Agency Chat

Today I called our adoption agency. I have been complaining that I feel like they have abandoned us during this wait, but I finally decided to stop being stubborn and just call. After a good long round of apologies for not making sure updates were getting to us (try haven't seen one since before Christmas), I asked a few questions. Since we are closing in on a year, I also asked about the expiration dates of our homestudy, fingerprints, and government forms. Here is what I was told:

• Our agency feels, but won't confirm, that the CCAA is trying to keep the referral waits down to under a year. (What happened to 6 months?) With that timeline, we should hear something in the next 2-3 months. I'll believe it when I see it.


• Our homestudy will be a year old this month. All Texas residents have to update their homestudy because the state requires that they be current before bringing the child into the home. We will have to have our SW back over to the house for a brief update. Sounds like it is no big deal, but we may have to rescrub the house and lock up the dogs! I was told that it is something we will do after we get our referral so that it is as current as possible.


• Our fingerprints are good for 15 months so we have a little while to go on that one. However our agency said that our fingerprints must be current at least until we return to the US, so we may end up having to redo them. Again we were told that updating them is a much easier process than the first time. We just have to get an appointment and go back to the UCIS office and get reprinted. They said it usually happens within a day or two. She also said that they will not let us renew them until they are within a month of expiring, so we will have to wait and see when the referral comes.


• Our I-171 government form (basically permission to adopt a child internationally) is good for 18 months. So HOPEFULLY this form will still be good when we finally get to travel to pick up our child.


• We are the first LID our agency has in July and it appears that we are the only family out of the Texas office on that date. I wonder who we will travel with? This will be a good question for the next call.

So no great news, but no really bad news either. You now know what we know. It still looks like we've got some more waiting to do, even to just fill out more paperwork. I never thought I would be ready to fill out more paperwork! (It's a vicious circle.)