Deadlines and our last 1-171H update

Our I-171H expires on April 9, 2009. The official name of this US Citizenship and Immigration Service document issued by the US Department of Homeland Security is Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. If this document were to expire we would lose our grandgathered status and have to do more extensive background checks. Specifically, we would have to get checks for every address we have lived since the age of 18 for more than 6 months. This process is further complicated by the fact you (adoptive parent) are advised to not renew too early as you risk an additional expiration date. So in February when I asked our international agency if I should start requesting renewal documents I thought I was being proactive. Turns out I was not as our paperwork was just turned in last Friday. Today, Tuesday April 7,2009, we received a receipt from the US Dept of Justice for the $830.00 fee required to process renewal paperwork. So we got our paperwork in 2 days before it expired. YIKES.

Part of our renewal paperwork required an in-home interview with our social worker which we scheduled for Wednesday, March 25,2009. Cherie, our social worker, probably was here 45 minutes total. Anyhow she was impressed with the changes in the garden since her initial homestudy interviews in 2006.

This first picture was taken in Spring 2006 right before the backyard clearing began. This was also about the time of our 1st homestudy interview. Cherie also taught the first adoption classes we took in September 2005. She is the person we have worked with the longest through our adoption and unfortunately her agency is closing and she has no employment plans as of now. Our new HS agency is Adoption Connection.

Update: Starting in August 2009 Cherie will be employed at Adoption Connection and once again assigned to our adoption case!

The next couple of pictures show mid progress replacing the fence and tiering the garden. I love this picture of John and Lucy!

The next picture shows what our garden looks like now.

During our 2nd homestudy interview we also took Cherie throught the first floor apartment, something she had not seen on the initial homestudy. She likes old homes so I think it was kinda entertaining.

The room with the fireplace will eventually be our library when we "take over the whole house". Right now we don't need the space and the extra income is nice. This apartment's kitchen (room with 3 glass doors and red floor) will be eventually become a 3rd bedroom. This is another picture from the 1st floor kitchen. The tenants who lived here when this picture was taken were an interesting couple. She worked for Warner Brothers (music promotion manager) and he played bass and was from Sweden. The ballroom dancing photos are of his father who was still competitively dancing while they we our tenants. They only stayed a year but I thought they were fascinating. This room is now the 1st floor apartment bedroom but someday will become an office. We are thinking we will buy a big partner desk and put it in the middle of this room.

The last picture is of Lucy in the garden with William. William had allergies when he was born and is the reason at age 10 Lucy moved in with us.

This month's Rumor from the Queen ....Feb 24,2009

I made this chain on Jan 28,2009 and put it on our kitchen mantle. The links represent the number of LID referral days before our LID group(May 18, 2006) get our referrals. A referral is when we will receive a picture and info about our baby. About 6-8 weeks after that we will travel. So the green links represent March, purple is April and pink is May 1-17th, 2006. The CCAA has matched through February 28,2006. The next picture is of spouse pointing to where we will cut links off after Rumor Queen gives the referral rumors an R4 rating. Below is from RQ 2/24/09 titled Rumor roundup

A few more agencies are now verifying that the CCAA is matching. One agency thinks they will get beyond March 3rd, but won’t go so far as to say how far that might be. And I can’t tell if this is them just guessing, or if they have been given some reason to believe this. And that is it. it’s like a ghost town. Instead of rumors there is just tumbleweed rolling and bouncing along. Posted in Rumors - Next Referrals 27 Comments »

AND here is RQ's most recent post which broadly explains her rating system. This entry is titled R3 for March 6th

February 27th, 2009 We have three agencies confirming the cut off is March 6th. We have another agency telling their 3/7 people that they are not in this batch. There are also some conflicting rumors, so at this point it’s an R3. I hope to be able to take it to an R4 later today. (The conflicting rumors aren’t very cohesive, everything from a cut off of the 3rd to the 8th, but they don’t come from multiple sources like the 6th rumor does.) I agree with everyone yesterday who said that a backlog of only 12,000 doesn’t sound right. I’ll do the math on it later.

This update is required coincidentally just as both spouse and I have more work projects than usual, our primary care physician has surgery scheduled in March and we need a physical for the I171H, our homestudy agency is going out of business (the economy) and we need a update homestudy interview and we are traveling half of March. Additionally as of March 1 we still have not organized and thus mailed our tax paperwork to our accountant. But the good news is the pet nanny and house sitter are all lined up for while we are traveling to New Orleans and Florida.

Anyhow the I171H is the US governments document of pre-approval for the adoption of a foreign born baby. This document will also give her American citizenship the day she arrives in the US. Oh, and another thing we have to do is get re-fingerprinted as our last set expired 12-13-08. There are no penalties for letting your fingerprints expire. Since biometrics fingerprints cost $80 each you don't want to do them too early and thus risk expiration.

All this paper chasing was made more fun by getting conflicting direction from our 2 agencies (homestudy & international). Two Friday's ago I caused us (but mostly me) to "chase our tails" for half a day. I was told we needed to get all our addresses from where we have lived since the age of 18 for child abuse background checks requests. This was easy for me as I lived with my parents and at the Alpha Chi house which has a really easy to remember address ... 1000 N. Jordan in Indiana and relatively few addresses in Ohio. Completely different scenario for spouse who has moved a lot. About once a year for a decade. So it took a little more digging, specifically a half a day. I was surprised that I was able to get all this info online. Turns out this little exercise was unnecessary.

Because of all this I needed to take some adoption related paperwork to work last week. The picture below is my desk @ conservatory and my very cute file folder with adoption paperwork. This file tote was a Valentine's gift from spouse

last year.