Word of the month remains: "Flexibility"

When we applied for an international adoption they told us to "be flexible, we are dealing International governments." This is not to mention our own government if you have ever been through this process, you might understand. We have had as many minor setbacks as victories in the past several weeks. As of the last post, the Nepalese government added several new documents to the dossier. The children's birth certificates arrived and we officially became "paper pregnant" on December 1st. Our friend Darlene Abbott just happened to walk into the UPS store as I was paying and witnessed it leave my hands. It was a great feeling. It was like turning in a major paper at the end of a semester! Now we just wait for a grade. Our case worker, SooJin, informed us that there are nine families working on Nepal dossiers and that only one had been submitted thus far (it happens to be our friends, the over-achieving Lamberts). She said that Nepal would not begin to process any dossiers until Jan 1, 2009 so we have plenty of time to have our dossier approved by our placing agency and sent on to Nepal for translation and viewing by the Ministry of Women and Children Nepal.

The very next day I got the following email from SooJin:

"I was just informed by our staff in Nepal that in the next couple of weeks, they are expecting the government to make a new announcement on the dossier format. There will be set of additional documents they will require. Unfortunately, I do not have all the details on the new format yet, but we were able to get few. Please be prepared for any changes that will occur in the near future. I also want to remind you that Nepal is a new program, and with the recent opening of adoptions, everyone is learning and complying with the new process. Our staff in Nepal will notify me as soon as they receive the new format update.

This can be a frustrating situation, but we do ask for your understanding in matters such as these. Yes, it’s definitely not fun having to re-do some of the documents or even preparing additional documents, but we are dealing with a foreign government, who can change things on us at anytime. But I can assure you that our team will do their best to update us so that we meet all of Nepal’s requirements. I will be calling everyone over the next couple of days to go over the list below. Thank you again for your patience!!!"


· They require 2 originals of all documents
· All pages of the home study will need to be notarized
· All documents will need to be notarized. If there is no space on the front page, the back page will need to be notarized
· Passport copies (in color) will need to be notarized.
· Extra photocopies will need to be in color
· Birth certificates and marriage certificates will need to be notarized on the back
· Financial statement and listing of properties will need to be on the home study agency’s letterhead

The good thing is that we had already color copied all of the documents. However, they are still waiting for an answer as to whether color copies could count as two originals. If not, we are basically starting over to collect another set of originals for the entire dossier. Which to me makes no sense since all of the information is the exactly the same. Either way though, All God's Children will need to return our dossier to us to get the additional documents notarized. We can do that. Our biggest prayer right now is that we will not have to retrace all of our steps to the Dr., the bank, the police department, employer, references.........................blah................blah.........

In other news, I received a letter from Homeland Security with an appointment for a second set of fingerprints since they could not read my first set. The date they appointed was for the day after Thanksgiving. This was the year we had planned to travel to Salem for what was to be our longest stay ever. We did not want to have to cut our visit to only one full day. I took a chance and went on Tuesday hoping they would understand my plight. The security guard remembered me (since he used to work for Honeywell in Freeport) and put in a good word for me. They took my prints, but made it clear to me that they have had a high rate of rejected prints as a result of the cold, dry weather. The supervisor prepared me for receiving a call from the immigration officer detailing the next steps involving another background check. She told me that she would watch for my name come to through with "next weeks rejects" to help speed the process along (these are words you never want to hear!). However, thankfully she did just that. The immigration officer did call me this morning (bright and early at 7:38 A.M.) to tell me that my the FBI accepted my prints! Praise the Lord! Just when I begin to become frustrated, my hopes are restored.