We got a couple of emails from our adoption agency in the past two days with some potentially good news and some not so good news.  First, the good news is that a baby girl has just arrived in the orphanage that our agency works with.  Since we’re first in line with our agency for a girl, this new arrival could potentially be Alyssa, if everything works out.  Obviously, a series of checks need to be done before we will know anything for sure, the most important being medical tests.  The provincial authorities in Vietnam will also have to “match” our dossier to this baby in order for a referral to be made.  From what our adoption agency tells us, that means the authorities will check to see if the baby meets the criteria specified in our home study, which is a healthy baby girl as young as possible.  Our agency was in Vietnam last week, met with the provincial authorities, talked to them about the waiting families and their desires.  So, we are in a good position, assuming this little girl meets the criteria.

The not so good news is that the timing of when we may be able to get Alyssa is still very uncertain.  We had hoped that after their Vietnam visit our adoption agency could provide more specific info on when we might be able to travel to Vietnam and get Alyssa.  About all they could say, however, is that the process will take around four months, once a baby is identified.  Everytime we think about waiting another four months, we get pretty down, but that is the way international adoptions are - one great big roller coaster ride full of ups and downs.  Hopefully, the next update will be the one that says Alyssa has been found!!

We received an email from Cathy and Linda from the Adoption Center of Washington last Friday. They said that they will be going to Vietnam today (March 13) to handcarry our dossier documents and to meet with other agencies and officials from the Vietnamese International Adoption Center. It’s a little hard to tell whether this is good news or bad news regarding the timing of Alyssa’s arrival. We’ll obviously know more once Cathy and Linda return from their trip.

I guess this kind of thing is to be expected when a country restarts a stopped international adoption program. We’re waiting as patiently as we can until we can bring Alyssa to her new home and into our family.

Just a real quick note to say that we got confirmation via Fedex that our dossier was delivered in Vietnam.  So now the wait really is on.  Because all the procedures in Vietnam are new, we don’t know if we’ll hear anything else before we get our referral. 

Got word from our adoption agency last night that the dossier was completed in Washington and on its way to Vietnam. So the big wait now begins until we get a referral. Because all of the procedures are new compared to Jessie’s adoption, we don’t know how long this will take. We’ve got our fingers crossed that it will be quick, but our adoption agency says it could be up to four months.

Hopefully, the next status update will be that we’ve got a referral!

A real quick update on our dossier.  Talked with the adoption agency last night.  They got the dossier back from the Vietnamese Embassy, but a couple of documents had to be re-done.  They hope to have them completed today and be able to send our dossier to Vietnam.

Our dossier is complete and has been finalized, stamped, etc by the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. The Adoption Center of Washington should be sending it to Vietnam later this week. That means the clock can start ticking on the process in Vietnam. Still no definite word on how long that will take.

I spoke with our adoption agency last night. They anticipate that Alyssa will come from the orphanage that they have been sponsoring over the past several years. Right now, there are no infant girls in the orphanage - just four small boys. But, the agency is optomistic that a girl will arrive soon. We will be the first family from the ACW to get an infant girl since Vietnam has re-opened.

Just a follow up to say that the licensing process is complete. We received a second email from our adoption agency with a picture of their Vietnam rep getting a copy of their license from a Vietnamese government official. The email also included a process for adoption that spells out the time line for adoptions in Vietnam. It says that the time from receiving a complete dossier until a finalized adoptiong is 120 days. We don’t know exactly what that means, yet. Hopefully that is the maximum time and it can be shortened.

Great news today!! We got an email from our adoption agency saying that they had received a call telling them that the Vietnamese government had approved their license. Nothing in writing yet so they are holding this news close, but they expect to have written confirmation by early next week.

So, one of the big hurdles has been cleared. Our agency also told us that our dossier was still at the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington being translated. As soon as that is complete, they will fedex it to Vietnam to be presented to the Vietnamese government. Ours should be one of the first to be submitted by a US adoption agency since Vietnam has re-opened for international adoptions.

We are obviously very excited, but many questions remain. The exact process for this adoption is not clear so we don’t really know when to expect a referral from the Vietnamese or when we’ll be able to go to Vietnam once we get the referral. We also are not sure whether we’ll have to only make one trip to Vietnam or two like we did for Jessie. But, these questions will clear up with time. Since the licensing was the one issue that had the potential to really hold things up, we’re very happy.

More to follow as soon as we get news.

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.