Last Friday I received the draft copy of my homestudy. It was pretty much the same as the first with a few minor updates. I'm hoping that I will receive it soon and the government will have it by the end of the month. Then they wait begins for approval. At this point I'm ok with things going slowly. Financially it is much better the longer things take. My brother is coming to visit in April and again in the summer (my parents are coming for a bit then too). I want to be able to enjoy our time together, to go places and experience things while waiting. By summer I will have a better idea how things are going with the adoption and I'll know what I can afford a bit better. There was a little girl that was listed on Reece's Rainbow that I was interested in but unfortunately my agency can't get her file. Instead I will just have to try to be patient and wait for a referral. Things are moving forward, which is all I want right now.
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On Saturday I had the final homestudy meeting of my life. This either works out or I'm done. The meeting was short and uneventful. It went really well and I should have the draft copy by this weekend. Hopefully the agency will quickly approve after I review the draft and they get it off to the government by the end of February. Then I hope to have government approval by the end of April. By the end of June hopefully the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria will have my dossier and I will get approval from them shortly after. I won't have proposal fees fully saved until the end of August at the earliest (with maxing out my credit card for travel) so I'm hoping to have a bit of a wait for a referral. I doubt I will get one immediately anyway. Also I should be getting a fee reduction so that might shave off a month. In that case I will have the money in time. Always something to stress about. Either it's paperwork or it's having funds in time. I just hope it will all be worth it in the end.
My adoption agency has made me shut down all social media and stop talking about the adoption. This sucks.... a lot! After having support from my readers for almost six years and from my YouTube viewers for five it's really hard to just step away and not be able to update. This blog is actually password protected right now. Why am I posting this if it's password protected, you ask? Because one day this journey will be over and I will be able to share everything with the world. I want to continue to document my journey even if I can't share it right now. For now I will continue to blog, continue to make videos, and one day I will be able to share them with everyone. Until then, I write for myself, because it's therapeutic and because I want this journey to matter.
Boy do I have a lot to update on! First off my agency for India has been completely dishonest and due to them not having a valid license for India my registration is invalid. Because I no longer could trust them (and the real possibility of them losing their license permanently) I made the decision to pull from them. Then I had to decide to go with another agency and start the (very long) wait for registration again or switch countries. In the end I decided the time to do the paperwork to switch countries was actually worth it over paying a small fortune to switch agencies to then still be dealing with the insane slowdown of India. So here I am in the process of redoing my homestudy for Bulgaria and getting that all sorted out. There is some good news in that mix though.
On October 24th I was officially registered with India. Before I started my homestudy the wait for approval was around two weeks. In the summer there was a huge slow down because of staffing changes. Now the wait is insanely long. I've been seeing people wait five and six MONTHS for approval. I feel that this is totally unacceptable but I can't change it. There are also SO MANY holidays in India. Every other week it seems like they are closed for one holiday or another. This is slowing things down even more. Now I feel that because they are so behind they are so stressed out and aren't even trying to catch up. I feel that they are deflated and therefore are just dragging along. They said they would be back to normal timelines by mid-November but there are so many people still waiting. I keep checking the Facebook group hoping to see a huge amount of people say they got approval but it hasn't happened yet. Right now I'm just hoping that it's not going to take me six months. Given how slow things are going I'm starting to lose hope that I will be a mom in 2019. The only "good" thing with the slow down is that I will have all my agency fees paid by the end of March and my travel saved by the end of July. If I haven't traveled, and it's not happening soon, by July I'm going to go home for the month. It won't cost me that much and by then I'll have enough funds that it wouldn't matter anyway. If I'm still waiting in the fall I'll start saving for maternity leave and maybe even a vacation. So tired of waiting....
My home study was approved by my agency back in June but I have been waiting for provincial approval since July. I FINALLY received it in the mail last week! It was approved October 5th but took forever to actually get it into my hands. I immediately sent it off to my coordinating agency who then sent it for authentication by the Ontario government. Meanwhile I realized my home study package didn't include a bunch of paperwork that they needed to register me with India so I had to have my home study agency send those over as well. Authentication thankfully only takes a few days so I should be officially registered with India around Wednesday!!!!! For those that don't know I had to let Penny go though. Things have just been really hard and it was a choice that I had to make for myself.
