We're back but missing Abraham

Many of you have heard that we were unable to bring Abraham home with us. We had gotten clearance from the US Consulate's office prior to making travel arrangements that everything was ready to go with the kids. However, when we got to our appointment on Tuesday morning, Consular Gurski told us that Abraham would not be granted a visa because the age determination test which she had ordered came back with him being 17 to 19 years old. After attempts to change her mind with a second set of x-rays and medical opinions from three doctors associated with the African Mercy Ship, she said she would not reconsider. In fact, she refused to look at the doctor's conclusions from the new x-rays. We tried to appeal to the American Ambassador only to be told that they didn't interfere with the Consulate's decisions. Abraham was found to be 4 foot 8 inches and 82 pounds at the Mercy Ship. His actual age is about 12.

So we came home with Diamond (5 years) and Kindness (2 years). It was a very sad day for all of us when we had to tell Abraham that he couldn't come now but that we would fight to bring him home as soon as we could. We've started the fight by contacting our senators and representatives and whomever we can think of that might be able to help our case.

The girls are adjusting well and are busy playing with the whole family. We've had some tears at bedtime and other quiet times when Diamond (5 years) asks about when Abraham will be coming home. Kindness (2 years) points to Abraham's picture and looks around so we know she realizes something isn't right. Other than that, we are doing okay. Thanks for all the prayers and please continue to pray that we can resolve this issue and bring Abraham home as soon as possible. I am working at getting pictures ready for you to see.

If anyone has had to contest the American Consulate's decision, please leave a comment so I can contact you. Thank you.

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork

I'm filling out all the paperwork for the final stages of the adoption process. We need three years worth of tax data, three different immigration forms, birth, death, marriage, divorce certificates for the documentation PER CHILD! Whew! That doesn't count the documents to get the Visa for us to travel to Liberia. I've put all my to-do's and my travel checklist in an Excel spreadsheet. That way if I lose the dumb thing (which has happened a lot lately???), I can just print it out again. If you need more specific information about traveling and what to remember to bring check this blog from another family that adopted from Liberia. It is very thorough.

We're Clear to GO

Rachel from AOH called last night to tell us the Embassy had given us the go-ahead to set an appointment with them in Liberia. This means we can travel to pick up the kids. I don't think reality will set in until we're in the air. In fact, Rachel probably wondered why I didn't sound excited when she called but I'll be excited when we meet with Alma at the Embassy to get the paper saying the kids can come to the US. Rachel if Abraham had his age changed after having the age test or not. The age test just determined that he was young enough to be adoptable. The airline tickets use 12 as the start of adult ticket pricing so we need to know what age all the documents have him as.

I've requested an appointment for the last week in October since Del is swamped with projects now. However, this adoption has been God's timeline forever so we'll see what really happens. :-)

Now I'm making lists and trying to get organized to go! Thanks for everyone's prayers and support over this long process.

We've hit another snag

I haven't posted much about the adoption since we didn't have much to share. However, this week we got a surprise. Acres of Hope contacted us that the Embassy in Liberia had contacted them. I haven't been able to find out what specifically the Embassy told AOH, but I'm working on that. However, we still don't have clearance to travel and we were advised NOT to make any travel arrangements yet.

We also don't know the outcome of Abraham's age test so I don't know if that's the hold up or if it is something new. When I know more, I'll share. In the meantime, we're praying for resolution to our adoption so we can bring our three kiddos home soon. I find I'm losing patience with people since we've waited this long and information is scarce. Others in similiar situations have referred to this as 'Mama Bear' mode. So my prayer also includes keeping my attitudes correct. :-)

Abraham's Age Test

We found out on Friday that Abraham's age test has been completed. We don't have anymore information beyond that, though, about whether everything is a 'go' or if there is more to do or how old he supposedly is. I say supposedly because age testing as I understand is still a guess. Maybe a more educated guess, but a guess regardless.

I'll post more when we hear more.

Renew our forms with USCIS

When we had to update our fingerprints in May I thought we would be done traveling before it was time to renew our adoption forms with the government, I-600A. However we haven't traveled and the deadline is approaching so yesterday I mailed our updated homestudy in to renew our I-600A. This is an important document issued by our government giving us permission to adopt. The form is good for 18 months so we'd better have the kids home before I have to do this again!!!

The next installment.....

