The Paper Chase

If everyone who gave birth to a child was required to complete the paperwork that is needed to adopt, there would be a LOT fewer children in this world.

As several of you have noted (some of you quite loudly), the blog has been a bit inactive the past couple of weeks. In my defense, I have been focusing on compiling the background documentation required for the social worker and pulling together our application to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly INS, a division of Department of Homeland Security–you gotta love bureaucracy!). But I am getting ahead of myself…….

Rewind almost three weeks……on 24 August, we put Masha on a plane back to Ukraine. The kids made it back safely, and are settling back into their normal routine. After several days of wandering aimlessly about the house in tears, I launched into “action mode.” Falling back on my training, I spent the weekend following Masha’s departure gathering information about our next steps and building a project plan for everything that needs to happen between now and her return. Yes, there is a “Bring Masha Home” project plan. Resources, timelines, dependencies. The things that make the world go ’round!

Once I had the basics in place, we began reaching out to the various partners that would help us through each stage of our journey. Our first and most critical decision: the Homestudy.

For those of you unfamiliar with adoption process, just as we were mere weeks ago, the homestudy is the first major step. Every adoption, both domestic or international, requires a detailed evaluation by a licensed social worker. The homestudy evaluates the home environment to determine if we are fit to be parents, to determine if we can afford to provide for the needs of the child, and to ensure that we are not convicted abusers or pedophiles. Apparently, this is done by killing thousands of trees for paper.

In all seriousness, it is very important to prepare adoptive parents for the process and the specific challenges that await them, and also to ensure that the home will be safe and supportive for the child. The social workers that perform these studies are performing a challenging task in the best of circumstances, balancing the regulatory requirements of the state against the needs and demands of families and children and the realities of keeping a small business afloat. Hats off to these kind-hearted people!

We had a couple of choices of homestudy providers, and we ended up selecting the agency recommended by the hosting program. This agency has worked with the program organizers in the past, is familiar with the specific requirements for Ukrainian adoptions, and was both fast and inexpensive. They emailed us a packet of documents to complete, and after about 15 person-hours of answering questions, writing and rewriting our life histories, and submitting fingerprints for background checks with the Indiana State Police, we were able to schedule a visit with our social worker.

Vicki came to visit us this past Monday to meet with us and tour our home. She confirmed a lot of the information provided in our background documents and chatted with us further about the hosting experience, our preparation for adoption, and how our lives will be changing. She was wonderful and kind, and, as an adoptive parent herself, was really able to relate to where we were in our journey. Based on the information she gathered through our questionnaires, references, and interviews, Vicki is drafting our homestudy report, and we hope to have it finalized by the end of next week. On a side note, we made poor Vicki look through our *entire* photo album from Masha’s visit, and she did it cheerfully. After 199 photos, it’s clear she belongs here!!

The next step after the homestudy is the USCIS application. In order to bring an orphan to the United States as an adopted family member, a formal petition to the US Government is required. This actually is less formidable than the six pages of instructions made it seem; some basic information and photocopies of birth and marriage certificates were enough to get us started. They also require a copy of the homestudy report, which will then trigger an appointment to go get fingerprinted (again!!!), this time for a Homeland Security check.

That’s the point where we currently are in the process. We hope to have the draft of our homestudy next week (by the way, this is incredibly fast for a homestudy…hats off to Vicki Allen) and I mailed all of our USCIS paperwork out today. We hope to get an appointment soon for the CIS fingerprinting, and then just pray that their approvals move through quickly.

Following CIS approval, the homestudy and CIS documentation (as well as some additional documentation that we have yet to understand) is compiled into a package known as a dossier for the Ukranian government agency responsible for the protection and adoption of children. Those of you who know me well can probably imagine how crazy I am with not knowing the specific line items for this phase of my project plan, but I’m trying to deal with it one day at a time. I understand that the goal of every step in this process is ultimately to protect children, and that the inconvenience to me is incidental.

Because we are leaving God a little leg-room to roam freely through the process, we are indicating “up to three” children on all of our paperwork. It is important for us to be approved for the maximum number of children that we might want to bring home in one “adoption adventure.” We have heard from almost everyone we’ve talked to that as soon as they get home with one child, they are ready to go back for a second or third, or more. In order to prepare for the possibility of falling in love with a second child, who might also have a sibling, and with whom Masha might also fall in love, we need to prepare.

As an extreme example, the director of the hosting program went to Russia looking for one child, and came home with five. The child that he and his wife met and fell in love with happened to have four younger siblings. They knew the day would come when their daughter would ask what happened to her younger brothers and sisters and why they didn’t adopt them too. When they realized they couldn’t come up with a good answer, they decided to bring them all home. While we don’t expect to find five more children in Ukraine, we realize that our plans are not the final ones in this process, and we want to leave the doors open for God to move.

So….that’s where we are. Once we get the paperwork under control, we will begin the daunting tasks of preparing for Masha’s arrival, researching school/education options, learning some Russian, etc. We have several things we’d like to take care of around the house. We need to look into upgraded life insurance. We need to evaluate fundraising and creative financing options to cover the cost of hosting, adopting, and travelling to bring her home. We need to figure out which insurance plan she will go one, and how we need to add her. We need to work out the details of leave time for the trip and for settling in time once we all get home.

Lots of things to consider. Much to do. Maybe the wait isn’t ALL bad……..