


Anyhow, after talking to Sheila and signing a contract with her, she told me to contact Lutheran Child and Family Services for a homestudy. The social worker we worked with there, Leni, was awesome!!! She walked us through the whole rest of the process. This involved several things: we (meaning Leo and I) had to go in and meet with her, we signed a ton of paperwork, she talked to each of us individually, etc. We then had to complete some of the requirements: Leo had to get CPR certified (I already was), we had to be fingerprinted, get FBI background checks done, and do some adoption training--we did ours online. Then we met with Leni again in person, answered some more questions, and then she came one day and visited our apartment and met with Ana. I think Leo and I met with her three times total, and we answered questions regarding everything from how our marriage was and how we solved our problems (that was funny because I had slept on the couch the night before after one of the worst fights in our entire marriage--it was the only time I'd ever done that--and we had barely begun speaking to each other again on the drive over there in the car) to how many siblings we had, their ages and occupations to how our own parents disciplined and what our own childhood was like. We also had to have three written recommendations from people who were not related to us. After all that, Leni sent the homestudy packet to our AZ lawyer for him to submit the interstate documents to the state of AZ. This was a whole mess, because he kept being obtuse and not taking my hints on what he was required to do, and finally our lawyer here talked to him and flat out told him it had to come from the AZ side of things since that's where the mother resided. Months later, he finally got around to submitting it. Meanwhile he did get the father's parental rights relinquishment translated to Spanish which we sent to Leo's Uncle Eduardo, who is a lawyer as well, in Colombia. Eduardo tracked down Ana's father for us and had him sign the relinquishment. All that was processed by both AZ and IL and finally approved, so we should have been able to set a court date and be done with it all, only Sheila informed us we needed documentation from Colombia saying we followed all their laws. Ruff. The silly part of that is had I known that before we could have had it already done, and I had had this niggling worry in the back of my brain that we'd need something like this, but instead of asking, I hoped we'd slide by without it. Errr.... So that's what we're waiting for now. Just FYI, Leo called the governmental department in charge of that down there and they said we were okay, only to get it in writing it would take at best 45 days. Leni's already been out to do the postplacement study. The court hearing is basically ceremonial from what Leni told me and then the judge may decide to have a "testing time" of Ana living with us for a few months before it's completely finalized,but we're hoping not since she's already been living with us so long. And that's what I've learned of adopting a child in a nutshell. Good luck if you're adopting a child. I wish you as little paperwork as possible!

Kami, your last few blog posts have pretty much summarized that A) your life is weird, and B) your life is weird, and C) you enjoy signing papers.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Andrea....A)Who's life isn't? B) Who's isn't? C) Who doesn't?
ReplyDeleteKami, thanks. My parents went through very much of what you have and are. All after I had left home.. Now I can see a bit more of what they went through.
My daughter still may. Or may not. Have not come to that conclusion or decision yet. It's good to know the good, the bad and the ugly that may happen.
However, I look at your beautiful Daughter Ana and think "Wow! The Lord sure knows what he is doing." It's all worth it in the end.