This week we had some good news, or at least progress news from our agency. We emailed to ask if they still thought 18 months was reasonable time for us to receive a referral, based on how others waiting in line were progressing. We can see that the MOJ is meeting weekly, but it is hard to tell where they are at in the line of referrals - some are for paperwork in 2005, some in 2009, so very confusing!
Our agency received a referral for another set of parents that had been waiting 17 months at the time they received their referral. We think they also only requested a girl. They were registered only 6-7 months ahead of us.
The other good news is that between 4000-5000 children were recently added to the registry of children available for adoption, based on the work the MOJ did late last year with adding children if they had been in orphanages and parents had not requested to pick them up by December 31, 2009.
So based on this, we were told that 18 months or possibly shorter is still realistic. We are hoping this is the case. It is hard to believe, but in 2 weeks we will already have been waiting for 12 months.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Questions & Answers
Some answers to questions we have received from our blog readers:
Why are there no girls names to vote on?
Two reasons:
1) We have requested either a boy or a girl, but have been told that 90% of the people who adopt only request a girl, so we should expect a boy. There are always more boys available for adoption.
2) We have a girl's name picked out already. The captial of Bulgaria is Sofia, so that is what we would use for a girl's name.
What will use you for a middle name?
We most likely will use Jacob's middle name of Samuel.
Why is it taking so long?
Wish we knew the answer to this one! There are alot of reasons - as Bulgaria has started to move forward with adoptions again with their new MOJ representatives, they are prioritizing certain children first. These are primarily children over the age of 7 and children with special needs.
Before the new MOJ was in place last year, very few adoptions were processed through Bulgaria each year. There are a number of dossiers that were registered before ours that need referrals. Some countries have a policy of lifetime dossiers so people do not have to keep updating paperwork. Some of these families have moved on to other countries or no longer want to adopt, but their paperwork is still on file. The last referral meeting we saw from the MOJ in January, people who had their dossiers registered in the middle of 2006 were receiving referrals. We have been told there are very few (less than 30 dossiers) registered in 2007. Don't know the numbers for 2008, but have heard anything from 100 to 800. We are #78 for 2009 (we believe, based on our registration number).
Why are there no girls names to vote on?
Two reasons:
1) We have requested either a boy or a girl, but have been told that 90% of the people who adopt only request a girl, so we should expect a boy. There are always more boys available for adoption.
2) We have a girl's name picked out already. The captial of Bulgaria is Sofia, so that is what we would use for a girl's name.
What will use you for a middle name?
We most likely will use Jacob's middle name of Samuel.
Why is it taking so long?
Wish we knew the answer to this one! There are alot of reasons - as Bulgaria has started to move forward with adoptions again with their new MOJ representatives, they are prioritizing certain children first. These are primarily children over the age of 7 and children with special needs.
Before the new MOJ was in place last year, very few adoptions were processed through Bulgaria each year. There are a number of dossiers that were registered before ours that need referrals. Some countries have a policy of lifetime dossiers so people do not have to keep updating paperwork. Some of these families have moved on to other countries or no longer want to adopt, but their paperwork is still on file. The last referral meeting we saw from the MOJ in January, people who had their dossiers registered in the middle of 2006 were receiving referrals. We have been told there are very few (less than 30 dossiers) registered in 2007. Don't know the numbers for 2008, but have heard anything from 100 to 800. We are #78 for 2009 (we believe, based on our registration number).
Monday, February 1, 2010
No News
We have been quiet for a few days because there has not been any real news to share - other than update pictures of our new kitty (if anyone's interested). Last Friday, there was a meeting of the MOJ in Bulgaria for 10 hours, but this was primarily to discuss how children identified as special needs were being referred. The MOJ website has not been updated since December, so we do not know if they are continuing to meet to refer non-special needs children and if they are possibly what month/year of potential parents being registered they are up to. I think we will be asking our agency for any updates they have this week since it has been awhile since we have heard anything.
Hanging in there!!
Hanging in there!!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Why We Can No Longer Watch Animal Planet
We will be having a new addition to our family....an Oriental ShortHair kitten. We were watching Animal Planet and a show came on about different cat breeds. Saw the Oriental ShortHair and loved them. They are similar to Siamese, but come in many different colors. There is a cattery in Myrtle Beach that raises these types of cats and just had two litters.
