To volunteer or not to volunteer that is the question.

Recently I emailed the WIC (Waiting International Children) team. I wanted to let them know I was traveling to the orphanage that the WIC children are and that I would be more than happy to take photos of the children for them to share with the potential families of these children. The agency as we have found out provides very few photos of the children so I thought I would volunteer my time and help them. I know how important it is for parents to have updated photos and for the children to have as they grow older. I never got a response to my email. Nothing! Do they care about these children and families? I am volunteering my time to help them when I could be spending all my time with my girls. What is up with that? I guess I need to think only of myself and my girls and not help other. Being self centered is not my style and it should not be theirs. I only want to help the children. Trying to be upfront with the agency just isn't worth the effort any more. It is just so sad because it only hurts the children.

What would you do?

I asked our agency if there were any updated photos of our girls. The Program Director had been in Vietnam and delivered photo albums of our family to each of the girls. The agency person told me that when H returned she could have some updated photos and/or video of the girls. So knowing that she was back in the states, I emailed and asked for any video or photos. The agency replied with YES there is video of the girls, but we could not see it because there were other children in the video and we cannot isolate the clip which only the girls in it. You can imagine how my heart sank. I have not had a current photo since June, when volunteers went to the sponsorship camp. It makes me so sad to know that they have a video of our girls and will not share it with us. To add salt to the wound, I have heard that the agency has shared the video clips with other families with our girls in it. There must be a double standard on who gets to see the video. It is so sad that the girls have documentation of there lives in the orphanage in agencies hands, but they will not be able to have it as a keepsake. I find this appalling.

Progress?

We received an email from our agency this evening. This was after 2 days of calling and emails asking about progress with our adoption. This is what we found out. Our docs that we rushed to get notarized, certified and authenticated made it to Vietnam.

However there was a meeting for all the people involved in Vietnam adoptions to attend a training requested by the DIA concerning the new local change of government entities dealing with International adoption as well as the new rules recently implemented by the DIA. For this reason, our family's paperwork was not processed by the DIA until Tuesday, 9/18 VN time.

Another week of waiting for our girls to come home to their forever family.

The agency is expecting we will enter 2nd DIA notification tomorrow or today in Vietnam 20 Sep. We did receive travel notes and were able to fill out our Travel Preferences for our stay in Vietnam.

Within 7 days, the Province DMOJ is supposed to issue an invitation to travel for our family via the VN office and will ask the agency to pay the adoption fee on our behalf. When we receive the invitation to travel from DMOJ, we will have up to 30 days to prepare our travel to VN. We will travel as soon a possible.

Due to the recent change of agency and personnel working with our agency in the province, one agency listed on our previous acceptance letter is no longer involved with adoption so we have to resign the acceptance letter. This will be our 7th time to do this. It took five times when we first accepted the referral and now working on our 3nd time for this new acceptance letter. Will it ever be right?

All I want is a travel date!
This wait is like being in your last days of pregnancy, a 18 month pregnancy, you are ready anytime anywhere. Just waiting. The room is done, the car seats are ready and the clothes are washed and ready to wear. But this wait is like no other. You do not have life inside you that you know will arrive when she is ready. This wait if for a child that is ready and waiting. Waiting for 3 long years for a family. We are ready the twins are ready so why do we wait.

Our paperwork is on a roll again.......

The notarized, certified, authenticated documents arrived in Minneapolis yesterday. The staff scanned them and emailed copies to the office in Vietnam with the originals to follow by DHL. I am hoping that this means things will start moving again and we will be able to travel soon.

Today I had an appointment to get all the travel meds ready. P, T and I will all take Malarone to prevent Malaria and we each get a Z pack incase we get travelers diarrhea. What fun! It is better to be prepared and much better than the illness. I also went over some medical issues of what ifs for the girls. I feel I am ready and armed with Motrin, Benadryl, Laxative, and Eczema creams. The only medical information I have on the girls is their height, weight, that they have very dry skin (probably Eczema) and cold feet.

We have asked the agency to give us extra time in country to spend with the girls. Typically the families arrive in country one or two days before the G&R date. They are given a day or so to meet their child. The G&R is usually the next day. These children have been much younger than our twins. We are asking the agency for something in writing stating we will be able to spend up to a week with the girls before we take custody. At this point the agency has not granted our request. We feel it is crucial to spend a few days with the girls in their environment before they are taken away from everything they have ever known. It is my understanding that they are very shy. Taking them out of their safe zone to fast could have long lasting negative effects; I would prefer to let them get to know us before they leave the orphanage.

Still Waiting

We are still in the waiting phase for a G&R date. Yesterday I was up bright and early to start paper chasing. By 8 am I was at P’s office to have docs notarized by 8:15 I was on the road to Des Moines to have them State Certified. At 10 am I was at the Secretary of State having the does certified and by 10:30 our docs where at the Fed Ex office to be shipped over night to San Francisco to be country authenticated. It is now out of our hands. The authentication of the documents at the Vietnam Consulate costs $50 per document. We paid an expedited fee of $20 each to get the documents authenticated as soon as they arrive and shipped off. The docs then are sent by DHL to the agency and they scan and sent them by email to Vietnam with the originals to follow by DHL. We should hear something next week about a G&R date. We are still hoping to travel the end of September the first of October.