Short & Sweet

So after much ado about something, we finally overnighted the I-800A form to NBC this afternoon. I had everything filled out and ready to go last night except for one question. The form asked me to reference the pre-adoption requirements/laws for Texas and state that they were completed. Now I was 100% certain they were completed, but I had know idea what exactly they were. Therefore, I couldn't exactly reference them. So I emailed our home study agency. The poor girl was like "Do they want the whole code? Do they know how long it is?" We were both lost as to what to do. And by lost I mean completely clueless. Part of the reason this came up is because our home study agency is here in Texas while our adoption agency is in Oregon. Normally, this is an adoption agency question, but our adoption agency is not familiar with Texas law. I spent hours looking through adoption law trying to figure out what does and does not apply to international adoption. Finally in desperation I emailed our caseworker in Oregon, and prayed about it. Yes I know I should've prayed first, but sometimes I get ahead of myself and forget to do the most important thing first. In spite of the fact that I put the cart in front of the horse (again), God came through in the form of our very awesome caseworker. Somehow she found the necessary information and emailed it to me all typed up and concise and ready to be notarized!

So we sealed everything and overnighted it. After it was sent I realized that I had dated everything the 15th of June instead of the 14th of June. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I had it in my head that I wanted it to arrive on the 15th so I apparently dated everything the 15th. I am hoping and praying (mostly praying) that it doesn't make a difference. We would greatly appreciate your prayers that this is all completed in a very timely manner (like before I go back to work in August). Once we finish this we can get everything assembled and apostilled and then send our dossier to AGCI and ultimately Bulgaria.

That's all for tonight. Enjoy your evening everyone.

Approval Letters, Gangplanks, Bad Service, and Wrong Turns (all in one post)

First off, I have six notarized copies of the completed home study in my hot little hands along with an approval letter, and boy am I happy. Everything looks great and we are ready to get this wagon train a-movin. Tomorrow I will be sending off the I800A to NBC (along with some mula and some other other impt. docs). So here's a quick question for any of you international adoption folks (especially those living in the Central Texas area). Could someone please clarify the time frame on this? I mean if I overnight it tomorrow then about how long will it take to get our fingerprinting appointment? And then when we get the appointment time how much notice do they give you? A day? A week? A month? I'm a bit confused on this part, and I don't want to annoy my poor caseworker to death. You have no idea how many questions I have already asked her. Any anwers would be much appreciated . . . please and thank you.

So anyhow totally changing the subject, we just got back from the beach.

We had a blast. Yes Andrew is wearing pajamas in the above picture. We made the mistake of going out after his bath. Which led to another bath. Andrew was a complete fish, although he preferred the pool to the ocean. He's at the age where you can just put some floaties on him, throw him in the pool, and go grab a bite to eat. . . And that was a joke. You can put the phone away. You don't have to call Child Protective Services on me. But in all honesty he wore arm floaties, and "swam" all over the pool. I tried to keep up with him, but everytime I touched him, he had a complete break down. He apparently can "swim" all by himself. So Patrick and I spent a large amount of time chasing him around the ridiculously large pool.

We went with my sister and her family, and frankly, they wear me out. I mean their clocks run differently than ours. Andrew is of the early to bed and early to rise school. Her kids are not. The problem is, even when Andrew goes to bed late he still rises early. So yeah, we were already a little tired, but on the way home we decided to go through Corpus Christi and take the boys through the USS Lexington. Other than the fact that it was around 1 million degrees yesterday the boys had a lot of fun.

We saw a few of these. . .

And went up and down about 297 flights of these . . .

The boys also had an important conference on the state of affairs (whatever that means). It was all very serious. Well at least Nathan and Anthony thought it was serious (I think they were just starving). Brendon and Andrew not so much.

Before we hit the road we made my bro-in-law walk the gangplank. Hey don't mess with me or I'll lay the smack down on you. Yeah, but I'm not kidding when I say that thing was sc-ar-y. I mean one wrong move and your catapulted out to sea.

So funny story about the trip home. We left the Lexington at around 1:30 and we were all tired, hot, and hungry. Not the greatest combination, especially when you have 4 boys 12 and under involved. We drove down the road a ways trying to find somewhere decent to eat. We didn't really want to eat fast food so we decided to pull over at a chain restaurant that was just down the highway. (I won't mention the name but if your ever in Portland, Texas let me know, and I'll tell you where not to eat). Anyway we entered this fine establishment around 2:00 p.m. It wasn't crowded, and we figured we'd be in and out in under an hour. We were seated immediately, and our drink order was taken rather quickly. And that ladies and gents is where the quickly stopped. Our drinks came after about 15 minutes and we managed to hold down the waitress for a few minutes to take our food order. Seeing as how we were thirsty we sucked the drinks dry in about 2.5 seconds. And then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. We had ordered a couple appetizers (don't forget that we were on the brink of starvation at this point) which finally arrived, and we asked for refills on the drinks. Mine and Patrick's got refilled, but not my sister's or Hector's or any of the kids'. After another 15-20 minutes (we had been here almost an hour at this point) our waitress comes by and says "oh can I refill those drinks?". We were like "Sure, the ones you were gonna refill 26 hours ago?!?" Not to worry, we weren't that rude, but really people get it together.