I figured the title was accurate regarding the next installment of this crazy journey to adopt some kids from Liberia!!! What I mean is that it appears that Alma is open to letting us proceed with the adoption of Kindness despite the fact that she is not the daughter of the same dad as Diamond and Abraham. HOWEVER, Alma has ordered Abraham to undergo age testing. This isn't really a surprise since we were never quite sure how old he was. And according to other families that have traveled to pick up their kids, AB is one of, if not the tallest boy in the orphanage. Sooooo....that means that Abraham has to have x-rays and stuff by an embassy doctor to determine his age which translates to another few weeks of waiting. We're not sure what the next step is after the age testing. I guess that's the Next Installment. :-)

I thought I was a pretty patient but I can tell I can still use some practice. I know God made the world in six days but good grief!!! does it have to take forever to get these kids home? I know my problem is that we started this journey back when AOH adoptions were averaging between six and nine months. After 7 pregnancies where I was overdue every time, I figured I could handle this timeline. Piece of cake. As you can see from the ticker, we've been waiting since April '07 for the kids and June '07 for these specific kids! Talk about being overdue!!! I tend to be an optimist but like to know the worst-case-scenario to be able to come up with a Plan B. Hence my need for more patience practise. I know of a couple of others that have had difficult 'paper pregnancies' so I dare not complain too loudly. If you're one of those families, I applaud you. You're my inspiration.

There are two travelers this week... Laura R. and Peter G. I'm hopeful Laura will be able to get a few pictures of Kindness since her son is about the same age. I've been mooching pictures off the parents that have already traveled to be able to put together some pages for the kids' life books. Life books are like baby books for adoptive children. However, if you'd ask my bio kids, they'd probably ask, "What baby books??? We don't have one!" Actually, I have baby books, they just aren't filled out and the pictures are in a big box. So, I'm already 8 behind. I was also planning to make quilts for everyone's wedding. I'm two behind on that, too. BUT, I did make two baptismal gowns for my grandkids, so there! Can anyone else relate?

DNA Results - What next?

Well, we have the results of the DNA test with the children and the dad. Abraham and Diamond are the dad's kids. However, Kindness is not his child. We don't know what that means now. The orphanage and the Embassy are working to resolve Kindness's case. I'll post more as we learn more.

Happy Birthday, Diamond! Diamond turned 5 on Friday. Please say a quick prayer for her as a birthday gift to her.

Hoping to hear DNA results today

Well, the DNA made it to the lab on Monday. We were told it takes 48 hours to process, so if they started processing on Tuesday, the 48 hours is up. Hopefully, we'll get an email from AOH today about the results. The official paper has to return to the US embassy in Liberia but we should be able to get the news before then. We're getting closer....

DNA is leaving Liberia

Rachel, the AOH adoption consultant, confirmed the DNA swabs were taken and should be leaving the US Embassy in Liberia by now. We have two Rachels we talk about all the time... "Rachel, our daughter" and "Rachel, from AOH". So that is their new names. A family from Tampa just returned with their three girls from AOH, another family from Iowa leaves Sunday to pickup Abraham's friend Enoch, and yet another family has gotten travel clearance. These were all from the April 2007 referral time-frame. I don't know of any more families left to travel but if there are, I hope their cases are moving forward.

Pray that the DNA tests move quickly and that they confirm the familial relationships needed to get the kids' US visas. Also, pray for the families that are traveling soon, the Duvals and the Rennies.

WE'RE FINALIZED!!!

Yes, you read it right. The kids have been finalized this past week. So we are now their parents and family according to the courts in Liberia. They already have their passports from Liberia. And, they have had their birthparent interview yesterday with the American embassy. The American consulate meets with the birth parents and the kids to determine that the parents are really who they say they are. Most of the time now a DNA test is ordered to establish the legal right of the adults to relinquish the children to us. The consulate ordered the DNA test be conducted which will take about a month since the tests are sent to America for processing. So as long as we don't hit any more glitches we may be traveling around the end of July. However, since everything has taken lots longer than we thought it would, we won't make any arrangements until we hear back about the DNA test results. Thanks for everyone's prayers on our behalf.

Ramblings...

Nothing yet from AOH about finalization although two friends of Abraham's have moved through finalization and onto the next step. That's good news that adoptions have resumed and we should be hearing something soon. I plan to send a card with one of the families that should be traveling soon to let the kids know we haven't forgotten them in the year since we got their referral.

Karl auditioned for Treasure Island this week. He is anxiously waiting for the phone call from the director as I'm typing this to hear which of the pirates he gets to be. He was told he would be in the show and be a pirate but now we'll find out how many lines he gets, if any. Craig has been 'hired' to be the light man and Erik is the student director. I think Erin will be helping out backstage with her new friend Allie. Allie's younger brother will be a pirate, too, after he gave such a great audition by memorizing his lines in about 10 minutes. Karl is busy re-reading the book Treasure Island in order to refresh his memory of the story.

