Extremely Frustrated

I know there always has to be one more thing, but this is getting ridiculous.  Wednesday we got our receipt in the mail saying that the USCIS received our package. Yesterday we received a package from the USCIS that contained our entire package that we had just sent them.  They sent everything back because the check we gave them for their services was $10 over the amount required.  I guess they can’t write checks so there was no way to give us back the $10.  If we would have known we would have said to just keep the change, but they might consider that a bride-who knows.  It cost them $3 to send it back to us and it will cost us another $10 to send it back to them.  Talk about ridiculous!  We were both pretty frustrated about it last night, but I guess it was our fault.  We should have triple checked everything, but when you have a huge packet of stuff you are sending it is pretty easy to make a mistake.  I am just hoping that was the only one.  I guess we will see.

I know everything happens for a reason and getting so frustrated and disappointed really doesn’t do any good.  I kept telling myself this last night so I could calm down and get to sleep.  It is just one more thing to add to our extremely long list of things that have happened to delay our adoption.  I just have to continue to trust that Heavenly Father knows what He is doing and that we are in His hands. There really is nothing else we can do about it.  It is hard when things are out of our control, but I guess that is where faith and patience comes in.  We are definitely learning a lot about that and I am sure we will continue to have these opportunities to learn more.

We Love Canada Post!

We got mail!  No, it wasn’t our NBI clearance, but it was a letter from Manila.  The NBI sent us a letter requesting additional information.  They needed a copy of Jason’s passport, which we faxed right over to them, so we should be getting the clearance in the mail sometime in the next two weeks or so.  I cannot even tell you how excited we were to get that letter.  We thought for sure that we would have to do it all over again, which we were so not looking forward to.  All I can say is “Thank You Canada Post!”  Their tracking system may stink, but at least the mail does get to where it’s going.  I usually hate surprises, but I have to say that this was a great surprise.

That’s all we have to report this week as far as adoption news goes.  Maybe now things are going to start moving much more smoothly and quickly I hope.  We did get to go to an adoption meeting last week that was put on by Wide Horizons(our placement agency).  We were told that it was going to be a lunch meet-and-greet.  I was pretty excited, because this would be the first time we could actually meet some of the Wide Horizons staff in person and also get to know other families adopting through them and maybe from the Philippines.  It ended up being a pretty informal meeting and there was really no lunch provided(just a tray of crackers and cheese and some veggies).  It went from 12-2pm so I think everyone was starving by the time we all got out of there.  If you’re going to call it a “Lunch Meet-and-Greet” than you better actually provide some real food.  That’s really my only complaint.  I liked the informal way they did it, where we could just talk and ask questions and introduce ourselves.  It turned out that most everyone there was interested or already started in the Philippine program.  There was also someone there who I have gotten to know on the Philippine adoption group I joined.  It was so strange, but very cool, to actually get to meet her in person.  They already have a referral for a 15 month old girl from Manila and they have two little boys at home that are our girls ages.  It will be fun to hang out with their family after we both have our babies home.  We also got to know another family who are filipino.  They are at the same point in the process as we are, but since they are filipino they will get a referral much more quickly.  We are hoping to stay connected with all of the people we met, so we can help each other through the process. It will also be nice to have connections for our adopted children to get together with later on.

Happy Day

Since my last post I have been feeling really down.  I have been praying a lot and questioning our decision a lot.  I just couldn’t understand, if we had made the right decision, why things were not working out for us.  In my head I kept thinking that just because you are doing everything right that doesn’t mean that things will go perfectly, but it does mean that things will eventually work out.  In my heart, though, I was feeling so discouraged and just couldn’t stop thinking that we had made the wrong choice and that maybe our baby was somewhere else or maybe the timing was all wrong and now we were way too into it to get ourselves out of.  I tried not thinking about it, but I still couldn’t shake the discouragement and depression.  

Then Sunday I had Jason check to see if our NBI clearance ever made it to Manila, since we paid extra to have tracking on it and we never received our return receipt.  It has been a month and we have heard nothing, so Jason checked and found out that the last place it was tracked was leaving Canada.  We don’t know if their tracking system is just messed up or if it just disappeared, like much of our mail has seemed to do throughout this process.  This is not what I needed to hear.  I was already feeling so miserable about everything and this just made it ten times worse.  Talk about discouragement.  I didn’t even want to go to church after that, but I forced myself to go because I knew I needed it.  It made me feel a little better, but I was still having a hard time and knew I could not take one more thing.  I had a hard time sleeping last night. I just couldn’t stop thinking about everything and wondering if we really were on the right track and if so how long this was going to take.  I prayed about it quite a bit last night off and on and pleaded with the Lord to let us know if we were headed in the right direction.  I just needed to know for sure so I would have the strength that would be required of me to get through any more setbacks or problems.  I knew from the beginning that this would not be easy, but I really had no idea how hard it was going to be.

