Update and PSB Newsletter

Hi all,
Sorry I have not posted recently. I am finishing up nursing school (May 6th is my last day), work is getting busy, and I started figuring out the dossier instructions, which took a lot more time than I had anticipated.

We submitted something called an I-600A form. Basically, it is a preliminary application through the department of immigration (yes, we do not have a child yet, but we are already starting the immigration process). Really, I think it is all just an excuse for the Department of Homeland Security to get over $600 from us! What will they do for that money? Well, first we were "invited" to downtown Philly to get figerprinted. Then, they will do an FBI background check on us. After our home study visit (which has been moved up from May 11th to May 8th), a copy of our home study visit report will be sent to the immigration department. They will evaluate us based on the FBI background check and the home study visit report from PSB. Then, if we are approved, they will send us something called an "Immigration Form I-171 or I-797" to include in our dossier to Vietnam. Confused yet? You should be! And this is only one step of many for the dossier! Once we get through the remaining steps, I will relay the rest of the process.

If you are interested, there was a very good update in the PSB newsletter this month. Here is the link (scroll down to the Vietnam section):
http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WH_Newsletter_HTML_April07

Hope all is well. I think the next time I write will be after the home study visit.

The application will be submitted tomorrow!

Hi everyone,

We are submitting our application to the agency tomorrow. Our coordinator said that we might have set a record for shortest time for submission! I am bet we are also unique in that the outside photo was our limiting factor for the application! This past weekend, we installed a patio out front so that we could get a decent pic. Here is the before...
And the after...

What is next? Well, we are tentatively scheduled for our home visit on May 11th. Our adoption coordinator will visit us for 3-4 hours. She will interview us separately, and then together. Then she will make sure we have room in our house for the child (which we barely do)! In addition to the home visit, we need to complete the preliminary immigration form and go to the Philadelphia immigration office to have our fingerprints taken. Also, we need to start working on the dossier. What is a dossier you ask? Well, I have a binder with all the instructions and forms, and it defines the dossier as the "official application to the Department of International Adoption (DIA) in Vietnam for the adoption of a child." Basically, a dossier is a collection of paperwork that is very similar to the application we will submit to the agency tomorrow, but it will be submitted to Vietnam.

Well, that is all for now! Hope all is well with everyone!

Adoption ethics...

Hi all,
We belong to the Pearl S. Buck (PSB) Vietnam adoption Yahoo newsgroup (for prospective and current adoptive parents working with the PSB agency). Today we received some interesting information from the head coordinator for Vietnam adoptions. The information was very dense and somewhat confusing, so I will try to summarize it below.

• Bad news first: Our agency is currently placing children from two orphanages in Ho Chi Minh City (one orphanage is called Thi Nghe and the other is called Picasso). There is much competition with various agencies in these orphanages. Some of the agencies are using questionable tactics, so the placement for our agency, PSB, has been slower than expected. Specifically, other agencies are giving donations to the hospitals in order to have abandoned children “earmarked” for their agency. PSB is not willing to give donations directly to hospitals for adoption, because in their view it could lead to hospital staff convincing people to give up their babies. So, while we would like the process to speed up, we are happy that PSB is so ethical and we support this decision.
• Good news: Despite the above problems, the Ho Chi Minh City agencies and the Department of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs have assured PSB more referrals by June 30th.
• Good news: PSB announced they will also be placing children from the coastal province of Khanh Hoa (from three orphanages, one in Nha Trang and two in surrounding communities). The deal should go through any day now, and the good news is that PSB is the only agency working in Khanh Hoa right now (no competition for the moment).
• Good news: There was a meeting between U.S. and Vietnam adoption officials at the Embassy in Hanoi last week. They addressed the problem that some agencies seem to be getting more placements of children than others, presumably because of the tactics they are using. Currently, each Province in Vietnam handles the adoptions, and there is no centralized oversight. The decision has been made to have a central Vietnam organization (the Department of International Adoptions) handle all "referrals" of children. It may take a while for this new system to be put in place, but it is a step in the right direction (i.e. this will lead to a more even distribution of placments accross agencies).

Well, that is all for now. I added some links to some interesting websites to the right. I will add more links as I discover them.

Paper work and mandatory "training"...

Hi all,
Well, this past week has been busy! We are working on the first set of paperwork, which is the application. Here is what is included in the application...

• Service agreement
• Fee policy (notarized)
• Financial statement (notarized)
• 1040 copy, notarized cover sheet
• medical exam forms
• photos of house
• directions to house
• employment letters
• birth and marriage certificates
• 4 references (one neighbor)
• release – photos and related mat’ls
• risks in Intercountry adoption
• philosophy and discipline (agree to no spanking policy)
• civil rights compliance
• autobiographies (6-11 pages each person)
• child conditions (what medical conditions we will accept-a detailed list of 80 items for which we must answer yes, no, or unsure)
• important disclosures about adopting from vietnam (notarized)
• PA child abuse and criminal clearances

Believe it or not we are almost done with the application. We finished our autobiographies last night. Mine was 11 pages and Dave's was 6 pages (this probably makes sense to those of you who know us well!). The next thing we need to do is clean up the outside of our condo so that we can take some pictures. If all goes well, we will have our home visit in May. We still have a long time to wait, and it is very doubful that we will get matched with a child before next year. But at least we feel as if we are making progress now.

We attended an all-day required course this past Wednesday with other prospective adoptive parents. It was extremely helpful and the agency (Pearl S. Buck) did an excellent job trying to prepare us for this huge commitment! The agency strongly encourages prospective parents to embrace the culture of their child. So, we spent a lot of time covering cultural issues. I am trying to convince Dave to learn Vietnamese now that he has become almost fluent in Spanish! It is a challenging language to learn though, so maybe the best we can hope for is to learn some key words(?) Also, we spent time going over our adoption fears and how to handle them. Finally, we spent time on common issues that adopted children have, mostly psycological. It is a huge adjustment for the child-imagine being removed from everything you know and flying on a plane to live in a new country! It is very confusing for the child and it may take a while for the child to calm down and bond with his/her new parents. The agency suggested limiting visitors until after the baby bonds to his/her parents, which could take several weeks.