USCIS Approval of I-800A Application

"You have been approved." My four favorite words today.

We received in the mail our approval from the US Citizenship and Immigration Service to take the next step in the adoption process. This piece of paper, in official government terms called the I-797, Notice of Action, was the last document we were waiting for to complete our dossier. Now we just have to send it down to the Texas Secretary of State for apostille, wait for its return, make a bunch of photocopies of everything, and ship out our dossier.

For people who might read our blog and are wondering about turnaround time for the USCIS I-800A approval. We submitted our I-800A application on October 23rd. Had our biometrics appointment on November 28th, and received our approval notice in the mail today, December 8th. So from submission date, to approval date, it took six weeks and 4 days. Or if you are counting just in days - 46 days instead of the 90 days projected on the USCIS website. So when the website says within 90 days, that is just a wide range to allow them time to get the job done, not a minimum. So don't give up hope if you are running against a deadline, just keep pressing on!

Our adoption agency said we need to have the dossier shipped out by the 17th to them for forwarding on to the country, or otherwise, there was no point in doing anything until January 2nd as everyone pretty much shuts down things for the holidays. We want to be able to bring our girl home as soon as possible, so I am very, very excited to have the possibility to meet that deadline of the 17th. (I apologize to my elementary grammar teacher for the double adjective in the preceding sentence, but sometimes only a "very, very" will do.)

Praying for godspeed to our FedEx package I will be sending out to the Texas Secretary of State on Monday, and that we will get the apostilled document back by Friday. If so, I can make a quick turnaround of the dossier to our adoption agency on Friday the 14th by FedEx and just beat the December 17th deadline. Not for sure the timeline will work out, but God is good, and I just keep praying.

Until next time ...

Adopt Together site

Hello everyone! We have set up a profile on a fundraising site called Adopt Together.  Please check it out and consider whether you would like to donate to the adoption cause.

Our profile link is here: The Grubaughs

Just Checking In

Hello Everyone!  Just checking in to say thanks to everyone who is praying for us on our adoption journey.  God's hand has been evident every step of the way, and we appreciate everyone who intercedes on our behalf.  Please pray that we will not get impatient as we wait for responses on paperwork submissions from various entities.  This is the time where we need to just send documents off with a prayer and leave the rest in God's hands as it is out of our control.  But we need to get everything done really by the end of the year, so we are a bit nervous about the timing.  I know God can handle anything, but moving that notion from my head to my heart can sometimes be a difficult thing.

While we are waiting on paperwork, we are also doing various things preparing for when our little girl is home, such as:
1. I need to take a CPR class - infant and child.
2. We get to read different books about adoption.
3. We study the culture and customs of the country.
4. We do things that any other parent would do, like try to decide where our girl will go to school.  That has been the hardest one so far, because my gut instinct is that no school could be good enough for her!  Funny because never having had to think about this before, it was an unexpected emotion I felt.
5. Etc., etc., etc.

So busy!  And during the holiday season.  Yes, we do very much appreciate your prayers and encouragement, thanks!

Today's Fundraiser

Howdy ya'll.  Just letting you know our sale went okay today, but we still have a lot of stuff left, so we may do a garage sale a little later this year (if I can find a free weekend!).  We made $145 toward the adoption fund today.  Every little bit helps.  Please keep praying as we move through the adoption process.  A lot of paperwork, educational items, and general preparations to be done.  Thanks!

Adoption Progress Update

Hey everyone.  We are almost done with the home study stage, we have been approved to adopt one child age 5 to 13.  So that is good since the girl we are hoping to adopt is 11 years old.  We are just waiting for final edits of the home study report and once we have that in hand we can send in the next stage of paperwork to the US government.

This weekend we have a space at a flea-market / community garage sale type event in Hurst, Texas outside the Mid-Cities Antique Mall.  It is on Saturday, October 13 from 7:00 a.m. until about 2:30 p.m. (people can stay as long as they want, but that is usually when things start winding down).  So if you live in the area, please come by and help, or just come buy!  :)

The address is:
809 W. Pipeline
Hurst, TX 76053

Home Visit and October Fundraiser

The social worker came to our home on Monday for the adoption home visit.  We were nervous and somewhat stressed about how it would go, but we had our home looking nice, and the social worker was friendly.  So overall I think it went pretty well.  We have some parenting education stuff to finish up, and then we meet the social worker at her office again on the 25th to go over some of that.  After that she writes up her home study report, we review it, our adoption agency reviews it, it goes back to the social worker to finalize, and finally a finished, signed, notarized home study report is delivered to us and our adoption agency.  I hope that doesn't take too long after the 25th as we are waiting to get that home study report to send in our USCIS I-800 application.  I am too tired to go into what that is right now except to say it is the part where you get the US government to approve you to adopt internationally.

And there are a lot of bits and pieces in between we still have to do like I need to take a CPR class, and we have to get a report from Fort Worth saying we've never been arrested here, etc.

So please be praying that we have patience and strength through this process.  

On another note, we do still need to raise quite a bit of funds as we are going through this process ($29,000!).  To that end we have signed up for a spot at a parking lot sale (think flea market) at the antique mall where we have our booth.  The sale is on Saturday, October 13th.  If you have anything you would like to donate for us to sell, please let me know.  

Also, some people have mentioned us putting a link here for direct donations, unfortunately all donation widgets take 3 to 5% in fees.  I'm not sure people would be inclined to give if they knew it wasn't all going to the cause, so I haven't added a donation link here, but if you want to donate, just get a message to me (you can post a comment below or otherwise get in touch with me), and we will figure a way to get the funds to us.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Adoption Update 08/28/12

Over the last month we gathered a lot of required paperwork and information to submit to our local home study agency.  This was necessary prior to the home visit done by the social worker.  We got that mailed out to the home study agency on Friday (by certified mail of course).  Once they receive the paperwork, they will assign a caseworker to our file, and hopefully sometime this week we will get a call about scheduling the home visit.

While working on the home study portion, there are also a lot of education requirements we are working through on the subject of being adoptive parents.  This involves reading books, watching some online video courses,  and so forth.  I also need to take a CPR class.  Tony already has his CPR training through his job.

We are also working on fundraising for both of us to take the two required trips overseas: the first time to meet the child, and the next time to adopt her and bring her home.  In connection with that, we are going to get a couple spaces at our antique mall's upcoming parking lot sale on October 13th. It is a bit like a flea market or community garage sale.  We would like to have as much help as possible in running our booth at the parking lot sale, so if you live in the area and would like to help out, please let us know.