Now for the good news.  After 10 LONG months of working on our home study, it is finally finished.  For real this time!  Everything has been approved and notarized and it is on its way to us this very day.  Our social worker called me this morning.  She usually just emails unless it is important and she wanted to be able to tell me over the phone that it was finally complete.  I was a little nervous to answer the phone at first, I just kept thinking “Oh no, what now”.  I am so glad I did though.  I cannot even begin to describe how happy and relieved I am right now.  This is HUGE for us and it is a step that I thought we would never get through.  I would like to say that it will be smooth sailing for us after this point, but I have a feeling that nothing in this process is going to be easy for us.  Maybe if I just expect the worst then I will be pleasantly surprised if things do start to go smoothly.  I guess the Lord really does know just how much He can push us and when we have reached our breaking point.  I know this was an answer to my prayers and I feel so good knowing that we are one step closer to bringing our precious child/ren home.  

Although this is a huge deal for us, it is really just the beginning of the process.  Now, once we get our home study in the mail, we mail it on to the USCIS along with our I-800a form and they will file it and then schedule us for fingerprinting at their office in Yakima.  They will also begin reviewing it and they most likely will be asking us for additional information.  Our social worker said that so far 100% of all applications have not made it through on the first try.  All of them have needed additional information, so she is not expecting ours to be any different.  She just doesn’t know what that information will be.  She told us to hold onto the letter that she asked Jason to get from his counselor and not to send it with the home study, but instead wants us to wait and see if the USCIS asks for it because they may not need it.  She said the same thing about the NBI.  We will probably wait until they tell us officially that they require it before we go back to Canada to get it done again.  Who knows by then maybe the first one we sent off to Manila will just show up in our mailbox completed.  I will definitely be praying for that or that the USCIS will not require it.  As much as I like Canada, I am just not looking forward to driving all that way just to get something done that we already did.  Plus, Jason does not have much time to take off this month or next and we already will need to drive all the way to Yakima, hopefully without the kids, to get the fingerprinting done.  Once we are approved with the USCIS we can then have our agency send our dossier and home study on to the Philippines and then we will have to wait about 6 weeks for their approval.  Once approved with ICAB(Inter Country Adoption Board in the Philippines) we are officially added to the waiting list for a child and will begin our wait which could be anywhere from 1-3 years.  I guess that’s all for now.  I will post again if anything changes or when we find out what additional info the USCIS is going to require of us.  Here’s to hoping it will be nothing.  We could be the first to be approved on the first try.  Miracles do happen, we finally finished our home study after all!

My Glimmer Has Been Snuffed

Well, so much for my glimmer of hope.  I have had a bad feeling all week, because we have been waiting to hear if our home study has been approved by AGCI(our home study agency).  We have been waiting for two weeks and last time we waited for two weeks also only to find out that we needed to redo our medicals and then turn it back in and wait for approval again.  Even though I said I had hope in my last post, with everything that has happened so far, I just knew it couldn’t be that easy.  There is ALWAYS something else that comes up to get in our way.  I finally emailed our social worker, because I just couldn’t stand waiting anymore and she just said she was also waiting to hear back from AGCI.  Then today she called and then emailed Jason and here is what she said:

Hi Jason,

Please contact your counselor and ask for a letter as follows:

Dates of service, approximate # of hours, reason for treatment and a statement that your symptoms resolved without complication. It would be helpful to ask that there be a statement as follows: "Mr. Stewart has not contacted me for follow-up services since the date of our last session."

If the counselor is comfortable making a statement that you are a stable and responsible parent that would also be great.

I have no idea how long this will take.  I guess that will all depend on how busy Jason’s counselor is.  He hasn’t even been to see her in over 3 years.  This is just crazy, and ridiculous, and I am just so tired of everything going wrong.  Our home study has already been reviewed three times.  Why did they not catch this during the first two times.  It’s not like it was hidden somewhere that Jason had problems with depression and has seen a counselor.  That is what drives me crazy more than anything else-it is always just one more thing.  Why can’t they just tell us EVERYTHING that is needed or missing all at the same time.  It’s not like they haven’t done this before.  I just don’t get it.  It really makes us wonder if we are doing the right thing.  Talk about giving someone doubts.  If this is really the direction we are supposed to be going, then why is it taking so long and why has everything been so difficult.  I have been trying to make sense of it all, but it is just so frustrating.  I know one day it will all make sense and I will understand, but for now I am just sad and frustrated.  Right now I can see no end in sight.  I try to imagine our home study being completed and everything approved, but it just doesn’t seem real to me anymore.  Let alone actually getting a referral someday.  I know we are supposed to adopt I just don’t know if this is really the direction we need to be going.  I am just really confused right now.  I guess we have a lot of praying to do, either for everything to start working out for us or for us to know if we are on the wrong path.  It looks like we have some time to figure everything out.  It is not too late to change programs until our dossier is sent to the Philippines and that can’t take place until our home study is done.  I know that the Lord will help us make this decision and that everything will work out how it is meant to be.  This is just a hard place to be right now.