Catching Up!

After recieving our photobook in the mail on Thursday, Justin drove up to Indy on Friday to turn in our completed dossier:) They reviewed over our files and said it would go out in the mail that day to the Kansas office. We got word that they recieved our dossier today and would be revivewing it over the next couple of days. If no corrections need to be made, then we will be DTT (Dossier to Taiwan) on November 6 (our five year anniversary).

Moving right along!

This morning, we heard from our social worker about making the changes to our 171-H. At this time, the agency feels that we need to go ahead and submit all of our paperwork as is and as soon as possible. That way it insures our spot in the program. Then, if we are receive a referral of a special needs child we will revise our 171-H at that time. I am kind of worried about this, and just wish they would go ahead and let us make these changes now. What if we do get a special needs referral, will this delay our process? What if the USCIS office doesn't approve us and we have to deny this referral?

Anyways, we ordered our photobook today for the birthmother to look through. We overnighted it so we should receive it by the end of the week. We are hoping to drive it up to Indy and personally hand deliever the completed dossier on Friday.

Awww, this is all starting to feel real!

Update on 171-H

Late yesterday evening, the senators office emailed us a copy of the 171-H. We quickly glanced at it and just started jumping up and down in excitement. Unfortunately, when we took a closer look at it the section that describes the child we are approved to adopt, it wasn't exactly what we requested. It stated that we were eligible to adopt one child, ages 0-18 months, of either gender. What it did not state is that we are open to adopt a child with special needs.

We contacted our program coordinator asking her what this meant. She said that this happens often and that she believes she can take care of the situation for us on Monday. We asked if they just didn't approve us to adopt a special needs child due to money or resources, and she didn't see any reason why they would have said no.

Even with the misunderstanding, we are still able to turn in our dossier before the deadline. Yeah, for that!!! Now we just wait to see what our coordinator finds out to see what our next step is.

171-H Approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since being fingerprinted on Tuesday, we have been working like crazy trying to finish up the needed paperwork to turn in our dossier. We have completed everything except for the family photo album and are awaiting the approval of our 171-H.

Since we feel like we are not going to meet the deadline in time, Justin decided to go ahead and contact the senator and congressman. He faxed over a letter explaining our situation and asked for their help getting our 171-H approval. Within an hour Justin received a call from the senator's office asking for further information.

This afternoon, we received another call from his office stating that they had our 171-H in their hands and would be mailing it out that day. PRAISE GOD!!!!! Nothing could have made this day any better. This is actually going to work out for us, and are finally getting closer to being a family of four:)

Fingerprinted!!!

After learning of the changes with the Taiwan program we immediately spoke with our program coordinator to see what we should do to get our case moving. She (and several friends) suggested that we go to our local office and ask them if we could move our fingerprint appointment up, or possibly get fingerprinted that day. We made an info pass for this morning to speak with someone about our case. That office told us they could not help us because our home office was in Indy, but pointed us in the direction of someone who could.

We walked into the office and Justin proceeded to tell them about the changes in Taiwan and asked if there was any way to get fingerprinted at an earlier date. They asked if we have been notified with a letter stating a day and time and asked if we could verify that we had it. Justin pulled out the letter and the man read over it and asked us to step over to the other side of the office and fingerprinted us right then. They were extremely nice and helpful.

We asked how long it usually took, and the man said that since everything is done electronically, our fingerprints have already been sent to the main office and we should be receiving our 171-H within the next 6-8 weeks:)

TAIWAN change - URGENT - PLEASE READ!!

These are the words I read this morning as I opened our email. My heart just about fell out of my chest. I was hesitant to even open it in fear of what it was going to say...and then I read this:

Effective immediately:
Cathwel has just changed their policy for adoptive applicants’ ages. Both adoptive applicants must be between the ages of 30-39 years of age at time of dossier submission effective January 1, 2010.

What does this mean for families currently in process outside of this age range?
All families currently in process outside of the new age range of 30-39 years old need to have their initial dossier sent to me by December 10, 2009. These families currently in process MUST have their dossier in Taiwan before the end of December if outside of the age range indicated above.

If you do not have the family’s dossier sent to me by December 10, 2009, I will not be able to send your family’s dossier to Taiwan. If not received by this date indicated, the family will be ineligible to adopt from Cathwel due to the new age restrictions that Cathwel is setting for our families.

We apologize for any inconvenience or problems this will cause for you or your families. As we all know, international adoption often has abrupt changes outside of our control. We will keep you informed as information comes our way as always.


My head literally fell into my hands and I started crying. I couldn't even catch my breath. Our dreams once again of us becoming parents to a second child just seem to be slipping even farther away. How can this be happening to us again? This is just not fair. Why don't we deserve this?

I immediately called Justin to see if he had read the email. I asked him to call the agency to see what we are suppose to do now. I told him that if this is the end of the road for us that I wanted a 100% refund of the $8000 we just sent them weeks before.

Justin called the agency shortly after and they said that they didn't even flag our case. They said we are the farthest family in the program, and basically if we didn't get in...no one is getting in. There are families still working on their homestudies that are trying to make this deadline. The estimated time frame for the 171-H is 2.5 months for Indy and 5.3 months for Louisville...just depends on which office they use. Even if they go through the Indy office, our paperwork wasn't filed until September 29 which means we still will not meet the deadline. So unless some small miracle happens...we will no longer be eligible to adopt from Taiwan.

So our next question was, "if we don't make the deadline, we want our fees back". Well, here we go again. Since we signed a non-refundable contract with Bethany our fees can not be returned. So we are either out $8000 or we switch to another program. The only other program we are eligible for is Ethiopia and possibly there domestic program (we have to have a letter from our pastor, which we can not get). We are just sick about this whole situation. We have spent most of the last two days crying and praying.

Please pray for our family and that we get to continue with our adoption to Taiwan.

Fingerprint appointment

Today we received notice that our fingerprint appointment will be on October 29. We were thrilled to learn that we do not have to drive up to Indy since there is now an office in Louisville. We have been working very hard on finishing up our dossier documents so that we can turn them in as soon as possible. The only thing we have left is our family album and our 171-H. Here's to hoping for a fast return:)