Of course the drinks never made it back to our table and then our waitress disappears. Like I Dream of Jeannie style. Finally after another 15 minutes some guy brings most of the food except for Patrick's and Hector's. We tried to ask about their food, but you had to dive on the ground and grab someone by the ankles to get them to stop long enough to listen to you. I sent up a smoke signal, and got someone to our table to ask about the rest of our order, and the waitress (different one this time) was like "Oh yeah, your waitress got sick and left. Let me see if she put that in or not." What? For Pete's Parker people you have got to be kidding me. I mean I'm sorry the poor girl got sick, but does that mean you just leave us to slowly starve to death here? About five minutes later a different waiter brings their food out freshly nuked. They ate it in less than 10 minutes, which is a miracle for my husband because he eats slower than molasses in January, and we were ready to be on our way.

Everyone went to the restroom, and Sarah and I waited for the ticket. We waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Beginning to see a pattern? The men went to load up the boys. And I sent up another smoke signal. Finally after another 10-15 minutes, some man brings our ticket and says "Yeah that power surge really messed things up." Um, what? Did our waitress get shocked instead of sick? It was like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. Sarah begins reading the ticket like it's a romance novel, and I was so not caring at this point. I grabbed it from her, and immediately noticed that they actually had the gall to add in the tip. Now I'm normally a good tipper, but if they thought I was leaving a tip when no one had the decency to apologize or check on us or give me a free dessert they had lost their bloomin' minds. Who exactly were we leaving the tip for? So we left our cash sans tip and headed out. Now if you are are a waiter or waitress I know it's a tough job. I am in no way denying that, but this was hands down the worst service I have ever had anywhere. And I've eaten out at a lot of different places, but this was the first time I have not left a tip.

So two hours later, we booked it out of there caravan style with me leading the pack (okay my sister's truck was the only other vehicle but work with me here). Two things are important to note (1) I've been to the beach a million times (2) I always take a wrong turn and go the long way (not the wrong way, just the long way). This time I had my handy dandy navigation system to work with (it's never failed me), but lo and behold when it came time to make the turn in the correct direction it told me to turn right . . . into a pasture. Hello? So I got all flustered (imagine that) and ended up turning at the wrong turn. Then the navigation system started to freak out and kept screaming "turn left then turn left" in a robotic voice. At which point I threatened to destroy it, and anyway, there was no way to turn around even if I wanted to (which I didn't . . . see bold above). Needless to say, we may have seen miles and miles of Texas that we didn't want to see yesterday. That's what happens when you let someone with no sense of direction lead the pack. Oops! Sorry!

Howdy Folks

We're home. We finally made it home after a ridiculously long lunch and a little detour. I was driving and took a wrong turn . . . yes I've been to the beach 700 times give or take a few . . . yes I still made a wrong turn . . . yes I'm directionally challenged even when using a navigation system . . . story to come along with pictures later, but until then check out the past few posts on Kirill. If you don't cry well then I don't know what's wrong with you. Just kidding. But in all seriousness grab your tissue box and take a moment to watch the videos they have posted. You won't regret it.

Insanity Defined

Tomorrow morning we are headed to the beach along with my sister and her family. Her three boys plus my one boy equals four boys ages 3 to 12. That ladies and gentlemen is insanity.


So, in anticipation of this big trip I started making lists about a week and a half ago. My first list was made sitting at the bar in my Mom's kitchen on Memorial Day. This of course was a preliminary list, which I had the best intentions of reorganizing. My bratty little brother tore it in half. Why? Because he's annoying. Like I don't know how to use tape.


