Adoption Committee Acceptance - Please Pray

We heard today that our dossier was accepted by the adoption committee in Colombia! We are still on track to leave very soon!

Please pray for Gabriela's health. We heard this morning that she is unable to Skype because she is on oxygen again.

Skype with Gabi

We were able to SKYPE with Gabi again today. She seemed extra aware, engaged, and happy.

The kids sang her their new song!

Dossier Arrived in Colombia

Our dossier was delivered via FedEx yesterday morning to Colombia. We are told that it will be approx. a week before we hear something back. In the meantime, we are getting the next set of paperwork ready, planning a trip to Chicago to get our Visas and beginning to pack! It could be less than 3 weeks before we can travel. Please pray for Gabi's health. She got a respiratory infection last week and had to be put on oxygen for a few days. We are told that she is doing well now and back at her regular activities.

I-800A Approved!

We just heard from our immigration officer today that our application has been approved! I drove all around town today gathering up the last of our documents and getting them signed by the Secretary of State (our dossier) so that they can be sent to Colombia tomorrow. We are on to the next step!

Where are we in the process?

12.3.2010	Agency Application
2.14.2011	Psychological Evaluation
Done	Training Hours
2.4.2011	Approved Homestudy
Approved!!	I-800A Application
3.17.11	Send Dossier to Colombia
3.29.11	Acceptance by Adoption Committee
4.01.11	Referral of Gabi
4.12.11	I-800 Application (this is the second part of US immigration)
4.01.11	Acceptance Letter to FANA (Orphanage)
4.01.11	Form DS230
4.04.11	Get Visa for travel from Chicago Consulate
4.20.11	Provisional Approval of I-800 Visa (from USCIS)
	Final Approval of the I-800 (From US Embassy in Bogota)
	Travel!!!!

Friday, March 11th

Final set of fingerprints were taken for our immigration application. (We had to do three sets. One for Minnesota clearance, one for the FBI, and one for this).

Monday, February 28th

We got to see Gabi again over skype. We also heard some important news. We had applied to expedite our case through immigration because of Gabi’s health. We had sent a request with a supporting letter from a doctor informing them of our need. A supervisor approved our request and therefore our application was pulled from the stack and set in motion! We were told by our officer that without this expedition our file might take up to 90 days for approval.

Saturday, February 26th

We attended our last adoption training. The class was adopting older children. It was another helpful session as we heard stories from a panel of adoptive parents.

Happy Birthday Anna!

February 25^th – Anna turned 3 years old. She got a few fun gifts and choose to go to Snuffy’s Malt Shop for her party. She invited her cousin Kate, Grandpa and Yaya and there was a beautiful purple cake (Thanks Mr. Mike!) that she hasn’t stopped talking about ever since! She ended the day by spending the night at Kate’s house. We heard reports that it took a while for her to burn off all the sugar, but she had a great day.

Monday, February 21st

Gabi got to meet Grampa Dicko and Yaya over skype. Unfortunately we could not tape it anymore. (free trial membership ran out)

Another Skype

February 14^th – A second skype call with Gabi! She says “Papa!”

Psychologist appointment

February 10^th – We had our follow-up appointment with the Psychologist to find out the results from our testing. We passed! He said that he would be happy to write a report for us telling that we were of sound mind and healthy to have another daughter.

Happy Birthday Gabi!

Monday, February 7th - Gabi turned 3 years old! We were thrilled to get to “meet” Gabi over skype on this day. We sang her Happy Birthday and she clapped for us! We were able to record this time and you can watch the link if you like. We also sent in our application (I-800A) to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to apply for determination of suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention country on this day. This was the beginning of the immigration process.

HOMESTUDY APPROVED!!!

Friday, February 4th - We got all of our background clearances back and our homestudy was officially completed! We also had a fundraiser this same day. It was so great! We were so blessed by friends, family, and others who came to support our cause. We raised over $6000! We were well on our way!

More Adoption steps

January 7^th – We applied for passports for the family.

January 19^th – We went to a meeting at Crossroads to read through our home study and sign some more paperwork. Our home study was not complete yet because we still needed background clearances.

January 22^nd – We attended the 2^nd of 3 trainings called PACT (Parenting Adopted Children Today). This was all day and it was very good. We learned a lot.

February 3^rd – We had our psychological testing done.

Monday, January 3rd

Our case worker came to our house to do our home study. We spent about 9 hours writing answers to the questions for this visit. It went well.

Thursday, December 23

After one last day of prayer and fasting, we all agreed that we wanted to move forward. We sent our letter of intent to the orphanage letting them know that we wanted to adopt Gabi! This letter basically let them know that we intended to complete the adoption and therefore there was no need to pursue other families for her. It felt like we had just had an ultrasound and found out that we were having another girl!

December Decision Making

Over a 5 week period we took the time to pray, think and find out all that we could about Gabriela. We were able to discuss her medical needs with several doctors. We sought council from several friends as well as our extended family. We were able to discuss any questions we had about her health and immediate needs as well as future possibilities. Throughout this process, we received nothing but encouragement, positive feedback, and strong support from those whose council we sought. Although our desire from the beginning was to move forward and make Gabriela a part of our family, we felt (well…mostly David felt J ) that we needed to take all of these steps before making our decision.

December 14th

We attended the first of 3 training sessions with Crossroads. The session was all about adoption paperwork. Let the paperwork begin!

Sunday, December 5th

Jay and Patti came over to our house to meet us, tell us more about Gabriela, and answer our questions. We enjoyed meeting them, hearing about their adoption stories and hearing their heart for children with special needs.

Agency Decision

Tuesday, November 8^th – We had our first meeting with an adoption agency. The agency was called Crossroads. If we decided to adopt Gabriela then we needed to use this agency. It is the agency that her orphanage works with. We met with two women from the agency and we thought that the meeting was helpful.

Monday, November 29^th – We went to a webinar with Children’s Home Society. We felt that the information they gave us about adoption was very similar to Crossroads. Again, it was helpful.

Thursday, December 2^nd – We went to another seminar with Bethany Adoption Agency. Again, we felt that the information was good, and helpful, but much the same as the other agencies. At this point we decided that we had seen enough agencies. We decided to go with Crossroads.

December 4^th – We turned in our application to Crossroads Adoption Services and our adoption journey officially began! Our next step was to make a decision about adopting Gabriela.

Wednesday, November 17th

Our friend Beth called to tell me about a prayer request she had heard at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) that day. She said that there was a little girl that they were praying would be adopted. With our permission, Beth gave our number to Patti (a volunteer for Friends of FANA) and just a few hours later I got a phone call telling us about Gabriela. Here are the basics of what we were told: She is almost 3 years old and she has been in an orphanage in Bogota, Colombia since she was born. She has a very complex heart condition, as well as other special needs. She needs to have major heart surgery in the near future. She has been waiting for the right family. We told Patti that we were interested and that we needed to take some time to pray and consider this big decision.

Monday, November 1st

I started calling agencies, gathering information and setting up appointments.

Thursday, October 28th

After several months of praying, hoping, and looking at waiting children lists, David sent me an instant message saying he thought we should start looking into adoption agencies and begin our adoption journey. It felt like we had just found out that we were pregnant!