Well…the home study is officially done on our end anyways!  YEAH!   We had the second and final part- the meeting at our home this past Monday, the 21st.  We finished where we left off with the interview/questions and then gave our social worker, Beth, a tour of our home.  She thought we had good taste in colors and decorating.  The questions weren’t too bad either.  The only one we weren’t prepared for and will have to email her with our answers was who we would ask to be the guardians of our children if, God forbid, something was to happen to us.  So, we have to do some talking on who would want 3-5 children added to their family (let’s hope this would never need to happen).  We’d trust any one of our family members- parents/siblings…so it’s a toughie! 

The hard part of the home study was really when Beth showed her concerns with the agency and the Ugandan program.  She talked about other agencies and countries (Ethiopia is definitely more stable and very established), but we wouldn’t go through the Ethiopian program with AFAA because it would take over 18 months just to get a referral for a child under 5 years old.  Who knows… maybe it will end up being just as long until we get our children from Uganda.  But, after all the reading we’ve done, all the paperwork, all the run around, and all the documentary videos…we are not going to change agencies and we are kind of feeling like Uganda is the country that is calling to us and couldn’t think to adopt from anywhere but there.  We have 2-3 weeks to make it final, as she needs to know what country we’re going with so she can put that in the home study. 

Just the other day, God gave us yet another little sign…a very random one.  I hope she doesn’t mind that I share this on our blog, but I was so EXCITED!  A woman named Melissa from Texas found our blog in a blog search on google and she posted a comment.  Seeing Melissa in my email, I thought it was from Melissa at school.  Well, it was not…it was from a random stranger.  Her and her husband, Richard, had adopted two children about 3 and 4 years old from UGANDA and they just came home 3 weeks ago.  She gave us the link to her awesome blog and they are BEAUTIFUL!  Also on her blog, was a link to other families blogs (about 7/8) who she had found who also have adopted from/ are in the process of adopting from Uganda as well.

Maybe you don’t know where I’m going here, but this was GREAT news because we were scared with Uganda recently allowing adoption, we hadn’t heard of a single kid that had come home to the US from Uganda yet and this was what we were concerned about, as was Beth.  Well, we now know of a decent amount of kids that have come home.  Some of them, like Melissa’s two children, were not adopted through an agency, but directly from an orphanage.  This is a bit different way of going about it than how we are, but all in all the government still has to allow it and make it happen and it has happened so that is a good sign for us that they will get through the system and come home, it may just take time….and that is what adoption is all about- patiently waiting from step to step!

So…for the many of you who are asking where we are at now, here is the answer!  All of our chasing around is done, our home study is done, we are done basically besides signing some papers here and there, sending in money, and waiting for a referral for our two new children!  YEAH!  Beth will finish typing our home study up in 1-3 weeks and get that to AFAA.  Once AFAA has that, we are on the waiting list for a referral for two children.  We can’t wait!  We still have some BIG questions that are unanswered by AFAA, but we are hoping to get them answered soon and hoping that the answers will be what we want to hear, but are prepared if they are not.

Today, July 24th- we had our appointment at the USCIS (Customs and Immigration Services) office downtown Milwaukee for fingerprinting.  This is all part of the process and is a bit of a pain.  It’s expensive for one and time consuming too!  Our appointment was at 9 a.m. but we learned that appointments don’t matter.  You walk into this buildng and have to go through security- you and your belongings.  Then you get a paper to fill out with a number on it.  We got 12 and 13.  It is a lot like the DMV…you know how much fun that place is!  We had to wait for our numbers.  We were 25 min. before 9 arriving and we still weren’t called until at least an hour after being there.  Try entertaining a 15 month old at a place like that!  The machine that read our fingerprints was pretty neat though!  One more thing done!  Check Check!

You may be wondering…how did they pick Uganda?

