The other slightly complicating factor was getting many of the documents notarized. Because we’re now living in Ankara, Turkey, it’s not as easy as if we were in the US. But, of course, we got great service from the Consular Section at the US Embassy.

Another interesting twist was updating police background checks. Of course, these have to be done by the local police and be in a language that the Vietnamese authorities will understand. Again, the embassy provided super service. This time the Regional Security Office was able to coordinate with the Turkish National Police to confirm that neither Nancy nor I had any record of criminal activities in Ankara, Turkey.

So, after all of the that was done and we took pictures of our new house to be included in the dossier, we fedexed everything back to our adoption agency. The final dossier should be on it way to Vietnam soon. Will keep you updated.

New to blogs? Want to find out more about using this blog? Click here [Using This 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

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.

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.

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.

Anyway we finished the new form and fedexed it back to the Adoption Center of Washington. They’ve received the forms and also have our dossier back from the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. So, it is ready to be sent to Vietnam! Should happen this week.

We’re also working on getting a new pre-approval letter from the US government that shows we’re living in Turkey. But, that won’t hold up the dossier so it can come later.

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.