It has been quite sometime since I’ve shared any news about our adoption. That has been in large part because there has been NO news to share.  It was a difficult summer.  Since the prime minister of Nepal resigned in early May, the new government has been taking shape.  And since this is a fragile coalition, striking the right balance of power between all the different government parties is a complicated business. Without a minister in place at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, the travel approvals for those families who accepted referrals in the spring were not issued and no additional referrals were sent out.  It was hard, without these more tangible signs of progress, to now what was going to happen.

I am happy to report that there have been  signs of movement.  Last Wednesday, a Minister was appointed and sworn in!  JOY! Also, last week some matched in the spring received their approvals to travel. A few are already in Nepal. I felt such JOY! in hearing that those first few families had arrived safely to meet their children.

What does this mean for us? That really is anyone’s guess. We are but one of 300-400 families with dossiers submitted who eagerly wait to see how things will unfold in the months ahead and into 2010.  For now, we celebrate with those who are there and hold them in our thoughts as they navigate through the in-country process and, more importantly, begin those early steps of getting to know their little ones.

Signing up for rowing lessons was arguably the best idea I’ve had in a long, long time. Being involved with water activities used to be such a big part of my life and I don’t think I had realized just how much I missed spending time out on the water. So it has been a reunion of sorts for me. It also helped me to get back into an exercise routine which has been crucial in maintaining my stress levels this summer. It is so darn fun being out there on the water, learning a new set of skills, and working with a team. I am hooked. Here we are, the Learn-to-Row crew, after our first “big” race:

Certainly, there is plenty more that could be said about the past couple of months. Some very sad moments. Some very scary moments. Blessings and celebrations as well. But, as you might have guessed from my lack of posts , I’ve been at a loss for words of late. The focus for me recently has just been to try to live in these moments as much a possible and to worry less about/let go of that over which I have no control.

It is easy when you spend year after year working towards something and not seeing much forward progress to feel as though you are in a holding pattern. That is where I am, in a rut. There is no doubt about it. So, I am going to try to shake this feeling of inertia a bit and try something new, something which I’ve been thinking about trying for a good while now.

Starting in July, this is what I will be up to three times a week for four weeks:

I am going to learn how to row! Cool huh? I am very excited. I love being out on the water and it will be great to be out there exercising and watching the river wake up. It is painfully early (I have to be at the boat house at 5:45 am !!) but I think it will be worth it:

Doesn’t that look so peaceful?

Thank you, Lisa, for your latest comment reminding me that 1) it has been awhile since my last update and 2) there are people out there who are waiting and hoping and praying along with us on this journey. I know you tell me that I do not need to thank you but the encouragement really does mean a lot.

So, I have good news! Our dossier was FINALLY submitted on Thursday, June 4!! OH.MY.GOODNESS. Our dossier made it to Nepal on February 17. We had our new 171H (immigration approval) on March 21. Our dossier was submitted on June 4. Yes, it took that freaking long to get that final missing piece, the Guarantee Letter, and get the dossier in to the Ministry. Phew!

(I do think I have a few pieces of hair left. But really. Not that many.)

So, what does that mean? Well, basically, we are officially in the “que” so to speak. My understanding from the rumor mill is that we will not be given our legal number which tells us just where in line we stand. And so we wait! At some point down the road, our dossier will be sent to the matching committee which does, well, the matching. When a match is made, our agency will receive the referral information. Upon acceptance of the referral, our dossier and our child’s paperwork will be sent back to the Ministry which gives the final approval. And at some point even further down the road, we travel.

I have no projections on time frame.   Again, this is still a very new process.  We will have to wait and see.  Maybe in a few months, we will have a better idea of what to expect time-wise.  I do know that referrals have been received, here in the US and in Europe.  So there is movement finally.   I eagerly await the news that these families are traveling to meet their children (all little girls I do believe), I hold them and their children in my thoughts, and I thank them for being willing to share with those of us at different stages in this journey.