Well, for a while it could have been anywhere, then it was Africa, then it was Ethiopia, then it could have been Lesotho, Liberia, Uganda, or Mali.  We were going to go with Ethiopia because it is a very stable program (in fact one of the very few countries that is stable right now).  Everyone is going with Ethiopia because many other countries’ wait time is years (China for example) or because the countries are closing their programs (like Guatemala).  On something we got from AFAA, it said that Liberian children are mostly 4-15 year olds, and that there is a current referral wait time for an Ethiopian child under 5 years of age, of approximately 18 months.  If you were willing to accept a child 5 or older or a child that is HIV positive, the wait time would be much shorter.  It also said that boys, sibling groups, and children who are 5+ wait and wait and wait for a family, but it is families who wait for infants and toddlers.  Upon emailing AFAA, I was told that if we were looking for two younger children, we should go with the new Ugandan program the just opened.  That was what we were going to do.  We would love to take a child older than 5, but we were encouraged to keep the birth order in our family as is.  We kind of wanted this to be the case as well, though if we are offered siblings and one is a bit older than Evan, we will most likely be flexible….I just can’t imagine saying no to a referral! 

So in our application, we checked siblings or un-related children (2), one boy and one girl, both 0-2.  We know the likelihood of us getting siblings both under 2 is slim, so we are willing to be flexible, especially with gender.  But, we’d prefer siblings ultimately.  We are also open to twins.

Also over the last couple of months, I have ordered and have been reading many books about Uganda- the people, culture, customs, etc.  I happened to get this book called “Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children” by Faith J. H. McDonnell and Grace Akallo.   Reading that book has changed my life!  It has made me realize how little about history we were taught in school and how much help the children of Uganda, Sudan, and many other places really need.  I’ve learned about hardships that we could never even imagine and how fortunate we are to live in a place like the US and to have what we have.  I cried and dreamt about this book and what I could do to help.  The one thing I really liked was that they listed ways you could help/get involved at the back.  I am not one to speak in front of adults (it frightens me more than you know), but I am going to make it a goal to share a video called Invisible Children (which I have and have a link to on the right of this page if you’d ever like to see it) and to share about the children of northern Uganda at my church.  I’d also like to do some sort of service project for the children through my church and school.  This book has made me want to become a political activist.  I want people to know the story of these children and for these children to someday be able to return to their home land (get them out of the horrible internment camps the government has them in now) and allow them to be children again, free from fear that they will be kidnapped by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) in the middle of the night or on their nightly commutes to safety shelters for sleeping 10-20 miles from their camps. 

I recommend you read that book and I also recommend you see the following movies that are based on real events in Africa if you have not seen them.  They are difficult to watch, but we must learn the truth so we are not ignorant people.

-Invisible Children (a documentary) 

-Hotel Rwanda   

-The Last King of Scotland

-Blood Diamond

-Darfur Now (a documentary)

A few weeks ago, we asked AFAA some questions about the Ugandan program.  We learned that no children had come home yet to their families as of a couple weeks ago.  This is scary, but we all have to keep in mind that this is a new program that just opened less than 6 months ago…and remember, it takes approximately 6 months from referral.  We also learned that there were only 6 children in the AFAA home, which is currently out of the back of their social worker’s home.  3 more children from the rock quarries were on their way.  They are working to build or buy a bigger foster home to take in children from the rock quarries.  We then heard from Cheryl in an email to all families going through Uganda that there won’t be many babies or toddlers, that the children from the rock quarries will be about 5/6 years old and up and poor semi-orphans through ministries and mud hut schools will be about 4 and up and that they would occasionally learn about a baby or toddler.  You can imagine that this email freaked us out, but after reading Girl Soldier- I wanted to adopt from no where else but Uganda.  I voiced my concerns and stated that we were told to go through the Uganda program in the beginning if we wanted younger children under 2 years of age.  I received an email back from Cheryl saying that there were now 8 children in the house, all but one had been chosen by families and that the children range in age from 3-10.  They also had 4 babies that were a part of quintuplets (one died), but they had been placed, two with one family and two with another, with an agreement that they would stay in contact with each other.  Apparently they couldn’t find anyone to take all 4 on.  Too bad we got in too late- I would have loved to have taken two of them.   Joseph, the social worker in Uganda whose home the children are in, had just emailed Cheryl asking if he can now accept babies and toddlers referred by the police and pastors.  Cheryl explained to him that he must first arrange individual foster families from the church who can handle from 1 to 3 babies/toddlers before accepting them.  She said Ugandan babies and toddlers are available.  It seems upon discussing this with Beth, that Cheryl will be looking for children that families are requesting and getting them into the AFAA home or into a foster home with a local church family in Kampala (the capital of Uganda).  This is different than the other countries- where they have about 40 kids in their AFAA home (because it is much bigger) and they give you a referral from those or you wait until space opens in the home and a match is made.  Our children will most likely be living with a local church foster family before coming to us.  Please pray that they are well taken care of and that the foster families are doing this for the right reasons and that they develop relationships with these families (developing a trusting relationship is so critical in infancy or the child may later have attachment problems).

