I have decided, since we are getting so close to the end, that I would start posting every month from now until we get our referral. I don’t really have a lot of new information to share. We do get an update from our agency every month to let us know what’s been going on in the Philippines program. There were no new referrals last month, which doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t heard of any from the Philippine adoption yahoo group I am on either for the last couple of months. There are quite a few families in the group who were approved in Oct. of 2008, just a couple months before us, so I am anxious to see when they will start getting their referrals. Once I see them start getting theirs, I think reality will finally hit that our turn will be coming soon.
The newsletter we got from our agency also said that wait times have changed to 18-24 months for filipino families and 24-30 months for non-filipinos. This was not a surprise either and fits right into the timeframe we have been preparing ourselves for. We hit 30 months the end of June so if I had to guess when we would be getting our referral, as long as the timeframe doesn’t shift again, I would guess the beginning of July. I should just be glad that we are in the Philippine program and not China right now. I just heard that their referrals are taking over 4 years which is why they are no long accepting new applicants for awhile.
We found out some big news last week when it came time to start our immigration and home study update. Our social worker, JoAnn, is no longer working for AGCI but is now with another agency. What this meant for us is that we could either continue with her at her new agency but would have to pay an extra $300 for the application fee, or we could stick with AGCI and get a new social worker. We weren’t sure at the time if they even had another social worker in our area, they are based in Portland, but fortunately they have one in Seattle that will be able to work with us. We decided to stay with AGCI and get a new social worker, so we are really hoping things go well with our new one. We only have until April to get all of our updates done, so we are in a bit of a time crunch as it is, and now with a new social worker we are feeling a little anxious about being able to get it all done in time. If things are not done in time, we have to start all over again instead of just doing an update. We are doing everything we can on our end to get things done, so hopefully it will all work out. We all have doctor appointments this week for our medical update and Tues. we went to the police station to get our fingerprints done for our FBI background checks. We already sent in the WA State Child Abuse Clearances, so I think now we only have a couple minor things left to do. The biggest thing will be the home visit from the social worker which can’t take place until everything else is complete. I am also hoping we will be able to submit some new family photos for our dossier in the Philippines because our family has changed quite a bit in the last 3.5 years(I think that’s how old the picture is that they have in their file). Eva was only 2 and Breanna was 4. I don’t really have any recent family photos of us, so that might be another thing we need to get done. Hopefully the weather will start getting warmer so we can get some nice outdoor photos.
Well, I think that is about it for this post. I’m hoping my next post will be more exciting or at least I’ll have good news that we finished our home study update without any more glitches. Wish us luck! This is going to be a busy month!
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