2 weeks down...

The past couple of weeks have been a little crazy. After receiving our referral information, we sent everything to the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota so that an adoption specialist could review Sam's medical information. Besides having asthma, he appears to be a very healthy little boy.

Then we wrote a letter to the director at the orphanage officially accepting the referral. After that, we had a ton of paperwork to complete... I-800, I-864W, and DS-230. We also had to update our medicals and employment verifications as well as our FBI Background checks. So we went to the police station last Thursday to get fingerprinted, then went straight to Fed-Ex to overnight our fingerprints to the FBI. Beth warned us that the FBI Background checks have been taking up to 10 weeks lately which is why we needed to get them done ASAP. When I heard 10 weeks I kind of went into panic mode and decided to call Congressman Pomeroy's office (they helped us with Joey's adoption so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask). I spoke with a guy named Nick and he was great... he listened to me ramble on about how I can't possibly wait 10 weeks to see my little boy and then told me that he has a contact at the FBI and would see if he could help expedite our results. Whatever he did worked because we had our results the following Tuesday. They processed our results in 1 DAY!! It is a HUGE relief to have this part done. THANK YOU NICK!!!

You may be amazed (but probably not surprised) that I actually had time in between filling out all of that paperwork (and calling my Congressman's office) to start shopping. Here is one of my first purchases (I couldn't resist)...

Our agency told us that we could send a care package to Sam so we bought him a really soft blanket and matching puppy and a little photo album with our pictures in it. Beth sent the package to Colombia early last week so hopefully he'll be receiving it soon.

What's next? We should receive our I-797C (Sam's visa pre-approval) within a week or so. The approval is forwarded to the National Visa Center who then forwards it on to embassy in Bogota. They will review the documents and issue what's called an Article 5. The Article 5 is then taken to ICBF and reviewed. Once ICBF is finished reviewing it, they will notify Casa de Maria and our "encuentro date" (the day we get to meet our little boy) will be set. Once we know our encuentro date, we can make our travel arrangements and apply for a visitor's visa. If everything goes as planned, we will be traveling at the end of April!!

It's a BOY!!!!!!

On Monday, March 1st we received the call we have been waiting for... a little boy at Casa de Maria in Medellin is waiting for us!!! His name is Samuel and he is 11 months old. We are hoping to travel in 6-8 weeks and after a 4 week stay in Colombia, we will be able to bring our little boy home. We are all so very excited to meet little Samuel.

For the past several months, I've had a feeling that we would hear something in March. Call it mother's intuition, I don't know. When I got to work Monday morning, I changed over my calendar to March and said a little prayer that we would get a call soon. Then when I was home at lunch, my phone rang. I didn't reach it in time but quickly noticed it was Beth, our case worker. I knew right away that she had a referral for us... my heart was racing, my hands were shaking and the tears were welling up in my eyes. I called her back and right away she asked if Josh was with me. He wasn't so she conferenced him in. Once she got him on the line, she said "CONGRATULATIONS... it's a boy!!!" It was such an amazing moment... words cannot describe. Then she emailed a photo along with the rest of the referral information and when I opened his picture and saw that big grin... my heart just melted and I knew I was in love! His given name is Samuel and right away both Josh and I agreed that we wanted to keep his given name. Once I looked up the meaning, I knew we had made the right decision. The Hebrew name Samuel means "ask of God" and he truly is a gift from God!

Tucker Adoption Journey Weblog

I recently exchanged emails with a woman named Amy who is currently in Colombia with her husband adopting their first child and get this... they are adopting from Casa de Maria in Medellin and they are staying at the same hotel our agency recommends. It's been fun following her blog and seeing pictures of Medellin, the orphanage and the hotel and hearing about their process while in country. She's also offered to send me additional pictures of the orphanage which I am very excited about. I put a link to her blog under the Colombian Blog List to the left so be sure to check it out.

January Update

Today was our monthly call with our case worker, Beth. She didn't have much for updates except for the fact that our agency has already matched 12 Colombian children with families... this month! So it's good to hear that things are moving along and it gives me hope that we will hear something soon.

In regards to the travel, Beth told us that the average stay in-country has been right around 4 weeks. We will travel to Medellin on a Saturday, receive our child on Monday and meet with a social worker on Friday. After that, only one parent is required to stay in Colombia with the child for the remainder of the legal process. So while we were initially hoping that all 3 of us could stay in Colombia the whole time, we are now leaning towards Josh and Joey leaving after a week or 10 days. Besides the fact that I will miss my boys (and dog) terribly, I do feel comfortable staying there by myself. The only thing I am a little nervous about is the language barrier so I am going to work on learning as much Spanish as possible before we travel... it's amazing how quickly you forget it when you don't use it.

Until next time...

Where did 2009 go?

It's crazy to think that it's been almost a year since we "officially" started the adoption process for our second child. Where does the time go? When we first started thinking about another adoption, the decisions did not come easily... should we look at domestic or another international adoption? We ultimately decided on international but then needed to choose a country. We always felt drawn to Colombia but the wait was 3 + years... could we handle being in-process for that long? And what about the required 3-6 weeks we would need to be in-country? How would we manage that with Joey... and taking time off from our jobs... and the expenses that go along with an extended in-country stay? We had so many decisions to make and I have to say, the decisions are so much harder the second time around. But we thought about it alot and had many, many discussions... and prayed for guidance and we just knew that Colombia was where we needed to go. And now it seems that everything is starting to fall into place. First we were given the opportunity to adopt from a private orphanage which will give us a shorter wait time than adopting from the government program and of all of the places our dossier could go, it ended up in Medellin, which is the region with the shortest average in-country stay. So now we begin a new year with much anticipation of the joys another child will bring to our family...

Approved!

We found out today that our dossier has been approved and accepted by Casa de Maria in Medellin. I wasn't sure we would get an "official" approval from the Casa so it was a nice surprise. I am hoping this means they have a child in mind and we will be receiving a referral soon!!!!!

September Update

We recently found out that Casa de Maria in Medellin has asked for our dossier. We've been told that this is a good sign because the casas do not typically take new dossiers unless they feel they can match the parents with a child within a "reasonable" amount of time (usually no more than a year). We are really happy that our dossier is in Medellin because the in-country stay is typically only 2-3 weeks compared to 4-6 weeks in some of the other regions. Although we are looking forward to spending some time exploring our future child's birth country, we also know that it will be hard on Joey (and the rest of us) to be away from home for so long.