It is really starting to get summery now. It is easily 90 plus degrees and humid by mid-morning. The kids and I went to a local spring to go swimming with some other homeschoolers. As it turned out, Karl and I were the only ones to go in the water. The springs are much like a lake with the dirt bottom and tree roots and algae, etc. The highlight of our afternoon was the appearance of a 4 foot alligator in the springs. I may never get the others into the water since I had convinced them that alligators don't frequent the freshwater springs because they are too clear and too cold. We left but a friend said that the gator disappeared and everyone trickled back into the water for the rest of the afternoon!

Still waiting.... Big Liberian gov't meeting Weds.

This has been a challenging week for lots of reasons. Grandma is finishing her final walk here on earth before she goes to live with the Lord, Megan is still deciding if she wants to move back to WI this summer, we're waiting to receive our updated homestudy, we're waiting for the directive to go to Jacksonville for our fingerprints updates this week and we are still waiting on finalization for the adoption. Whew!
My grandma will be 96 years old June 10 and has been battling cancer for a year (or more). Although it would be cool to have her make it to her birthday, the cancer is winning and God has other plans, I think. This weekend the hospice nurse guessed she had 24 to 48 hours. I'll write more later but Grandma is more than ready to walk with the Lord.
As for Megan, she has given herself until Thursday (her birthday) to make her decision. Del and I, of course, don't want to see her go but ...... We'll see.
Our fingerprints expire on Monday, the 26th. We HAVE to get them redone this week. As for the finalization, on Wednesday the officials in Liberia are meeting to discuss the improvements they want to see in their adoption policies. I doubt any finalizations will be made this close to a big decision meeting. We should know more on Thursday about whether our case will be finalized or if we have to wait longer for the official decisions to be made. Who knows? Maybe this meeting on Wednesday is to decide they need to have a meeting to make a decision!
Now I need to get back to sewing costumes for Romeo & Juliet! At least I have something to keep my hands busy from snitching chocolate while I wait! I wish I'd inherited my grandma's take-it-or-leave-it attitude about chocolate!

Latest news

Still not much to report about the progress of the adoption. Our case is in front of a Liberian judge to have the adoption decree signed. However, there is some confusion if we will be considered a new case since AOH found the additional birth mom or if we will be considered an old case since we've been in process for so long. Since last fall when the new US consulate arrived adoption has been in upheaval in Liberia. The new consulate runs a tight ship and has forced the orphanages and the Liberian government to improve their procedures and policies as well. This is a good thing for the kids but slow for us. The issue of whether we're a new case or an old case stems from the fact that Liberia is revising their policies for adoption and it seems that new cases are on hold until about June or whenever they get their policy revision finished. So we wait in the Lord.

In the mean time we have company! Del's parents are here this week so that is a welcome break. Megan is still struggling with whether to move back to WI or not. Erik has lured Craig to the playhouse for the Romeo and Juliet production. Erik has learned theatrical fencing for his role and has assured me they are NOT to wear tights. Craig will be helping with the technical crew. I get to sew three doublets for the end of the month production. Erin is wrapping up school and researching dual enrollment for college and job hunting. Karl is busy riding his new bike. Del has been traveling and working long hours. Hopefully, this will diminish in the next month or so. I'm deciding when I can go back to WI to visit Grandma Bahr again. She is failing now, the cancer has progressed to where they are giving her higher doses of pain meds. Unfortunately, this confuses her and causes her to sleep more. I haven't been able to call her on the phone for a couple of weeks. That's it for us for now.

Time marches on....

I can't believe it is Saturday already! Time is really going by fast. One example is when my doctors start looking as old as my oldest children! Uff da! I went to the chiropractor yesterday for a much needed adjustment and this young fella comes in saying he's the doctor. I mean, I'm not old but he looks young! It is confirmed now, though, I have a stiff neck. I've lost the curvature in my upper neck and need to get my exercising moved up on my priority list! Exercising is unfortunately one of the things that I let slip when things start getting crazy in my life.

Another example of time marching on is that it has been a year since we received our original referral. Our first referral was also two girls and a boy, except the boy was the youngest. Their mom took them back home from the orphanage in early June. I hope they are well. The day we lost the referral in June was the day we found out about Abraham, Diamond and Kindness. At the time, we were told our adoption shouldn't be delayed. However, a lot of things have happened since then and we are still waiting. We've been trying to get more specific information rather than the very tentative time frames that we usually get. When we hear anything, we'll post. The 'few more months' line is getting old fast.

