…And we’re at it again!

After a lengthy hiatus to attend to life, the Niles Blog has returned!!

As many of you are aware, we have begun the process to adopt again! Over the next few weeks, I’ll fill in the gaps over the past year, and share where we are in the process and what we expect to happen over the next few months. But for those of you clamoring for an update….

The Cliffs Notes Version:

While we were in Ukraine to adopt Masha in June 2007, we met her best friend, Lena. She was a very sweet and soft-hearted girl, always there with a smile and a hug. We would have adopted her on the spot if we could, but we learned that her family situation was such that she was not available for adoption. Masha remained in touch with her after we returned to the US, calling and sending letters and photos.

Over time, we learned that the Center (orphanage) was working through the legal details to allow Lena to be adopted, but we understood that process was very long, involved, and often unsuccessful. While we had hope for her to eventually become part of a forever family, we committed to stay in touch with her and share our love with her regardless of what happened.

Fast forward to August 2008, when we had the opportunity to host Lena for a 2-week visit in our home. We knew that her opportunities to participate in hosting programs was pretty limited, and we wanted to give her a chance to travel to the US, visit with our family, and shower her with love for the time that we could. After some very chaotic travel arrangements, she arrived in mid-August and returned at the end of the month.

And no, i did not blog.

As she was packing to return to Ukraine, though, we learned that there had been a significant change in her status, and that she had been declared adoptable by the Ukrainian court system!! We rejoiced, but definitely recognized that there were still many hurdles to clear before she could become part of our family, including a 14-month waiting period before she would be eligible for adoption to a country outside Ukraine.

We began the process to update our Home Study (the first step in any adoption process), and learned that new State requirements meant we had to obtain some additional background checks through the appropriate Child Protective Services division of each state that Mark or I had lived in. A couple of mine took MONTHS to come back, and so our update took MUCH longer than our original homestudy.

As soon as we got the homestudy documents, we were able to move to Step 2: submit our application to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). We submitted that about three weeks ago, and we have an appointment to be a guest in their Indianapolis office to take our fingerprints and verify that our fingers haven’t changed since last time we did this….

It generally takes them another 4 weeks to do what they do, so we hope to have their approval by the end of August. While they process our application, we will use the time to collect the many many other documents that Ukraine requires for us to submit as our application to adopt.

Just as with Masha, there is a risk that a Ukrainian family could choose to adopt Lena before she becomes available for international adoption. there is also a risk that we could be denied by the US or Ukrainian governments. While all of these risks are small, we are still praying that all goes smoothly!

If everything goes according to plan, we hope to be invited to travel to Ukraine late this fall.