Day 20 and No Solution

We are now waiting until tomorrow to give our original social worker a chance to rectify the situation. Hopefully, she can come up with something that is cheaper and faster.

Our facilitator was supposed to call the other social worker with the child placement agency today to see if she can come out earlier or at least hold her schedule open for March 21st until we find out if our original social worker comes up with a solution for this mess. I have not heard anything from our facilitator as to if he made contact with the new social worker yet today.

That's all. Day 20 of no solid answers.

Still Trying to Work This Out

The last post I mentioned an agency that was possibly going to help us get our home study problem straightened out. I heard back from her today and she agreed to work with us and take over our home study. This is great news, but at the same time it has turned out to be much more expensive than we had anticipated and also it is going to set us further behind than we were originally told. She can't even come out to our house until March 21st (at the earliest) and then it will take her 2 weeks from there. We may have to do this as a last resort.

Our original social worker has made some calls to her contacts at a couple of child placing agencies to see if she can find someone to "take over" and perform this faster & more cost effectively. Honestly, I am praying that she can find someone and it will work out. I don't care who does it as long as they have a valid child placing agency license and can do it fast! Our first option doesn't appear to be that fast, but it could end up being our only hope. I should know more later today, I hope!

On the positive side, all of our dossier documents will be notarized and completed, as long as our bank notary will go down the block to notarize our medical statements, tomorrow. That is with the exception of our USCIS approval and state background check that should be here in the next couple of weeks. USCIS has our home study and I was told that we should be hearing something soon (as long as they are ok with our home study, pray that they will be). Brenda's other clients haven't had any issues with USCIS not approving them due to the home study, so I'm just praying that we won't either! We had already received our state background check a month ago, but the notary's commission is going to expire 3/18/08. So now we are having to wait for his new stamp to arrive because he is the only person that notarizes the background checks for the state of WV. Absolutely ridiculous! And from what I was told he has a pile of background checks to notarize once he gets his stamp. Hopefully ours won't be lost & will be sent out quickly!! It just makes me nervous knowing that our background check has been lying on someone's desk for a month, especially when he is piled up with tons of other requests! I'm just praying and trying to trust God in all of this. It is certainly a test of my faith. But it's all in God's hands, I've learned that.

Please keep us in your prayers and pray that God will give us guidance as to which direction to go with the home study issue. Either way, we need to get on the ball ASAP, because time is ticking away for Nadia. :( Also, please pray that the rest of our documents will come through quickly and accurate.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support, we really appreciate it!

Still Working on the Home Study Agency Dilemma

We are still working on the dilemma with our home study agency license. It has been a big mess, but I think our facilitator has found a solution. Basically, our home study was completed by a certified social worker operating independently through her own business. She in no way violated any laws set by the state of WV. The problem is that we have to submit a home study agency license with our dossier. Our home study agent does not have a home study agency license, because there is no such license in the state of WV. However, the country that we are adopting from requires that license before they will approve us to adopt.

We have been very concerned that we would have to repeat our home study, which would mean that we would have to completely start over with EVERYTHING that we have done up until this point for our dossier. In addition to the two months worth of work that would be lost, we would also have to pay between $2,000 to $3,000 for a new home study. Also, the adoption agency that would perform it, this time, told me it would take 3 months to complete it.

As of right now, it appears that our facilitator has found an angel to help us out! She works for a child placement agency and has an "adoption agency" license, which the girls' country will accept! The problem is that her office is located over 400 miles away from us. She is the only person that we have found that is willing to take over from our existing home study without making us complete the entire thing over again. It would cost us a few hundred dollars, rather than a few thousand, and she says she could have it completed within 2 weeks!! She is going to check with one more agency near us to see if they will help us by taking over. This agency that she is calling has refused to do the same in the past. If they will not help us, she may. We haven't received a definite answer from her yet, but we are praying so hard that she will be able to help us. It's a really far drive for her and we are just praying that she will do this for us if we pay her extra mileage and get her a hotel room.

Please be praying that this will work out! We can't afford to lose 5 months of our time because of Nadia. Nadia is scheduled for transfer in July. I realize that whatever happens is because it is God's will, but we are praying and hoping for a quick and effective solution!

I will update and let everyone know what transpires as soon as I get an answer today.

Thanks so much for your prayers and for following our journey. Please remember all of the little orphans in the world in your prayers. Also, please remember Dylan Pierce in your prayers. He is the newborn son to my cousin Brandy and her husband Cliff Pierce. He was suctioned out at birth and this caused a fracture in his skull. He still has some swelling from it, but all in all appears to be doing very well! He passed his hearing screening Monday, and that was an answered prayer! He failed his initial hearing screening due to the swelling on his little head. He has another hearing test in 6 months. Pray that will also be a praise report! Thanks so much for remembering all of these requests in your prayers! It means a lot to us!