This really has not sunk in. That we are finally at this point. And that this could actually lead to a referral. A child. We’ve been here before with Vietnam. But even when our dossier was in, we knew the chances were so very slim. We were seeing something through. But this? Well, it is different. Perhaps it is time for me to realize that. There will be more delays. And more hurtles. But the chances are not as slim this go around.  I am a mix of happy and cautious, relieved and excited.

That’s it!  ‘Bout time for some positive direction, eh?  Thanks for hanging in there with me these past few months!

I really won’t blame you if you had stopped reading this blog. I mean, there has been scant good news and I am sure my whining has gotten a wee bit tiresome. Believe me, I would love to get beyond this phase. But we are stuck.

(Fair warning-this is a very long post.)

Basically, while our dossier has been in Nepal since February, it can not be submitted without what is called a Guarantee Letter (henceforth GL) issued by the Embassy in Nepal. And the GL will not be issued from the Embassy until they receive notice of our immigration approval which comes from the National Visa Center (NVC) after they receive notice from Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS) of our approval.

A blow by blow (because I am sure it is fascinating stuff):

March 21. 171H received. (Yay!)

April 4. Confirmation received from the NVC that notice was sent to the Embassy in Nepal of our approval. (Yay!)

April 14. We have our fingerprints redone by CIS because they are due to expire on May 11. We come home to learn that we have not GL because the Embassy requires the 1600A packet as well and ours is still at CIS in Ho Chi Minh City, not Kathmandu. (Boo.)

April 15(ish). NVC confirms that they sent the request for the transfer the 1600A packet to CIS in Ho Chi Minh City on April 4, the same day they notified the Embassy. CIS denies ever receiving the email. (Yea, right)

April 20. NVC confirms that they resent the email to CIS.

April 24. Confirmation received that our 1600A packet was finally sent from Ho Chi Minh City to Kathmandu. (So essentially? that would be three weeks lost at that point.)

May 7. Confirmation received from our facilitator that the Embassy in Nepal has issued our GL and that all the dossiers currently in country from our agency will be submitted in the next couple of days. (Yay!)

So with that good news, our program manager went on vacation. Thinking all was well.

Except. All was not well.

The latest dramalama?:

When she returned from vacation, our program manager learned that the Embassy had not issued our guarantee letter. The others? Yes. But ours? No.

(So yes, there is that issue of why our facilitator in Nepal said they had ours when in fact they did not but that is to resolve later. For now, the question is, why has the Embassy not issued the letter?)

Today we learned that it is because by the time the Embassy received the packet from CIS in Ho Chi Minh City and had gotten around to processing our GL, our fingerprints had expired!! (Remember, May 11) Our fingerprints most certainly have not expired but it would appear so on the 171H that they have.

Of course, this would not have been an issue had the email mis-que never happened in the first place. Because the packet would have arrived in Nepal three weeks earlier and the letter spit out before May 11.

So, my afternoon?

Scream, cry, throw things at the computer screen when I read of this latest development. (In truth, I did none of these things though I wanted to.) (I may have cried a wee bit.)

Run home.

Take the new 171H which arrived yesterday with the new expiration date and fax that to our agency so she can scan it to the Embassy in the hopes that maybe, just maybe they can use it to issue the GL (seeing as how they already have our visa approval and our 1600A packet and all they need is confirmation that our fingerprints have not actually expired).

Get on the horn with the NVC to find out whether they have received notice of our new prints and, if so, whether they have sent it on to the Embassy. (Because lets face it, the chances are slim to none that the Embassy will accept the scan from the agency.)

Anyone still reading? Did this make any sense? There are so many entities involved in this, it can get a little very crazy.

But for me it boils down to that lost email. And the fact that because of that lost email, we’ve lost approx. 6-7-8 weeks (depending on how long this takes to resolve). Which will translate to a much longer wait for a referral given the rate at which dossiers are being submitted. It feels like I am trying to so hard and not getting anywhere; only moving backwards. And that stings.

The silver lining?

1) I became so flipping angry. And I am finding that incredibly energizing. And given that my energy level has been the lowest it has been in a long, long time, I will take the energy anyway I can get it.

