Friday, February 24, 2012

USCIS I-800A Fingerprints--Done!

We were waiting for an appointment to have our biometrics (fingerprints) done and finally received that in the mail yesterday.  The appointment was set for March 13.  You know I couldn't wait that long--we've got to get this process moving and get Luka home!

So, Matt and I took a chance on doing a "walk-in" at the USCIS Application Support Center.  And they let us!  We just had to wait a little over an hour for them to fit us in.  Learned (he was sick so not in school), Millie and Padraig were pretty good during the wait--I was hoping for the response we get a lot, "let's take care of these people so they can get these crazy kids out of here" but everyone was really patient with us.

Now we wait again for approval of the I-800a, which as of today has not been assigned to a case manager yet.

Susan

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Garage Sale!

On March 24, 2012, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., we will be having a garage/yard sale with all proceeds going to Brittany's Hope.  There will possibly be baked goods for sale, free lemonade and lots of info on Brittany's Hope and Luka.  Please join us!  Even if you don't see anything you like, you can come for conversation and some fresh spring air.

We will have several pieces of furniture for sale, household items, a small old tv, clothes for the whole family as well as some toys the kids picked out because they want to help too.  About a week closer to the sale I will post photos of the bigger items and anyone following this blog is welcome to send me a bid and if it's equal to or more than what we would sell it for, we'll hold if for you.

Bigger items will include (list likely to grow!):

wooden bench
marble top vanity table
some rugs
brown wood twin head board
wardrobe
double iron bed
great dane size metal dog crate
treadmill

If you have anything you'd like to contribute to the sale, let me know!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

New Old Pictures

Here are the pictures from a few weeks after his surgery.  The kids were SOOOOO in awe that "Santa Claus" was actually holding him.  Of Course, Iain whispered to me later (so the other kids wouldn't hear) that he didn't think that was the REAL Santa.




Wednesday, February 8, 2012

New Pictures

Luka with his physical therapist.  He's clearly putting on some baby weight since the last pictures!


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

How This Story Started

Now that I have invited all our friends and family here to find out how we ended up on a journey to Poland for our fifth child, I need to actually post it!

The Decision
It all started last year when we began to have that tell-tale feeling that we needed another child.  It's happen four times before and I recognize it well.  Iain and Learned started making comments like, "We need a million more kids in this house!" and "When are we going to get some more babies?" Of course, there's that warm glowy feeling when you see a baby while your out or at church which slowly grows to an insistent thudding and shaking of your whole being: Must.have.child.now.

We thought about it for a while.  Are we crazy?  Can we handle it? Can the kids handle another sibling?  We asked the kids.  They must be made for us because all of them had the same immediate answer to whether they thought we should adopt again, "Yes! When do we pick them up?"  "Them?" we asked.  They all said we needed two more.  The boys wanted two boys and Millie was insistent that we "get" a boy AND a girl.

Finally in September/October we decided to start the process again with Oklahoma Department of Human Services.  We don't believe it is good for the other kids in the house to adopt outside birth order so we knew we would be waiting a while through DHS for a child younger than Padraig (birth date 9/12/2009) but that was OK.

We knew since I am enrolled in the ASL Interpreter Program at OSU-OKC that we were definitely open to deaf/hard of hearing children so I joined a listserv for perspective and current adoptive parents of deaf/hard of hearing kids.  We also knew from our experience with Iain's medical issues for the first two years of his life that we were open to a lot of medical issues.  And we really wanted to only be considered for those kids because we know there aren't that many parents out there who understand it's really not that hard to deal with "special needs" when it's your child--it's just normal.  And because we think some parents don't realize that while a lot of issues seem insurmountable or daunting often turn out to be pretty manageable or totally correctable--even turn out to have no impact a child's ability to have a normal life. 

First Contact
Anyway, we went through the home study process with DHS.  We love our social worker who placed Iain with us but she was promoted a long time ago so we had a new worker.  However, the same worker did our homestudy who did the home study for Iain and Millie.

In the middle of this process, my Deaf/hard-of-hearing listserv received the following email with the subject line of 10-month old baby boy awaiting adoption:

We are advocating for placement of a spunky and developmentally on track little boy in Poland who was born with Microtia, no right eye and a cleft palate. I am happy to discuss details with any interested family. Poland prefers married couples but will place children with single mothers depending on circumstance. He has had excellent care! Please email [our agency] for information.

I saw the email and had a warm feeling.  I asked Matt if I should inquire for more information.  He said, "It never hurts to ask."  Well, please.  I'm sure you all know as well as I did at the time how that would go.

