't want to lose $4000-5000. If we switch NOW, we will likely receive our program fees back, and will only really be out our application fee.

How was this decision reached? Well, let me start by saying no FINAL decision has been made and we haven't "fired" our agency yet. We won't make a FINAL decision and tell our original agency until after we sign a contract. The decision to leave was relatively easy once we found out (via various websites, personal discussions, and blogs) that many things we were told were Ethiopian rules or laws, were actually agency rules. For example, Ethiopia does not have a "2 year marriage rule", that was just our agency's rule. Which means, we have literally wasted this past year. We could already have our child, had we originally gone with another agency. We were never told this was an agency rule, and never told other agencies didn't have this rule. Honestly, I feel both hurt and stupid, because I should have researched this independently. But who would ASSUME their agency was lying to them? Additionally, ETH doesn't have a "birth order" rule, or even an "age of youngest child in household/ 3 years between siblings" rule. These were all agency rules. On top of that, other agencies are bringing healthy babies together with their forever families sooner and have shorter waiting lists. So the decision to leave became easy.

What agency to go to? I read websites, blogs, literature. I read ratings sites a la Hotels Dot Com. I called new mommy-to-be friends who have switched agencies. I emailed directors and reviewed fee schedules. Today, I had a conference call with the director of Adoption Avenues
and really, really liked him. He is a physician, his wife (co-founder) is also a physician. They have dedicated their lives to uniting orphans with their forever families. This guy was non-nonsense and really spelled out the facts for me. I was impressed with him and his organization. So, I think, I'm pretty sure, about 95% sure right now, that we are switching to this agency. When we are 100% sure, I'll let you know, but I'll admit, it's looking good.

Yes, we do have to re-do, change and obtain some new dossier documents, but it won't be a problem getting them before Immigration sends our Golden Ticket. I figure we have a good month to go on that.

Here's the kicker people: we will receive a referral within 1-4 months after our DTE. The average time now is 6-12 weeks. Yes, WEEKS. Not months, WEEKS. Wow. We will likely have our baby home by the end of May. Can you believe that?

51 pages and a final decision

I wrote this weekend. Boy did I write! I finished the first 51 pages of the book we are currently calling "The Road to Sam" of course, that working title may change, especially if we find out Sam is a Sophia! It felt great to get so much down. It's still pretty rough and some sections will undoubtedly get edited to death, but I'm very happy at this point. It's some original stuff, some blog posts, and some letters to Sam from my journal. I feel like I have the bulk of the "back story" done at this point which is good, because I'm always afraid I'll forget something and now it's all down in one place.
At this point it's a book for our family, a chronicle of the journey and Sam's adoption narative. It may, in the future, be something I shop around for "real" publishing. don't know yet. I'll probably end up sending copies to some of you to read and give me the honest trust on whether or not it's funny enough, sad enough, ponient enough, inspiring enough to actually sell copies.

Yesterday, after an hour long talk with my sister, Amanda (who is really my voice of reasoning with parental issues) and a long talk with Gregg, we made the final decision...we are leaving our current adoption agency. I am researching other agencies and have received a lot of good feedback from all of you. We are waivering between Adoption Avenues and Better Futures right now. I need some more information, and have a phone call scheduled with the director of AA tomorrow. We'll see where that takes us. In the meantime, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted and feel really great about our decision to move on. This decision will not really effect anything...oh, other than the fact we'll be united with our child a lot sooner. That could never be a bad thing!

I need to get some office work done, and then think about a 'Thankful' post for today. I fell off the 'Thankful post wagon' this weekend and did to get back on.

Really terrible thing

So I think I just did a really terrible, mean thing. Actually I know I did.

I just removed my adoption agency, CHI, and my adoption consultant, Toni, from my readers list. This means, because it is a private blog, that they can no longer read my blog.
Why did I do this? Because I really want to blog about something that I don't want them to know/see/hear. As such, I trust my faithful readers discretion and know they won't say anything about this post to the agency. If asked by Toni, I plan on telling a white lie, that my blog is having problems, until I figure out exactly what we are going to do.

Here's the story:
Gregg and I are seriously considering changing adoption agencies. If we do this, now would be the time, because we have not yet submitted our dossier and paid that fee. We are researching various agencies, but it has recently come to our attention that things we have been told were "Ethiopian law/rules" are actually just agency rules. I don't appreciate being lied to. Also, and this is no reflection on anyone else, but I feel like our agency uses faith and God and the Bible as an excuse or fall back position when things don't go as planned or as parents/families would like. Instead of explaining a situation, they tend to say "Trust in God" and "your child will come home according to God's plan." Now, even though I'm not personally Christian, I would never be upset with someone showing their faith. I have faith too, it's just of a different persuasion. But quoting Bible verses and saying "trust in God's timing" in response to questions about the adoption process isn't fair and isn't right. It suggests that if we question anything, we don't have sufficient faith. This is adoption. As much as I hate it -- it's a business. Our agency is in the adoption business and should run their company that way. If I ask "where our we on the 0-12 singleton list" I should be told an answer. If I ask "why didn't we pass court" I should be told an answer. A sufficient answer.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. This has been weighing on me a long, long time. I'm researching things today and tomorrow and we should have a decision made by Thanksgiving.

Again, I'm not bucking any family who stays with CHI -- each agency works for different parents. It's just not working for us.