Words cannot describe the surge of joy that hits when I hear a ding on my phone--see that it is an email from the adoption agency--and notice the subject is “videos.” To see her smile, to hear her babble, to watch her blow a kiss...I don’t know her foster family, but I love them! It is so obvious that they take good care of the one we will call Eliana.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here. Between swim team practice and meets, a trip to the beach, and family visiting, we’ve been filling out paperwork to move forward with adopting this precious little girl. We’ve gotten lots of the same questions from people about what things look like moving forward, so I thought I’d try to answer them here.
1. Whats next?
When you receive a referral to be matched with a child, the first thing you do is sign paperwork saying you accept the referral. When adopting from Georgia, you do not make a trip to meet the child until court. In the meantime, you file what is called an i800--Petition to Classify Convention Child as Immediate Relative. This form will get us approval from US Immigration to bring Eliana home with us. After receiving that approval we will fill out visa applications. These two steps must be completed before we can receive a court date. After these two steps are completed and sent to Georgia, they will run an Interpol check on us and then send our dossier and approvals to the court system.
2. When will you travel?
Not a clue.
The adoption agency estimates that we will travel 4-6 months after the referral...which would be sometime around October-December. They’ve warned us that when travel time comes we may not have much advance notice. Apparently the judges are known to say “Hey, I have an opening next week” and then the family has to hop on a plane.
3. How long will you be there?
We are supposed to arrive 3-7 days before our court date. After court we will have paperwork to chase (surprising, I know). We will have to wait for a new birth certificate, adoption decree, visit the US Embassy for a medical appointment and apply for her visa, and get a Georgian passport for Eliana. All of this will take a few weeks. We will most likely be in Georgia for around a month.
4. Is Matthew excited?
Oh my goooooodnesss you guys. It’s adorable. He carried around a picture of her the last few days of school and showed it to everyone, “This is going to be my baby sister, Eliana.” He took it to church and even asked me if we should show it to the Chick-Fil-A drive in workers, haha! My favorite line so far was driving to VBS one morning last week, Matthew said, “Mommy, I just love to daydream about Eliana. Sometimes I forget to pay attention. But real life is more important than learning, so Eliana is more important than paying attention...right?”
Yep. He’s excited.
5. How can we help? Are you doing a fundraiser?
I honestly don’t want to do another fundraiser...We know that God will provide what we need regardless...in fact he has already begun! Our airline tickets are being covered and a random check arrived in the mail yesterday! At this point how much money we will need is a matter of estimation, so it is difficult to be certain how much money we will need. We have kept our “Adoption Savings” in a separate account all these years so it stayed protected from all of our other expenses. It has gotten quite low over the last couple of months as we’ve made it to these new, exciting stages. In calculating the last remaining expenses, we would feel more comfortable with traveling if we had about $3,000 more. Oddly enough, yesterday (along with the videos and a check in the mail) our adoption agency contacted us to see if we are interested in a matching grant fundraiser...one that would give us a total of $3,000. We would conduct a fundraiser to raise at least $1,500 and then receive a matching grant of $1,500. We are waiting for more details...but it is a difficult opportunity to pass up. Soooo, we’ll keep you posted.
Thank you for your continued support and all of the Congratulations! We are so excited to move forward and step into this next chapter of life! Please continue to pray for Eliana and her foster family. What we look to with overjoyed excitement will be very difficult for Eliana. Pray that God would begin to prepare her heart for the changes coming in her future!
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