The problem is that Liberia is revising their adoption policies. This is a result of the new American consulate that started her two year term late last summer. This new consulate tightened up all the procedures which was a good thing but this also slowed down the adoptions. These improvements on the US side highlighted the need for Liberia to improve their rules and procedures. This is great for adoptions so that everything is legal and by the book. Unfortuantely, we are stuck in the middle of all these changes along with some other families and consequently, our adoptions have been delayed.

Liberia is working on improving their adoption procedures right now. One thing that Liberia is considering is making all families travel twice, once to see their child(ren) before adoptions and the second time to pick them up. The other tentative requirement being discussed is to have DNA matching done on all the children. A friend found this information in an adoption magazine but there hasn't been any official word yet. More on this later...

Renewing fingerprints & Grandma's car

I was talking with the yahoo group about the progress with the adoption and was reminded that we should renew our fingerprints. Fingerprints are good for 15 months and ours expire the end of May. Since time is getting close and it takes some time to get appointments to have it done, I guess we'll go ahead and renew our fingerprints before they expire (a BIG no-no). We're also waiting on our homestudy update to be completed. Our social worker is writing it up now.

Some of you may remember my earlier posts about my Grandma. She's a terrific woman of God and I'm very proud of her. Rachel and Steve compiled a bunch of family pictures onto a digital frame and gave it to her this weekend. We had one photo of my mom and her brothers as kids in a one-room schoolhouse. Grandma really loved this one since my mom died eight years ago. If anyone has an elderly relative or someone in a small home, digital frames are great ideas. We put pictures of flowers (my Grandma has a green arm), places she'd like to see, and of course, family on it. I'm working at taking older, non-digital pictures and scanning them into the 'puter to make them digital to be added to the frame.

We bought a 'new' car. Grandma drove until last fall when she went into the nursing home for rehab. When it became obvious she wouldn't be driving again, she decided to sell her car. We bought it for a teen car for Erin and Erik and as a backup for Megan's old car. Now we have to figure out how we're going to get it from WI to FL.

Still waiting ....

We now know that Abraham's mom was the one that died and that the girls are full-siblings. Their mom is the one that is still alive and on whom we're waiting for her relinquishment signature. Time is different in Liberia. Some families that have traveled this adoption road before have said that 'right now' is in about 45 minutes in Liberia. So I'm not surprised that 'any day' has been drawn out to several days. This combined with the state of flux that Liberian adoptions are in right now is the reason why we're still waiting. When we started the adoption process, Liberian adoptions were taking about 6 - 9 months from the time you received a referral to the time you brought home your kids. Now with all the changes being made to improve the system, we are caught in the middle of the transitions. So we are trying to be patient.

Karl is really getting anxious to have Abraham home to be able to have a buddy. We are slowly finding new friends here but there is always a sorting out that occurs. He did play at a homeschool snowbird friend from Wisconsin yesterday. They head back to WI this weekend, though, so Karl will miss them until next winter. I've been having him help me collect orphanage donations to keep him busy. Things like OTC meds, clothes, school supplies, toiletries, pediasure and liquid breakfasts for the caustic kids are all in demand over there. You can go here to see and read about two girls that have ingested caustic soda that are now in Houston for surgeries to repair the damage.

To keep us busy, we're selecting photos to be included in a family digital picture frame for my Grandma. She has a large family of about 80 grandkids, great-, great-great-, and step-grandkids. So we're hoping to get a bunch of photos to keep grandma company when we can't visit. I'm trying to figure out how to put captions on the photos to help jog grandma's memory.

Waiting on birthmom...

Like I mentioned before, Abraham, Diamond and Kindness are half-siblings. Rachel at AOH is trying to find out who is half-sibs to whom. I called her to find out if we needed to be concerned that the surviving birthmom would want the kids back only to find out that the birthmom is supposed to come to the orphanage this week to sign the relinquishment papers. Hopefully she will do that but she is in her last trimester of another pregnancy. Since the birthmom is having another child, we are praying that she lets us adopt her kids that are at AOH.

On the homefront, Erik is now working the lighting board for the SVP community theatre group on the Grease production. The community theatre has participants from a tri-county area and the director for Romeo & Juliet is actually our neighbor.

