Time To Let it Out!

I have been trying for some time to find a way to write this post.  I am still having difficulty.  The past few weeks have been filled with some unfortunate circumstances that we are still battling to overcome.  Please understand that the statments may be a bit vague out of respect for all involved.

I have written in the past about our predicament between our agency and psychologist.  We are hopefully at the tail end of that BUT it has caused A LOT of added stress and tension as well as some delays.  Many feelings were hurt over the situation and Jason and I were put in the middle of it.  There were many things happening that we were not in the least bit of control of.  We handled oursevlves in the best manner we could but we also let others know when we were upset and also that we would NOT compromise our integrity, sorry, just not gonna happen!  This mama bear had to bear her claws on more than one occasion over the last couple of weeks.  In the end (praying it was the end...) we had to do a few things that we did not want to have to do and that we felt were completely unnecessary and not our responsibility.  We had to smooth the waters between these two individuals in order to move forward with the adoption. In the end, everyone had to compromise.

I just want to say that we believe EVERYONE has Claudia's best interest at heart.  We really like our psychologist and think she did a great job.  We also know that our agency probably works with the country on a more consistant basis and knows the current requirements.  We are not saying that either one was wrong in thier stance, we just wish they would have worked together and "played nicely."  If you have trouble finding a psychologist I would definately reccomend mine to you BUT I would advise you to speak to your agency first about performing the evaluation via tele-medicine (on the phone).  It is completely legitamate but may not be accepted buy some agencies.  Be upfront and clear about your intentions.  I think this is what caused the biggest problem for us.  We showed our agency who we were plannning on using to do the evaluation after already telling them we absolutely coud not find anyone local and they apparenlty did not understand that the eval was not going to be face-to-face.  We will see if it works out in the end.

If it sounds odd to you to do a psychological eval over the phone and internet, we felt the same way!  We did our research though and it is completely legitamate and legal.  The Psychologist we ended up using (there are several that will do adoption evals over the phone/internet/mail) has done over 60 evals this way for our country and more adoption evals than anyone in the US.  We are very confident in her abilities.  If you are not sure, ask your agency!  We went this route as a last resort since we could not find anyone local willing to perform an adoption evaluation.

We are trying to move forward from all of this now.  Our agency has agreed to send our home study and Psych eval directly to the country (before submitting our dossier) to make sure that they are acceptable and to give us time to make the appropriate changes necessary.  This could really be a blessing in disguise since we are still waiting on our USCIS clearances.  Perhaps we will be pre-approved prior to submitting the rest of our documents which could possibly make the adoption go a little quicker.  Praying this is the case and God's plan all along.  I have to believe there is a reason for this situation.  Please let it not merely be a lesson in patience... :)

So after all of this, after tryiing to move on, we received an email from our agency with a timeline. FINALLY!  I had been asking for a timeline for a few weeks.  The timeline we got described the process of the adoption after the submission of our dossier.  It was not what we were hoping for.  According to this timeline we could be waiting to travel for another 3 months or more!  PLUS now we are hearing rumors that our country as slowed its adoption process recently which could cause further delays!  This again could be a blessing in disguise but it is so hard to know that we have to wait even longer to meet our little girl and that she will have to wait even longer to get the proper medical care that she needs.  Jason and I now have a few big decisions to make in the upcoming months.  They have to do with who is going to travel for the entire time and what to do about work and school.  We would appreciate your prayers.

The good thing about the apparent delay is that it gives us more time to save up the money and to fundraise.  On that note:  Jason is starting a second job this week.  He was previously working two jobs, had to stop and is again working two... Confusing I know!  He is such an amazing, hardworking man.  Willing to do whatever it takes to get our baby girl home.  I am still working full time (and then some) and picking up all of the little side-jobs I can.  At least we will have a bit more time now.

We know that it will all work out in God's timing and according to His will.

Thank you for following us on our journey.  I hope to have some good news soon.  Waiting for the rainbow after the storm :)