We’re going to use this blog to catalog and preserve in writing our adventure of adopting a baby sister for Jessica. We’ve already started the adoption process and are about ready to have our dossier submitted to Vietnam so we’re not really starting this blog at the absolute beginning of the process. But, our goal is to write down what is happening from this time forward. Also, as time permits, we’ll fill in some the history of this adoption and, perhaps, at the same time, tell the story of how we adopted our oldest daughter, Jessica. Please read on and provide your thoughts and comments. We’d love to hear from you!
New to blogs? Want to find out more about using this blog? Click here [Using This Blog]
This is a primer on blogs for those who may not be real familiar with blogs and how to use them. Hopefully it will help everyone find the info that they are looking for and also allow them to easily follow us on our journey to get Alyssa. If you are already familiar with blogs and don’t want to read the rest of this, click this link Alyssa’s Adoption Blog to go directly to the blog.
Basically, a blog is just a way to post information on the web quickly and easily in a form that anyone can read. Blogs also allow those who read it to comment on the information, if the blog administrator grants permission. For this blog, if you want to comment, feel free to do so, but because the purpose of the blog is primarily to provide info and not solicit comments, I’m going to moderate the comments. My goal is not to limit comments, but rather, to only include comments from people (family & friends) who we know. NOTE: I’ve been experiencing some problems with comments. Sometimes when you submit a comment, you’ll get an error message. If you do, please email me at TW Hayes and I’ll post the comment.
First a little bit about blogs, in general. When you look at a blog, you normally see a screen with text - posts listed in chronological order - and links on the side. For this blog, those links are on the right. You can see they are called: 1) categories; 2) archives; 3) Blogroll and 4) related sites. The first two allow you to view posts in a specific way, either by category or date. The last couple provide some links that may be useful as you read the blog.
Now a brief description about the post format. The title of the post is actually a link to the full post. If you click on it, you’ll be taken to a new page that allows you to post a comment. Notice also that under the title of the post next to the date are the words “filed under.” The link (which is the category under which this post is filed) will take you to all of the post in that category.
There is also a search function on the right side of the screen at the top. It will search all of the posts, in case you’re looking for a specific term.
Generally, unless you’re looking for some specific info, you’ll probaly just want to look at the latest posts. I’ve also created a category called Status that I’ll use to post the latest info on the adoption so you may want to jump to that category, too.
That’s about all there is to blogs. It’s really quite simple. When you’re ready to read all about Alyssa’s adoption, click on the link below.
Click here to go to Alyssa’s Adoption Blog
It looks like we’re entering the final stages of the paperwork drill. Our dossier was complete, but because we moved to Ankara, we needed to update the approval that we had from Citizens and Immigration Services (CIS), the US government agency that provides approval for visas for orphans. Also, when we got our approval we thought we would probably adopting from China. So, we needed to change our home address and the country of adoption.
That turns out to be a two step process. First, we need to change the country of adoption by submitting a form to CIS in Baltimore, the original office who gave us the permission. Amazingly, that only took about a week and we now have that paperwork updated. Now, we need to change our home address, which will be done by the regional CIS office in Athens. We’re working on that right now, but have everything lined up so it shouldn’t take too long.
Basically, we needed to have an updated home study done by a licensed social worker, which we did. We will submit that to the Athens office and we should be all set with the proper permissions from the USG to move forward with the adoption. Now we are just waiting for the Vietnamese government to finish the licensing of US adoption agencies - another whole story.
I decided to create a new category called Status that would make it easy for anyone reading this blog to find out where we were in the adoption process. By reading this section, everyone will be able to get an idea of when we might be getting our second daughter, who, by the way, we are going to name Alyssa. So here is the first status report.
As I’ve said in the Paperwork posts, most of the paperwork had been completed and should be on its way to Vietnam. The only document remaining to be completed is an updated approval from the US government that shows we are now going to adopt from Vietnam and that we are now living in Turkey. See [More Paperwork] to read about this. But, fortunately, our agency didn’t hold up the entire dossier for this one document!
The real question that everyone is asking is When will you get Alyssa? That is now dependent on the Vietnamese government. As you are probably aware, international adoptions from Vietnam were closed for a couple of years and they are just now restarting. That means the Vietnamese government is setting up an entirely new process for adoptions, which includes licensing US adoption agencies. So far, no US agency has been licensed, but that is expected to happen soon — most likely in January 2006.
Once the licensing is completed, our agency can start submitting dossiers to the Vietnamese government and start the process in Vietnam. When that happens, we should be able to get a more definite timeframe for when we’ll be able to bring Alyssa home. For now, we are saying (and hoping) this will happen in the first couple months of 2006.