2) I am learning really early how to be a mommy advocate because it does look like I am going to have to fight ever step of the way to see this through.

3) I feel, once again, that I will see this through. I’ve been holding the towel in my hand, wondering if I should just throw it in. Today, I realized that, no, I am not ready to give up.

So, what is next?

Post Script: When I called the NVC, they confirmed that a scanned document was received today. But they could not confirm what it was or who sent it. NVC is a funny place. Whenever you call them, the customer service reps. can handle the most basic of questions, give out the most basic of information. But if you press for clarification, they have to put you on hold and ask a supervisor. But you never actually get to speak to a supervisor, the people who can really answer your questions. So what I want to know is, who are these supervisors? Anyway, there was no one that could open up this document and tell me what it was. Apparently, that is beyond the mysterious supervisors as well. (In truth, I do get this to a degree. I mean a call center shouldn’t be able to open up a sensitive immigration document. They are looking at a database. It just seems like if someone is taking the trouble to key in that a document was received, that maybe a topic or a sender could also be keyed? Seems like there could be a better system is all I’m just saying.)

Post-post script: Not related what-so-ever to adoption. After all this, I got to go help my buddy pick out jewelry for her wedding. She is just glowing. And I am so very happy for her.

There have been a lot of developments in Nepal over the past 10 days or so. I haven’t had the energy to blog about the recent events which have sent my head and heart spinning. The Prime Minister of Nepal resigned this past Monday.

Since I hadn’t been following Nepal news on a daily basis* my first clue that something was going down came late last week when my friend who is in Nepal now posted a status update on FB about a late night escape from the Terai (where she is doing research) back to Kathmandu.

(*really, for those who are in the process of IA, how do you keep up with everything? I’ve been focusing on learning about Nepal from a cultural , religious, and geographic perspective and then also about attachment and parenting. And just monitoring completion of our dossier which has been like pulling teeth. I’d let current affairs slip a wee bit. Oopps.)

Anyway, later on my friend posted some news articles. I am glad for that heads up now because I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had turned on the computer Monday to the news of Nepal’s Prime Minister resigning without it.

As it was, I was crushed. It was really hard to say at that point what the current crisis would mean for adoptions. I think it may have been my lowest point in the last two+ years. All my doubts, all my insecurities erupted to the surface.

I am feeling a bit better today though plenty of questions remain. I don’t want to go into a political analysis of the situation. I have not studied emerging democracies nor do I know the full political context of Nepal. I am learning. It does now look like there is cause for optimism that Nepal will be able to form a new coalition government and that is a good thing at so many levels. We’ll just have to continue monitoring things. As for the adoption process, my understanding is that Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare is still accepting dossiers and there has been confirmation of the first couple of referrals being received. So things are still moving.

I haven’t been in much of a bloggy mood of late. I have no news to share. Our agency and I spent a good while trying to track down and resolve whatever misfire happened between NVC and CIS in Ho Chi Minh City. Last Friday we were told that the 1600 packet had been sent off from Vietnam to Nepal finally. (Three weeks after the initial request was sent.)

On Monday, we received an email from our agency stating that they anticipated picking up the last Guarantee letters from the Embassy and submitting all the dossiers that they have waiting (5) this week.  Since then, nothing.  So, I have no idea whether our dossier has finally been (dusted off after 2 1/2 months of sitting somewhere and) submitted.

Ho Hum.

It=our Guarantee Letter from the Embassy in Kathmandu.

HCMC=Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. There is a CIS office there. Apparently it has a lot to do with It.

Who knew? I didn’t, that is for sure.

Our agency heard from the Embassy in Kathmandu that they’ve received our Visa approval. However, our 1600A packet is still sitting pretty at the CIS office in HCMC. The Embassy will not issue the Guarantee letter until they receive that packet as well.

The Adoptions Unit of CIS-HCMC is saying that they have not received a request from NVC to transfer the packet. NVC is saying they emailed the request for the transfer on April 3. Yes, that would be eleven days ago. Our program manager ran all this to the ground today and, after confirming that the notice was sent, emailed CIS-HCMC again to see when the packet may be transfered.