Anyway, this past Monday, I loaded Andrew up and we headed to a nearby town that actually has stores other than an original Wal Mart (I kid you not . . . old school Wal Mart here) and an overcrowded HEB. I hate going to HEB! I we decided to eat lunch at Chik-fil-A. Two things (1) I eat there because I'm madly in love with their lemonade (I may propose next time I'm there) and (2) I rarely let Andrew play on the playground, because I'm crazy and have to bathe him in Wet Wipes when he's done. Okay, now that all that's out in the open . . . We sat down with our food, and I pulled out my phone so I could rewrite and organize my preliminary list, but when I went to get the list out of it's designated pocket in my purse it. was. gone. I mean like disappeared, vanished into thin air! I promptly asked for a paper bag to breathe into. After my panic attack subsided, I began racking my brain trying to remember everything that was on the list. I punched two lists into my phone (it took for-ev-er . . . you remember how they said for-ev-er on "The Sandlot" . . . say it like that). One I sent to Sarah, my organizationally challenged sister (and she didn't even have the decency to respond to my message), and one for myself. I'm not sure what Andrew was doing while I was working on these lists . . . probably stealing my french fries since I got him fruit with his meal. Yes, I'm that mother.

I then shoved my food down my throat and we headed for Sam's. As much as I hate going to HEB, I love going to Sam's. There is so much stuff you don't need there. It's like a glimpse into Heaven. That was a joke . . . laugh. So, everytime I put  something in my basket I sent Sarah a text telling her what I was getting. I also called her like 12 times. I don't trust her to follow my lists. Who knows what she would actually buy if left to her own devices? Would you believe that she neither responded to my texts or answered my calls? If you know her, you will believe it. She's wildly irresponsible and rebellious that way. I'm wildly annoying by calling people every ten seconds. I finally called my grandmother's phone to get Sarah on the phone (she was with my sister otherwise that would be pointless). When I finally got her on the phone, she said two things, "I've been ignoring you" and "I'm out in the parking lot". Really Sarah? Thanks.

As punishment I followed her around Sam's for a while and instructed her on what to buy. Andrew really wanted to go with her. Apparently she's more fun than me. She lets him eat junk and play on germ infested playgrounds. Whatever! After a while, I got tired of pushing the full basket around and chasing Andrew at the same time so we left. The End.

What's the point to this whole story? There isn't one except to point out that I may be a little on the bossy side. It's okay, I admit it. Anyway, you won't hear from me for a few days. I'm not taking my computer to the beach, and I don't blog from my phone. Finger cramps and all. Also, and completely random, I changed the settings to have a mobile page when you are viewing this on your phone. If anyone uses their phone to read these, and you absolutely hate it let me know and I'll change it back. Talk to ya'll next week!

Where We Stand

So our home study is now complete and awaiting final approval from our adoption agency. Since it has been reviewed once before, I think it is safe to assume that it will need very few if any revisions. From there we will fill out our I800A and submit it to NBC along with our home study and some other documentation.

NBC stands for National Benefits Center and is a department of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that was created to process Hague Convention cases. The Hague Adoption Convention dictates how an international adoption will be processed. Not all countries are Hague countries. There are certain guidelines a country must meet in order to become a Hague country. Bulgaria is still working to get their footing as a Hague Country which is why things are not moving forward very quickly. Ultimately, the level of stability and protection it brings both the children and the parents is worth it. Just as a point of reference, China is another Hague country. The current wait for a healthy child in China is now hovering around five years. This is not due so much to slow processing, although China does have a lot more requirements than Bulgaria, but it is do more so to the enormous number of adoptions that China processes each year. In 2010, 3401 children were adopted from China.  Compare that with 40 in Bulgaria. You can look up all the adoption stats you please (because I know you're dying to) on the U.S. Government's Adoption Website.

After we submit our I800A to NBC, we should receive a fingerprinting appointment for around 3-4 weeks later. Hopefully, sometime in the last two weeks of July. We will then be fingerprinted and if everything goes as planned, we hope to receive our approval from NBC in August.

From that point, our next step will be to gather all our documents and have them apostilled at the capitol through the Texas Secretary of State's office. I've explained what an apostille is before, but basically it validates the documents and proves that the notarizations are authentic.

Once we have finished all of this, we will submit everything to AGCI and then from there to Bulgaria. We will then wait for approval and to be registered with the country of Bulgaria. Once we are registered, we then begin what we expect to be about an 18-24 month wait. We will not know anything about our daughter until we receive a referral. The waiting period is long, and I have no doubt, at times it will be very frustrating, but we are not going into this with our eyes shut. We are praying that things pick up and our wait is shortened, but as I've said time and time again, we will be blessed with the daughter that God intends for us at just the right time.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, and in particular pray that everything gets done quickly and smoothly so that we can be registered with MOJ in Bulgaria. Right now that is our short term goal, and I am very excited to actually see it within our grasp. Thank you again for all your encouragement and support. And sorry if this reads a little bit (or a lot) like a (very interesting) research paper. It's my analytical mind that likes to sort everything and explain it as well as possible.