Referral !!!

We have been waiting along time to publish this post. REFERRAL!!! As many of you know, we have been reviewing information on a little boy from Colombia for a few months. We asked to be matched with him back in May and finally received the email from our social worker, that he "Ruben" has been assigned to us. It has taken along time to get our paperwork from the main ICBF office to the region, and having both places approve the assignment. Now we wait some more. All of Ruben's information will be gathered and sent to our social worker, translated, and then off to us. Then we start filling out the Hague paperwork and narrow down to a travel date. We will wait to send our official acceptance letter and receive our designation letter before publishing pictures and specifics on Ruben. We will be headed to Monteria to meet our little guy. At this point, it looks like October to travel. We were hoping for August, but timing isn't always in our favor. Sacrifices will be made, and we are very greatful for family and friends to help with our girls during our time away. Dad is glad he was able to hunt several days last year, because this year it looks like hunting season is in Colombia. It will be well worth it.

Kids Camp 2011 Chase the Light...

Well, I thought I would be posting that we received our official adoption referral. However, I think Colombia's sense of urgency and ours is a little bit off. It has been six weeks since we sent our letter requesting to be matched. During this time, there have been some good moments as well. I volunteered again this year to be camp nurse at my kids church camp in the mountains. Tenley was a "camper", and Alex my assistant. The scenery was great. The beartooth mountains in the background still had plenty of snow on the peaks. The valley was plush green, and 217 kids running around, had enormous energy. No broken bones or trips to the ER, which is pretty amazing, considering all the activities here. ie. zip line, ropes course, mountain boarding, swimming, etc... I realize how fortunate I am to have had this opportunity to grow and bond with my girls. As far as our adoption journey go's. I have realized that I can not determine or sway the timing of this event in our lives. Tracey and I were hoping to travel next month and be back before school starts. I realize now, that this is not going to happen on our time scale. However, we are very blessed to have great family and friends that will help watch our kiddos here, while we travel to Colombia.

Something to get excited about!

These last several weeks have been difficult and frustrating for us. In March we received a call from our agency on a little boy that was considered special needs due to malnutrition. We had seen his picture and brief bio information on the waiting child list a few months prior to that. We had put an email of interest into our agency, only to find out another family was ahead of us. Again, as in the past, we were slightly discouraged, but encouraged to know that we were moving up the list. So, when we received the call in March, we were pretty excited. Initially, we have been approved for upto a sibling set of two; 0-5yrs. However, we were primarily wanting to get a boy, but were told to consider a sibling set, as the wait time was considerably less.
The initial reports showed this little boy as underweight, height, but proportionate. He initially could not sit up or hold his position, or "station" as the Colombian reports would state. He had an upcoming appointment with the pediatric neurologist who had ordered some standard tests for children with malnutrition. Several weeks had gone by, the test did not get completed, but the reports on this little boy were great. He has continued to gain in weight and height and motor skills are increasing. He is now standing alone holding himself up and progressing with no obvious deficits. My wife and family have prayed about him and given a lot of thought, as we wait for these tests to be completed. We have decided to move forward and asked to be matched with him without these other test results. Now the ball can get rolling and hopefully we can travel by end of July. The girls are very excited to have a little brother and we look forward to bringing him home. Stay tuned as I'm sure the roller coaster ride will continue...

UPDATES... CLEAR AS MUD...

Tracey and I updated our medical letters and received our FBI update letters this week as well. Surprisingly, it only took a month from the time we sent our paperwork off to W. Virginia until we recieved our letters back stating " no criminal record". We sent both our medical letters and fbi updates off to Helena for apostille. These documents are both only good for 6 months, so we hope that we will be travelling before then. If not, then we get to go through the process again.
We did hear from Nichole at our adoption agency this week. It wasn't the update we were thinking, but we did officially get put on the 0-6yr sibling wait list and they did not change our approval date. So now we are on a shorter wait list, and get to keep our July 2010 approval date. Currently the 0-6yr wait list are taking approvals from January 2009, where as the 0-5yr list is November of 2007. yikes...

Inching closer

It has been a very long winter here in Montana. It has also been a long couple of years waiting to hear encouraging news on our adoption. As the weather is starting to turn, so is our adoption process. Tracey and I are reviewing a little boy's information. We are trying not to get too attached and say anything specific until we know if this little boy will be the next addition to the Miller clan, or if this is another bump in our adoption journey. We will keep you all posted.

Change of Heart

We haven't updated our blog in a couple of months. A few things have happened. In December our USCIS (immigration) paperwork came due for renewel. This requires an updated homestudy and new fingerprints. I always thought that fingerprints didn't change. However, immigration feels different and only keeps records on file for 15 months. The homestudy was easy. Our social worker visited us at our house and wrote up our homestudy, but changed our approval from siblings 0-5 to 0-6yrs old. We didn't ask for this, but it has been a year now since the original homestudy, and our youngest girl "Bree" is now 6 instead of 5yrs old. Most international countries require you to keep the birth order when adopting, so now we could get a child a year older. We sent our update and got re-fingerprinted and sent all into USCIS. A month later we got our USCIS approval for another 15 months. This time the paperwork stated approved for 0-6yrs old. Again we didn't ask for this, and usually this costs an additional fee. We talked about this together and with our agency social worker and decided to change our request to Colombia to consider us for one to two children upto age of 6yrs instead of 5. The current wait time for 0-5 is 36 months from approval, whereas, 0-6 is about 22 months. We are currently waiting for Colombia to approve this and start our new official wait. Also, we have moved up the list for any "waiting child" that falls in our approved category. If this were to happen, we could be traveling much sooner then the 22 months. I know this is all as clear as mud, but i'm sure it will happen as intended.

Merry Christmas

Hard to believe it's that time of year again. I don't know how the girls made it to the nice list. Oh to see the smiles on their faces, as they open their gifts and empty their stockings. We enjoyed some nice get togethers with family and friends this holiday season. Alex was with us at Thanksgiving and enjoyed the "family" atmosphere that we shared. Alex is thinking about coming and living with us and going to school here in Montana next year. She is currently in 8th grade in Boise, Idaho.
As far as the adoption status. We are still waiting. We recently updated our homestudy and barely made the 15 month deadline, three days before it was due to expire. Off tomorrow to Helena, Mt. (225 miles away) for our fingerprinting updates. It seems very silly to Tracey and I that we should have to drive that far and do this again. Does your fingerprints ever change? Also, Tracey and I work for the federal government and can get them done electronically and have them sent to USCIS. I made several phone calls, but to deaf ears. So, we will take a long trip with the kids and stay in a motel overnight and then redo the fingerprints. I only wonder if we will need to make another trip in 15 months again. We know deep down in our hearts, that when the time is right, we will get the call telling us our kiddos are waiting in Colombia. Until then, we will keep sharing our journey with you all.