This is what I find a bit “funny” about all this. CIS is the goverment entity that approved our country switch. They then let NVC know of the approval. NVC is then the only government entity that can let a CIS office in another country know of the need to transfer the 1600A approval packet (not to be confused with the visa approval). Does that make any sense? Why can’t CIS talk to itself?

I did not find out any of this until the end of the day because Dave and I were on the road. We had to drive up to Northern Virginia to the CIS application support center to be re-fingerprinted. Gratefully, we had a much, much more pleasant experience than we did last year (contrast angry faces last year to smiles this year; four hour wait last year to in an out in under an hour this year). I was saying to Dave that maybe a new leaf has been turned; maybe they are making strides to be more efficient.

Then home to this.

Spring is here (although it appears to be a bit reluctant to settle in for the long haul) and I have the fever. Which essentially means I want to be elsewhere. The desire to travel always kicks in around this time of year. This is a bit ironic because I can’t really think of a better place to be this time of year than where we live. It is BEAUTiful. I absolutely love watching the Southern Appalachian Mountains come to life. There are the many shades of fresh limey green from the baby leaves, punctuated by the intense purple of the Red Buds, which in turn is softened by the white of the dogwoods and Bartlet Pear trees. All of this is against the backdrop of the purplish-blue mountains. And our town puts a lot into its landscaping so the floral displays all around are AMAZING. It is a special place to be this time of year.

And then there is the lacrosse….

Yep, I love it here in the spring.

Still, I get antsy. I crave warmth and the mind turns to vacation. This year, the desire to go somewhere tropical is so incredibly strong. I’ve been obsessing about going to an island since we watched “6 Days, 7 Nights” weeks and weeks ago. I can’t get the tropics out of my mind. I want to go to Saint Lucia, or Tahiti or some place like that. I just really want to be somewhere with nothing to do but lay around and listen to wind and waves and relax. Ahhhh.

A far away tropical island is not in the financial cards right now (seeing as how we keep writing these checks to our adoption agency, keep finding things to fix with the house, and we need (want?) a new car). Besides, though I would like to change this, I am not really a beach person. I love the sights, sounds and smells but I’ve never actually been able to go to a beach and lay down and relax. And swimming in the ocean sort of frightens me. And I burn, easily.

So, what to do for a vacation this year??? We’ve been trying to convince ourselves that it might be fun to just take time off and stick around here. After all, we do live in an area many people come to vacation. It would be kinda fun to head out on a mini-adventure around here each day and be able to come home each night. It certainly would make the pups happy. There actually is a lot of sites we haven’t seen and many gorgeous hikes we have yet to do. I’d like to have some time to learn how to do something crafty/creative, maybe this could be the time. And it wouldn’t cost anything. But. Would we forget about work? Would we feel compelled to work on the house? Would we still feel a need to “get away”?

So, anyone reading who has done the whole “staycation” thing? (oh no, I used the word, that overdone word!) If so, did you enjoy it or did you find yourself wishing you had gone somewhere else? How did you create the mood that you were on vacation when you could still view those unpaid bills or dirty laundry or wall needing painting? Do you unplug the phone, hide the computer? Suggestions are welcome.

We received word from NVC that our visa approval was mailed off to the Embassy on Thursday. Hopefully, it will arrive in Kathmandu early next week. Our agency anticipates that our rep. will be able to pick up the Guarantee Letter soon after that at which point the dossier can be submitted. I can’t tell you how eager I am to settle in to the wait for a referral and it now looks like that could happen by the end of next week. Fingers crossed!

We also received our appointment to be re-fingerprinted. I’ll have to miss work since we have to drive up to Fairfax and the day could not be worse as far as my work is concerned. OH well. I do have my priorities. (and it isn’t like we have a choice anyway.)

It is a beautiful day. I am going to head outside, collect some sun rays, and try to unwind from a very hectic week. Happy weekend folks!