I received an unexpected phone call at work on Wednesday from Holt. Unfortunately I was out of the office and when I returned, I heard the voice mail from Minnie. Panic! I thought they were calling to tell me that due the uncertainty of the renewal of the MOU, we should look into other programs. Believe me at one time or another I have looked into all their programs. Since day one, our biggest hurdle has been finding programs with flexible family requirements. There are only two other country programs with Holt that we would be "accepted" and both are not accepting applications from families for children under 3 years old. I would be open to a three year old, but I was hoping for our first child to be younger- simply because we are not parents yet. It is going to be a huge learning experience for us and it seems like it would be helpful to have some parenting experience first before bringing home a 3 year old and trying to parent him/her. By 3 years old, they are already a little person. Really, it scares me that I might not be prepared for an older child right now and I want to make sure that we do not take on more than we are equipped to handle. I believe that our second child will be an older child when we bring him or her home. John and I are both on the same page with that.
Anyhow, I called Minnie back and she was not calling to suggest we look into other programs. She was calling to tell me that we are now #27 on the list (Yay!) and that the agency has decided to change the process a bit. We are to compile our dossier and submit ASAP. The dossier will be submitted to Vietnam and translated. When we are referred a child, the dossier will already be in Vietnam. Hmm. Not what I expected her to say, but OK. It is some progress. It gives me a project to work on for the next 2 weeks. That is the deadline I have given myself. So I am going thru my list this weekend of what my steps are. First step is to contact the Secretary of the State on Monday to find out if I need county certification prior to state certification.
I have a few thoughts on the agency's motivation to change the process but really in the end, it does not matter why the change. The fact is the process has changed, and I am going to put our dossier together in 2 weeks and then go back to waiting.
1 comment:
Ugg, well, I'll tell you that getting the dossier done without the stress of just getting a referral, doing the acceptance paperwork, letter to your baby and photo album is nice. It was a lot to do both at the same time. Good news that you get to get that beast out of your way.
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