More Waiting

I love our agency contact, Karin. Seriously. I know of other agencies our friends have used that make them feel like if they ask too many questions, or ask for too many updates, they are a huge burden. We’ve never felt like that from our agency. And during our different wait times, there were periods where I felt like a crazy person and thought I would spaz if I didn’t hear something soon. Each time that happened, I would e-mail Karin to tell her how I was feeling. She would send me a message back super fast re-assuring me that I wasn’t crazy and that yes the wait is crazy hard. She has adopted as well, so she gets it.

We are currently STILL waiting to get our finalization papers from ICAB in the Philippines. I’ve e-mailed back and forth with Karin a couple of times about it over the past few months, and she’s great at checking on what we need and getting back to us quickly. The other day I was feeling anxious about the paperwork b/c I’m seeing more and more families who traveled weeks or months after us who have received their paperwork. Dave called Karin to see if she’d heard any updates from ICAB, and she filled him in on what all had been done to see where in the heck our papers are.

Side note: Some people don’t understand why we can’t just call over to the Philippines and demand that something be done immediately. In the US, if something isn’t being done the way we want it to, it’s easy to just make a phone call and talk with the person. In the Philippines, though, they don’t necessarily have all of the handy resources or personnel needed to finish things like this paperwork up quickly. Plus, when you are talking with people from the Philippines, you want to be careful not to sound like your are accusing someone of not doing their work. In the US, it’s easier to call someone and discuss an issue you might have because there aren’t usually big cultural differences in how people are going to take certain tones, though there are different personality types. Also, their timeline is just different from ours. Karin and the other staff at HIH are sensitive to this, and know exactly what TO say, and what NOT TO say when talking with government officials in the different countries they deal with.

So anyway, Karin gave us some relief yesterday by describing more of the timeline that will happen once we get the finalization papers. The reason I’m kind of freaking out about these papers is because we need them to finalize the adoption in our county court in order to claim the adoption tax credit the government has for adoptive families. We probably wouldn’t be able to afford to adopt if it wasn’t for that credit. We had adjusted our taxes for this year to account for the credit, thinking we’d be finalized well before the end of the year (why let the IRS hold onto our money interest-free!?). According to “normal” timelines, we should have received those papers in September and been finalized by now. But when have we ever been normal? She recommened calling our county courthouse to explain our situation to see how quickly we can get an appointment for finalization after our paperwork comes in. And she’s also contacted our social worker at ICAB, who isn’t in charge of our finalization papers, but now knows that we are still waiting, and she’s told Karin she’ll make sure it gets done. It (of course) makes me nervous that something came up that they don’t like about us, and that they’ll demand Ezekiel be removed from our home. But that’s just my crazy imagination running wild, and I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.

We have the cutest shirt for Ezekiel to wear on Finalization Day, and we’re going to throw a bash to celebrate being done. I can’t wait for that day!!