That is why we are going with Uganda! 

Uganda is a small country bordering, Lake Victoria, and the following countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, and Zaire.  It is a country that has had much political conflict and persecution from the 70’s and on, thanks impart to dictators like Idi Amin (you’ll see his story in The Last King of Scotland) and to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joesph Kony, and before him, Alice Auma.  Uganda has come a long way, but there is still a long road for them.

It is hard to remember when we even began this international adoption process, but is it something that I have wanted to do for a long time now!

In February, Rick and I lost a baby that was just about 3 months.  That was devastating , but God has really shown us that there is a reason for everything.  As much as we would like to, we cannot plan our lives exactly how we want them; that is God’s job!  From the miscarriage, we learned a lot, but the big thing we want people to know and learn from us is “why wait!?!?”   Often in life, we say “we’ll do it later or we’ll get to it another time.”  If we put things off or say we’ll wait, it may never happen.  Life is short- make the most of it and do the things you have always wanted to now; why wait!

Not long after, we were on the hunt for adoption agencies.  We went about a lot of things backwards, having never done this before.  We should have found a local agency, started our home study (meetings with the agency in their office and in your home where they learn about each member of the family and kind of interview us), and then decided on what country we would go with and which source agency we would use if our state agency does home studies, but not the actual adoption.

We decided to go with Americans for African Adoptions (AFAA).  We then picked an agency in Madison for our home study.  But, upon meeting with them, we were instantly told that they hesitate in us using AFAA, but given no reasons why.  That was discouraging, especially since we had already prepared 90% of the paperwork for AFAA.  We decided to not give up hope and to check with references for the agency she recommended (CHSFS…which by the way does look good if you are ever interested in international adoption) and for AFAA.  We emailed probably 40 couples/singles who had adopted from one of the two agencies.  We were getting back great feedback for both agencies.  The only thing people said about AFAA that we should know is that they are not a “hand-holding agency.”  But it seemed many of these people had a great experience and had developed a friendship with Cheryl, the head of AFAA.  We also got an email from a girl in college (Stephanie) that changed our lives and made us know we were going with the right place.  She is a daughter of a family in Wisconsin that had adopted two Ethiopian brothers through AFAA.  She had been to Ethiopia, seen AFAA’s home for the children, been to other orphanges in the country that couldn’t be compared to the AFAA home, and had helped as an escort to bring children home to their adoptive families in America.

At this point, we realized we needed to find another agency in Wisconsin- someone who didn’t have a grudge against AFAA and someone who was a bit more relaxed.  We contacted a few agencies in the Milwaukee area, but decided to go with Special Children, Inc. in Elm Grove.  We met with our social worker, Beth, back in April.  We then were delayed for a month or so by all the paperwork we had to complete for Special Children and by the end of the school year craziness!  During this time, we also wrote our letter to the government of Uganda for AFAA (that was interesting) and we got them the last of everything they needed.  We got an exciting email that said we had everything in but our home study (hence how we went about things backwards).  We contacted Beth to set-up the first meeting of two for our home study.  We met with her in June before our trip to Florida.  That was a tw0-hour or so meeting interviewing us and us telling her our life stories.  Rick’s was so short and near perfect and mine was much longer, but that’s one reason why we work well together!  We have our second part of the home study scheduled for July 21st…the part where she comes into our home, finishes our interview and God knows what else…we’re most nervous for this part because we don’t know how critical of your home they are or what other questions to expect.  But, we do feel comfortable with Beth and like that she is very laid back.  Wish us luck on Monday, the 21st!  After that, she will finish up the home study document, which will hopefully be done the first week or two of August.  She’ll submit that to AFAA and to USCIS (Customs and Immigration) and we’ll be on the waiting list for our children!  YEAH!  We can’t wait for that.  They say it can take 6 months.  We’re prepared for it to take less or more time.  We’re actually hoping for January or later, but we’ll take them whenver they come!

Hi!

This whole blog thing is new to us, but we wanted a fun way to keep everyone up to date on our international adoption experience.  Welcome and enjoy!  We want you to be as excited about this as we are!