The agency told us they were wrong, he was eight months old and sent pics and info.  I researched his medical conditions which, based on the photographs, were obviously more involved than the email stated. I reached out to support groups and contacted craniofacial teams for their opinions.  And we started looking into costs, international home study and the overall process.  We decided we needed to wait until the end of the year to make sure we would be able to afford the adoption in addition to his out of pocket medical care.

Ultimately we decided to pursue Luka's adoption and contacted Deaconess Pregnancy & Adoption Services (the agency we adopted Millie through) to conduct the Hague compliant home study.

A Real Surprise
Deaconess was amazing.  Once they heard that Luka was in an institution, they immediately started our home study and had it done in under 3 weeks.  They understood how damaging one day, one month can be on a child living in an institution and they did not want Luka to spend one day more in there than he had to.  But they had a surprise for us, too.

After conducting our interviews, the worker came to our house for the in-home family interview.  At that point she told us that Deaconess would like to present our profile to a birth family that was due in three weeks!  They said that there had been pre-natal exposure to prescribed medication and they had had only one family to present and the birth family wanted to see another.  They were comfortable with us adopting Luka if we were selected because they knew we did great with two other sets of very close in age kids.

We thought, wow!  It's happening AGAIN!  We're going to have two more at the same time and 6 total!  We were terrified and over the moon at the same time.  We've always said if someone wanted to hand us a baby we couldn't say no. We agreed on the condition that if our agency told us it would interfere with adopting Luka we could not do it.

So of course, I was in love with two babies but also worried about how we would handle a newborn and a trip to Poland.  But the birth family ended up choosing the other family.  They wanted to bless that couple with their first child.  We were disappointed but we were always focused on bring Luka home.

Homestudy Done and Dossier
So our home study is done and we have gathered 18 documents most of which were notarized by the amazing, super paralegal Melissa Keplinger.  Now Melissa's notary has to be certified on each of those documents by the Secretary of State with an Apostille.  A $10 gold seal for each of them!

Once we get our approval from USCIS, our agency can send our dossier to Poland.  And then we wait.  But it's worth it and it is reassuring to learn about more and more people in Poland who love Luka and are giving him the best care they can.




Happy Birthday, Luka!

Just saw that FedEx delivered our I-800A application to USCIS!  Hopefully, this will be Luka's first and last birthday without a family.

And the agency sent us some new pictures of Luka with his physical therapist, who apparently really loves him.  He is smiling and obviously watching what's going on around him.  We can't wait to meet all of the great people who are taking care of him.

Monday, February 6, 2012

USCIS I-800A FedEx'd! And a Minor Tangent

     After finishing our home study (hooray, we were approved as acceptable adoptive parents!), the next step was to fill out and submit the USCIS I-800A "Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country" with all of the necessary supporting documents: home study, copy of marriage license, copy of birth certificates.  Oh, and our agency recommended including a photo of Luka and a summary of his medical issues in the cover letter with a request that they expedite the application so he can come home and get treatment as soon as possible.

    I put off getting the photos printed and finally did it today with 1-hour development.  In order to be fully honest, I have to say I delayed because I was reluctant to expose Luka to any kind of stares or comments, even from the photo developer at Walgreens.  We are all mad about him but we are not so silly to think that he won't get second glances, averted eyes or uncomfortable shifting in weight when he's here and out in public.  Even the looks of pity will be bad enough.  That is the part of parenting Luka that I fear for him and will break my heart.  I'm already a mother and I know how much it hurts me when my other kids' feelings are hurt no matter what the silly reason (ex. Iain tells Millie she's a meanie and it's a flood of tears).

    Of course, we want him to go out in public proud and to heck with what anyone else thinks.  We will model that attitude ourselves but I know it will be hard to mask those feelings and always respond with light and airy answers to ignorantly hurtful questions.  But, as Matt is always reminding me, "What? Would you rather he avoid it all and stay hidden away in an institution his whole life?"

Ok, Back to the I-800A- 
     Filling that form out itself wasn't hard but I'll be honest with you--every time I looked at it and went through my supporting documents, I was sure I had something wrong and found myself totally confused.  I'm pretty sure I did it right and I was determined that it go out today.   Thanks to the help of Rachel at Matt's office, one of the most amazing paralegals on the planet, I did it!  And it will be delivered to USCIS tomorrow, February 7, 2012.  Luka's 1st birthday.

    Send us some prays, good thoughts, meditation vibes, or whatever your belief system allows our way that  the USCIS has mercy on us and expedites our application!