Welcome New Visitors

I just posted this link to Chloe's website, so I wanted to say "thanks for visiting" to anyone that might be stopping by for the first time. Our adoption process started in January so if you are interested in reading earlier posts, just check out our archive.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog!!

I Lost 10 Inches in 10 Seconds!!

That's right, I lost 10 inches in 10 seconds!! Want to know my secret to trimming down? It's not liposuction!....

Today I donated 10 inches of my HAIR (Don't I wish I lost 10 inches off of my thighs) to Locks of Love. Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.

After Chloe went to be with Jesus I vowed that I would let my hair grow longer and donate it to Locks of Love so that they could use it to make a hairpiece for another child that has lost their hair to chemotherapy. Upon looking deeper into Locks of Love, I have found that they make hairpieces for children regardless of the medical diagnosis resulting in hair loss. Which is great!! I decided that today was the day to make it happen.

If you are interested in Locks of Love, please click on the title of today's post.

Thanks!!

No News

We don't have anything new to tell really. We are just waiting on the letter from the Exec. Dir. of the WV Board of Social Worker Examiners. Our facilitator feels that this should be enough for our dossier. I'm praying so. Apparently, there are other states that also do not have home study agency licenses. You have to supply a copy of the law and a notarized letter from a state official. I guess we won't know for sure how ours will be affected until our dossier is submitted. We're just putting it in God's hands and praying for His will to be done. I believe that it will all work out. The waiting is so hard! I just can't wait to get them home!

I'm still collecting our other dossier documents. Some of them are taking longer than expected, but should be in very soon. I've decided to wait until I get all of the documents before I have anything notarized. I found out that when they are sent to the state to be apostilled, that we will have to pay a fee for each notary that we have used. So if I use the same notary for everything, then that's just one fee.

Thanks for all of your prayers!!

Potential Problems With Our Home Study

We have encountered some potential problems with our home study. As part of our dossier we have to enclose our social worker's license and home study agency license. The first problem is that the certificate that we were given was a copy. It's okay that the certificate is a copy, but the notary was also a copy and was notarized in September of 2007. That's not a big deal. Our social worker is sending us a new copy with a fresh, original notary.

The issue that we are really concerned about is her home study agency license. It was a business certificate from WV State Tax Department. What we are required to have is an official license stating that our social worker is certified by the state of WV to conduct home studies. In addition to that the business certificate expires on June 30, 2008. The SDA wants all of your documents enclosed with the dossier to be at least 6 months away from expiration. Well, it's already February and we are at least a month away from being able to submit our dossier to our facilitator. That doesn't include the time involved for sending ALL of our dossier documents out to the state of origination for apostilles. It also doesn't include the time involved for translation and submission to the SDA.

So basically as it stands right now, we do not have a valid license for our home study agency and the business certificate that we do have is going to expire too soon. I spent most of my day yesterday trying to get some answers about the home study agency license. What I was able to find out is that the state of WV does not even issue a license for home study agencies to operate. The SDA is wanting something from us that doesn't even exist in our state! I was told by the executive director of the WV Board of Social Worker Examiners that the state has a "no scope of practice" law and that our social worker IS operating as required by WV law. I looked up our social worker's license and found that she is in good standing with the state and has had no complaints and has the level of license that she needs to conduct home studies. I wasn't really worried about that, I was just looking for some proof that she is legitimate for the officials at the SDA.

The Exec. Director that I spoke to is supposed to write a letter on their letterhead stating that our social worker is authorized to conduct independent home studies in the state of WV and that there is a "no scope of practice" law that allows her to be able to do this. She said she would have a copy of the law attached to the letter. However, she was not happy about having to get her letter notarized and was clear that it was an inconvenience for her and that she would do it when she had time. Her words were, "I will have to walk all the way down the hall, get on the elevator, walk all the way down to the State dept. and then I'll have to find a notary in there, just so they can watch me sign the letter. She also let me know that this isn't her level of work, that she is over the board of directors, and doesn't deal with adoption of any kind. Her job is to oversee the board and to investigate complaints on social workers. But she couldn't direct me to anyone or another department that could help me, so I felt like she was the one. She said she has had to fulfill the same request for other adoptive parents numerous times in the past. So that tells me that maybe the state of WV needs to get their act together!! They need to either appoint an official to handle these issues or else they need to integrate it into an existing department. I will be writing our congressman! I was less than thrilled with her level of enthusiasm to help me, but what can you do? So I am just praying that she will follow through and do this for us soon. Please pray for us!

Then we don't know that the SDA is going to accept this in lieu of an agency license. Our facilitator seems to think they will and it will be fine. But then we still have the issue that Brenda's business certificate is going to expire.

Needless to say, I have thrown my "mental" time line (of when we should have things done) out the window. I've surrendered it to God and whatever happens is because it is His will. That's a lesson Chloe taught me.

Please keep us in your prayers, that this will be resolved and that the SDA in the girls country will accept this in lieu of the agency license.

Thanks!!

Kristy