We will most likely be getting one of the gray kittens in the first picture. We were hoping for the brown one, but think he is already taken. Kittens were born in middle of January. We can visit in middle of March and bring one home in April.
3 Dogs, 3 Cats and hopefully soon, 3 People!
No more Animal Planet allowed!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Whirlwind Ride
Last night and today have been a huge whirlwind ride for us!!!
We received some videos from our adoption agency of children that had been identified as special needs (all clients from our agency get them). We opened the videos just to see the kids not expecting to find one that we would be interested in pursuing. Wrong...one adorable little girl caught our eye, can't say too much to protect her identity, but she had very minor (if any real) special needs.
This morning we reviewed her medical and were even more surprised, some minor issues, but no major red flags. Got a little excited, but a little scared too. This was not exactly the type of child we had set out to adopt, but we were both seriously considering moving forward and put a call in to our agency to get a couple final questions answered. Of course our new I800A has not been translated and sent to Bulgaria, so we are not officially "paperwork ready" as required for these special needs referrals. Didn't know what we would have to do for that, plus needing to update paperwork to accept a child with these needs.
We found out this afternoon from our agency that another family (from a different agency and possibly different country) had seen this child's information earlier on the MOJ website, and had already requested her and their request was accepted, so she is no longer available to us. The family only had basic information published on the MOJ website - which is about 3 lines of information, no pictures, or video so there is a chance they would not move forward. But the video and pictures are what convinced us, so we are sure they will continue. We are sad for us, but happy that she has found a home.
So, we go back to waiting for our referral....and maybe paying a little closer attention to the "special needs" list of available children!
We received some videos from our adoption agency of children that had been identified as special needs (all clients from our agency get them). We opened the videos just to see the kids not expecting to find one that we would be interested in pursuing. Wrong...one adorable little girl caught our eye, can't say too much to protect her identity, but she had very minor (if any real) special needs.
This morning we reviewed her medical and were even more surprised, some minor issues, but no major red flags. Got a little excited, but a little scared too. This was not exactly the type of child we had set out to adopt, but we were both seriously considering moving forward and put a call in to our agency to get a couple final questions answered. Of course our new I800A has not been translated and sent to Bulgaria, so we are not officially "paperwork ready" as required for these special needs referrals. Didn't know what we would have to do for that, plus needing to update paperwork to accept a child with these needs.
We found out this afternoon from our agency that another family (from a different agency and possibly different country) had seen this child's information earlier on the MOJ website, and had already requested her and their request was accepted, so she is no longer available to us. The family only had basic information published on the MOJ website - which is about 3 lines of information, no pictures, or video so there is a chance they would not move forward. But the video and pictures are what convinced us, so we are sure they will continue. We are sad for us, but happy that she has found a home.
So, we go back to waiting for our referral....and maybe paying a little closer attention to the "special needs" list of available children!
Monday, January 11, 2010
What We Got In the Mail Today
Our I800A extended approval came today! We are now approved to adopt by the US government through March 28, 2011. 15 more months...we are praying we are done well before that. The first extension request is free, but the second one is not.
We asked our agency today on the status of the referral meetings was (these are the official meetings where representatives from the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria meet to referral available children to waiting adoptive parents). Nothing official but it looks like the last meeting was December 18, 2009. Under the new laws the committee is supposed to be meeting weekly (at least 3 times a month), but it looks like they may not be fully back to that schedule from the holidays. Also no news on the official number of children that are on the registry available for adoption, our Bulgarian team was meeting with the MOJ before the holidays to find out this exact number.
So we are approved again, and waiting!
We asked our agency today on the status of the referral meetings was (these are the official meetings where representatives from the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria meet to referral available children to waiting adoptive parents). Nothing official but it looks like the last meeting was December 18, 2009. Under the new laws the committee is supposed to be meeting weekly (at least 3 times a month), but it looks like they may not be fully back to that schedule from the holidays. Also no news on the official number of children that are on the registry available for adoption, our Bulgarian team was meeting with the MOJ before the holidays to find out this exact number.
So we are approved again, and waiting!
The Perfect Outfit
Yes, we are way ahead of ourselves, but found this adorable shirt for the kiddo on eBay that would be perfect for flying home to the USA in - it even has airplanes. Of course we bought it!
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