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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
So sorry about the changes. Hopefully they will use the Indy office. If you don't have your 171H by Mid November call your State Senator or representative. Tell them about the change that was made, the date your homestudy was submitted, the fees you will loose and see if they can check on the status of your 171-H for you. I asked for their help with both of my adoptions and had the 171H in my hand within days. Even in the case when the rep was told they would not do the requested change-they actually did and I had the corrected document in my hand 2 days later-their involvement gets results!! Good luck
ReplyDelete