Right now I'm in the "hurry up and wait" stage that's just standard for adoption. There is literally nothing for me to do but wait in terms of paperwork. Right now I'm still paying down the current fee so that it will be hopefully paid when it's due. The next big fee will be due when I officially say that I accept Penny to be my daughter. I actually can't officially accept UNLESS I have the money to pay that fee. After that will be another hurry up and wait while paying down fees (hopefully on time). The biggest thing I'm trying to share right now is something that seems so far away but will be here before you know it. Travel. I have been allowed to set up a Reece's Rainbow grant so that I can hopefully travel as soon as I'm allowed, I would hate for her to stay in the orphanage longer because I can't afford to travel. All donations there go to Reece's Rainbow and then when I have travel dates they grant me those funds directly to the travel agent. I cannot use those fund for agency fees unless there are fees outstanding that I need to pay but I'm hoping to be able to cover all those myself before then so when it is time to travel I just have to think about that. Since Reece's Rainbow is a non-profit all donations are tax-deductible for US citizens!
How to Help with Agency Fees: Pledge on Patreon - http://patreon.com/choiceofmotherhood Purchase a T-Shirt - http://hopeinthemaking.com How to Help with Travel Expenses: Donate to the grant - https://reecesrainbow.org/126105/sponsorpenny (tax deductible for US citizens) Purchase a Gift Card - https://www.babylist.com/micheleadoption I'm so excited because this morning I paid another fee to my coordinating agency! I can't believe how close I am to having my second milestone completely done. This time last year it seemed that it would be forever to get to this point and now it's just around the corner. Once I'm finished paying it the fees still continue, all still have about $13,000 in agency fees plus travel to pay, but it's still amazing to have a big step paid off. Thanks to fundraising (which I can no longer do), t-shirt sales, and my supporters at Patreon I am about three MONTHS ahead of where I thought I would be! That's THREE MONTHS closer to bringing my daughter home. There are still some big mountains to climb but I am trusting the universe that the funds will be there when I need them to be. Thank you for all your love and support, if you would like to help support this blog, my YouTube channel and help me bring my daughter home come join us on Patreon where you can pledge as low as $5 a month!
Due to some regulations I have been forced to close the GoFundMe and stop all fundraising efforts. I will be able to continue my t-shirt business and I'm hoping to add some homemade dolls to that as well. Things will be delayed, there is no way to avoid that now. I just can't work enough to get things paid as fast as they need to be. Overall I'm hoping that it won't be delayed more than four months total. I will have to delay getting Penny's file by about two months and I will have to delay getting her for about two months. I've lowered my grocery and gas budget even more starting in August (July I have surgery and need to be able to have gas to get to/from the hospital lol) and I'm hoping that will help a bit with things not being as delayed. Thank you everyone for your love and support!
Emmie's Army is fighting strong and we are down to needing just 607 donations of $5 to cover the referral acceptance fee. This of course is if the timing is right that I get approval end of September for my homestudy, approval from India mid-October. If I have approval sooner the fees are due sooner and therefore the funds will be going to the registration fee for India instead since I won't have time to put in as much of my own money towards that. I can't see that happening though because my homestudy still needs to be submitted to the government and it's taking closer to 3 months right now for approval. If my agency sends it even mid-June (right now!) then that would still be mid-September. My only concern at this point is that Penny's file is approved before I am registered and another family gets to her first. BBBBBUUUUUUTTTTTTTT Penny would still have a family and I will still end up with the child I'm meant to have. My heart will be broken but I trust that if Penny is meant to be mine she will be and I honestly can't do anything to change that. I can't make the government move any faster so I'm just stuck waiting. I wouldn't be able to afford the fees fast enough anyway, even if I was given complete approval today I'm still not able to pay for registration until the end of September. So it really is just a wait and see while fundraising as much as possible for the fee to accept her referral.
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About Me
I am 31, single, and been on my journey to becoming a single mother since 2013. I have struggled with infertility and I am now on the path to international adoption of a little girl with Down syndrome. Come join me on my journey to becoming a mother! Categories
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