Regrets – Rules R Rules

There is nothing I can do about this, but it has been bothering me for some time. Based on our combined age and number of children already in the home we were “allowed” to only adopt one child from India. There are exceptions to the rules, such as adopting a sibling set. One couple we know is adopting 3 siblings that range in age from 9 down. When adopting multiples the cost differential is not that much in the grand scheme of things. If you are already $35k into it what is another $5 - $7k? Our daughter is now 2 ½ and I am quite sure that she has a special friend at the orphanage. When she come home she is going to be leaving everything she knew: sounds sights, smells, language, family...and she will be leaving her friend. Not much that can be done now, however one wonder what might have been if we had put in our paperwork for 2? What is the worse they could do – say no? At this juncture our best bet is to find out who this mystery child is and if possible find out if another family is in the process of adopting her/him. If it is in the us then there may be a way to keep some sort of contact.

I have been testing Skype for the past few weeks. Cool – the video link seems to work ok. A sister lives in snow country and she took her laptop outside to show us the backyard covered in snow – brrrr.

Still waiting for ICPC between Texas & California. Once this gets done we are cleared to go, probably about 35 days post notification. Time to re-look at the hotel choices, get some more paperwork updated. The end is nigh.

je

VISA, ICPC, Grants

When we were told by the agency that they had received a mailed copy of the court docs they then started to prep the ICPC. It is at this point that you will want to mail in your Passport, photos, to get your Visa to India. It takes about 2 weeks to get them back. The Visa takes up a whole page in your passport and they want you to have at least 3 empty pages along with a passport that will not expire in the next 8 to 12 months.

Back to the ICPC Since the home office is in Texas and we are in California there is one more official piece of paperwork that needs to be competed before we make airline reservations, hotel... Although the India courts have given us guardianship if for some reason we are unable to care for our child then she would be remanded back to the adoption agency. As the agency is in Texas the court papers go to Texas. I guess if we did not go to India and she came here escorted we would have to go to the home office to pick her up. The ICPC is an Interstate Compact that says “hey California, we Texas have a ward of the state but we are sending her to you, is it ok?”

A few months ago I started looking at hotels and such, I'll post more details soon as now I really have to narrow down the choices and get ready to make the reservations.

I just finished up on our next to the last grant application. We have 12 grant requests that we have put out. Some will respond only if they grant the grant. So far we have heard nothing. It has been rather disheartening as I think grant funds have dried up. Part of this is peoples attitude. Kinda weird as we get questions like – Why do you want to take a stranger into your house? You know she is going to have problems and will be disruptive. And closer to home we have an individual who call our daughter as “That girl in India”. Up to this pint I have made an effort to keep identities private as you really don't have a need to know. Thus I have not yet posted any photos. When she is ours I will rectify that. But let's suffice it to say that “That girl in India” has a name and her name is Camille. We are about $13K short if what we need to get her home. Looking at one grant location I noted that their max was $10k that they give 3 to 4 times a year. Once you dig deeper I found that this year was not a good year as they were only able to fund a total of $4k. Signs of the economic times.

je