Regional Assignment

We received this email from our agency this evening:

The ICBF (Subdireccion de Adopciones) has informed us that your application and dossier was transferred to the ICBF region of Cordoba. We are in contact with the region and hope that they may match you with a child or some siblings.

I was not expecting this news so soon! Now we just have to wait for our referral!!!

You can see the department of Cordoba in yellow:  

BTW, Diego was adopted from Antioquia (purple), and Alejandro was adopted from Santander (green).

Approval!

Tonight we received great news from our agency:

Congratulations you have been approved at ICBF. Attached is the approval letter in Spanish. We will continue monitoring your application and will let you know when your documents be transfer to one of the ICBF regions for a match with a child or a sibling group.

According to our approval letter, we are officially on the waiting list as of Nov 1. Since Victor is Colombian, we go towards the top of the list ahead of all non-Colombian families. This will make our wait significantly shorter and I hope to hear something early next year!

Translations Complete

Update from our agency:

Today we are filing at ICBF your application and dossier along with translations. We may hear from ICBF within 3 to 4 weeks. We will keep you informed.

Yay, translations are complete and our application is being submitted to ICBF! Through various adoption message boards, I’ve been hearing that a lot of families are being asked for additional information after ICBF reviews their dossier. I hope this won’t be the case for us. Fingers crossed!

New Agency

After too many sleepless nights, I've convinced Victor to switch agencies. So today, we mailed our application to Adopolis. They are a small agency, but they work almost exclusively with Colombian adoptions and seem knowledgeable. I've heard nothing but good things about them on my adoption message boards. I feel at peace now, so I'm sure we've made the right decision.

Doubts

Since Jane's visit, I have been filled with anxiety. With the home study almost complete I am ready to move onto the dossier, but Little Miracles still hasn't received their accreditation. I haven't slept in two days; I toss and turn all night long worrying-

• How long should we wait for Little Miracles to get their accreditation?
• A month? Two months?
• What if 6 months go by and we're still in limbo?
• What if they are denied accreditation?

I've been obsessed, thinking of little else. The uncertainty has been unbearable and I've started to explore alternatives.

Home Study Visit

We had our home study visit with Jane today and she was absolutely wonderful! It felt more like a visit from an old friend than a visit from a social worker. After a quick tour of the house, we spent maybe an hour discussing adoption "business", followed by 3 hours of chit chat! I guess since this is our third adoption she didn't feel the need to ask the more traditional questions such as "Why do you want to adopt?", "What are your expectations?" and "What preparations have you made to parent an adopted child?" I also think she was burnt out by the other 4 home study visits she had this weekend!

Before she left, she said that she is just waiting on our medical letters (we have our doctor appointments next week), but the report is already written and should be ready to finalize shortly!

SOFA Letter

We emailed the requested SOFA letter to Daniela today and she has already replied, "We will release the requested statement as soon as we receive the original letter & documents."

Yay, now we can start our home study!