A change of plans....

As you know we have been waiting several weeks for USCIS in Vietnam to respond to whether or not our son will be considered special needs due to his age. I have contacted the Department of State in DC and they said they cannot say they will consider him special needs because they cannot interpret Vietnam law and that Vietnam needs to make that decision. I have spoken to USCIS in DC and they said that Vietnam has to define what special needs is and this cannot be done on a case by case basis, ie. our son. We were trying to get USCIS to make a decision first, but they said Vietnam has to make the decision first. We are now going to go back to DIA to ask them to make the decision first as a referral to us to be presented to USCIS. He is 12 years old and in most countries, including the US, children 3 and older are considered special needs. In the past Vietnam has not considered age to be special needs. It is my understanding that they are currently working to define what special needs would encompass. So I am calling on all the other people touched by Vietnam adoption for their help in encouraging Vietnam to consider older children special needs through their agencies and connections to Vietnam. If not for our son, but for all the older children who may "age out" of the orphanages during the closure. Even though we have not given up, it is going to be a long and difficult battle. There have been many positive changes thus far and I think we can make more. So as of now, I don't think the US can help us too much. We need Vietnam to act first and then put the pressure on the US to let him come home.

Calling in the big guns?.........

Still no word yet from USCIS in Vietnam. My liason said they told her they were too busy to talk this week and would get back to them next week....grrr...I hope so! I did the only other thing I could think of today and contacted my senators, congressmen, JCICS and Ethica to see if they could help me or offer advise. I am more expecting help from my local government officials; that they get things moving on the US side in Vietnam. They are the only big guns I have left, except for leaving a message with USCIS in D.C.to see if they could help me with USCIS in Vietnam. I will probably contact the Dept of State in D.C. too. If I don't get any results this week, I'll be hitting the phones and email again next week. I may have a career in politics (from a person who hasn't voted in almost 20 years, but I am this year!) before this is over and probably a book too.

17 days feels like 17 weeks....

Once again not too much to tell! Still waiting for a response from INS regarding the classification of the boy we want to adopt. It has only been 17 days, but it seems like 17 weeks. If nothing happens by Monday, it will be time to get back into political gear and try to get some action that way. It would be easier to wait if there was an ends to the means, but right now we are living off of hope and the belief that all the parties will do what is best for this boy and what he and his family wants for him. We have had our hopes raised and dashed repeatedly. Found our son and lost him maybe three times. Sometimes I think it's time to move on to another child where we will succeed and bring them home. But then I wonder what will happen and how I would feel if there came a point where he was offered to us to bring home and could we do it? Should we do it? I don't know if this makes sense. It's kind of like when you're a little kid and you don't want to go to bed because you are afraid you'll miss something. I am afraid to quit, because I don't want to miss out on him or him to miss out on a family of his own. Being in limbo is the worst thing. It feels so hard because we went into this for a waiting child and beat all the odds and timelines and now here we sit.

365 days...

Today is one year since we began our Vietnamese adoption journey. It's been one week since the adoptions there closed and still no word if we can complete our adoption through special needs. Yes, I know it's only been a week, but I am tired of waiting and getting road blocks. Communication is so important! If someone could just say, "yes, we've been trying to contact this person, but haven't heard back..." or something. But instead I just get silence and I can't stand it! I'll give it another week and then we'll need to start seeing results or seriously look at other options. We have investigated Ethipoia specifically and some waiting children in other Asian countries. I am not a quitter, so it will be a hard decision to make, but they might make it for me.

Over for many, beginning for us?

I just wanted to acknowledge all the people who were hoping to get referrals from Vietnam and didn't. Alot of broken hearts, alot of lost money and alot anger at a system that failed them. Now we move onto the next step of special needs. I hope my agency can get some clarification from INS tomorrow, so we can hopefully still adopt this child through special needs. Hope to post alot of good news soon! And best wishes and good look in their adoption endeavors to everyone else!