The kids and I went to see the oldest Cyprus tree in Florida (supposedly). It is 900+ years old and is huge. The trunk was over 300 inches around and it was 250 feet tall. My camera skills being what they are, I didn't get a picture due to dead batteries. But as soon as I can get Erik's camera downloaded, I'll post a picture. We went with our new friends who happen to be snowbird homeschoolers from WI.

New information... half-siblings

I spoke with Rachel at AOH last night to get an update on the status of the kids' finalizations since we'd heard more were issued. Come to find out the children are half-siblings with the same dad. I'm waiting to hear which child's mother died. I'm guessing it is Kindness, the one-year old. We (AOH) have the death certificate so we're good on that front. However, this makes things a little trickier for the other child(ren) since AOH has to come up with the birthmother for the US Embassy interview.
Liberia and the US Embassy there is really trying to follow all the rules regarding relinquishment for adoptions and making sure the parents and families of these kids know and understand what adoption is. I just read an article about a Kenyan woman who claims that her relative tricked her into allowing her son to be adopted. She claims that she was told her son would be going away to school but would be able to visit her on school vacations. Culturally, the article said that many poor families send their children to wealthier relatives for schooling like this.
Rachel at AOH is getting more information for us about the status of which kids are full-sibs, etc., and if the birthmom has been tracked down. Keep us in your prayers that this all gets resolved quickly.

On another note, we go to get our Yellow Fever vaccinations this morning. I'm leary of all immunizations and have researched them but this one is required to travel so.... I'll have a sore arm later today.

While we're waiting....

We still haven't gotten the call saying the adoption is finalized. However, of the 14 cases of children waiting to be finalized, I've heard of 8 of them being done. So our odds are going up very quickly!

In the mean time, here is a snapshot of the part of our lives trying to get settled in a new country. I know FL is still part of the USA but being from WI, it might as well be a different country! I like to garden and was raised on a farm but there are LOTS of things growing around here that I've never seen before and lots of things missing that I would usually see this time of year (spring - not March) such as lilacs. I do miss my lilac bush. I've raided the library to get books on FL plants that can stand in for my favorite northern plants. We do want to plant a palm tree since we are in FL afterall. :-)

The kiddos are adapting. Megan has a job in a local bank and is striving to adapt to the policies that are so very different than what she was used to in Grafton. It may be that this bank is TOO friendly to its customers and not structured enough for our slightly OCD daughter. Megan likes things just so and likes to know her boundaries, etc., and this lack of structure in the policies is really stretching her. She needs to get interested in something besides work. There are lots of artsy groups around but they are a little hard to find and weed out what she's looking for.

Erin is looking for a job and getting ready to apply for dual enrollment with a community college. We're thinking about getting her started with dual enrollment (at least for a few classes) this summer. She is interested in nursing and would like to get some college credits out of the way. She and Megan have been best friends since we've moved. They always were but now they are closer. They have almost caught up on all the English-accent movies they love to watch and all the chick flicks. I'm hoping that a couple of teen groups we're trying to get going will help her with finding friends.

Erik has auditioned for the local community playhouse production of "Romeo and Juliet". We visited the playhouse a week ago to get the facts regarding time commitment, how they operate, etc., and were strongly urged to return for auditions on Monday night. After much deliberation, only Erik wanted to try out since Craig didn't want to wear tights. :-) Actually, Erik is more of the thespian. The rest love the theatre but as backstage people. Anyway, he finds out before Friday if he's won a role. I believe he is in the running for either Romeo or Benvolio based on how the tryouts went Monday night. Everyone was quite impressed and told me so, as if he needs anymore encouragement. :-)

Craig is struggling a bit since he is quiet, shy, and very tall. He is now as tall as Erin and Erik. I think he's grown another 2 inches since fall which brings him to about 8 inches since last year. Friday evening Erik, Erin and Craig attended a game night with a local homeschool teen group. We dropped them off knowing no one and when we picked them up, they were having a great time. Many were about the same age as Craig, so I have hopes that Craig will soon feel more welcome and comfortable in this new state.

Karl has found a bunch of friends and new endeavors. He has struggled a little with not being able to play with Noah or his buddy, Peter. He saw Peter every week at our homeschool group in WI and has really missed having him around. They have written to each other but Peter's family doesn't have email so that has hampered my internet savvy child. On the flip side, his handwriting has improved with writing letters. ;-)

Theresa is coming to visit this weekend so we'll be doing some more sightseeing. We have to go see the 'gators and maybe the ocean and the gulf. I'm not sure T can call this a vacation, but we'll try. Everyone is looking forward to visiting with Theresa and showing her all the sights. Maybe we'll have word of our finalization by then, too!