Back Yard Progres

Really when its this hot, its better to work in the rain!

The goal is to make our backyard into a urban oasis.  Safe for little ones to play.  Like most properties in our neighborhood, the backyard was a concrete pad.  For some reason, people here thought that grass/ soil/ trees bred mosquitoes- and mosquitoes are a huge problem.  Concrete enables mosquitoes, rain water is unable to drain into the soil, creating puddles for mosquitoes to breed.  People also thought that broken glass in the soil will discourage rats from burrowing- another brilliant idea. 
We are removing the concrete and adding a patio with previous pavers.  We had a tree installed and are adding fill dirt to the grassy part.  We are adding raised beds to grow vegetables in clean soil.  We are taking down our concrete back steps and adding a small wooden deck with more rails so our little one can fit through the gaps.  We are adding a pergola, because us northerners can't take the sun and heat in the summer here. 

Waiting Game

We started this adoption process over a year ago and sometimes it feels like there a million road blocks.  Like, why do we need to be fingerprinted by different government agencies?  If I was really a criminal, wouldn't that come up in my FBI prints, why does immigration need to run their own prints.  And we both work jobs where they run your prints- you can't work with kids in most states without a background check.  Oh, and the Peace Corps fingerprints you too. 
 
We are still waiting for our immigration notice in the mail, we got the digital approval a few days ago, but can't go for our prints without the snail mail version.  Ugh, who thought of this system? 
I know its for the best for everyone- adoptive parents, birth parents and especially the child, but it can be down right frustrating. 
So at this point, we are realistically looking at a homecoming of 2015.  Yup, 2015.  By the time our documents are registered with the MOJ, and we still need- USCIS fingerprints, dossier translated, dossier sent, dossier registered- which brings us to December/January- then its about 18-24 months for a referral for a younger mostly healthy child. 
Patience is a virtue.  We can't get overwhelmed with the wait now.  I anticipate the wait between the visits to be the most difficult.   You go on your first trip to meet the little one, then you have to wait 3-6 months before you can go pick him/her up!  This waiting period is frustrating; that waiting period will be agony.
We started looking into our next adoption.  Putting the cart before the horse?  I don't think so.  We always planned on being a family of 4, we are a year into this one, better start preparing (and saving) for the next.  Or else the next 8 years of my life will be spent- gathering documents, visiting the notary and apostille, getting medical checks, tracking down my police and criminal clearances, driving record, etc.  I can't imagine finding the time for all that while caring for a little guy! 

My School!

An NGO in my town in Bulgaria had begun busing to integrate students from the Roma neighborhood into mostly ethnic Bulgarians in the center of the town.  I found this video.  The NGO is called Drom, and my school is the pink one- Tsar Simeon Veliki (Tsar Simeon the Great).  There's Ventislav Stanev, our director.  He was very open to integrating Roma into our school starting around 2004.

USCIS Acceptance Confirmation

USCIS, you are so modern, sending these guys a text:
Dear Applicant/Petitioner:

Your USCIS application/petition has been received and routed to the National Benefit Center for processing. Within 7 - 10 days by standard mail you will receive your official Receipt Notice (Form I-797) with your Receipt Number 

What does this mean?  It's progress, we are waiting for our official receipt notice, then we go to a USCIS field office to be fingerprinted.   This is last step we need to complete our dossier!

20 Things Adoptive Parents Need To Succeed

I came across Sherrie Eldridge's 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed at the library a few weeks ago.  Although this book does not fulfill my quest to find the perfect books for the grandparents-to-be, it is an excellent resource for adoptive parents.

Here's the image from Amazon

Sherrie is an adopted person and is a grandparent to adopted children.  She offers her advice and guidance for adoptive parents.  The book deals with a lot of common issues that arise in adoptive families.
First of all, she stresses how important it is to be open with your child with his or her adoption.  This openness is a philosophy that the vast majority of adoptive parents share today.  Few would choose to keep the adoption a secret.  Keeping the fact that a child was adopted a secret would make if feel like something that is shameful, while we feel that it is something to be celebrated.
Sherrie encourages you to share all that you can, when age appropriate, with your child about their beginnings.  This sounds easy enough, most adoptive parents celebrate the culture their child's birth family culture.  Sharing their beginnings can be difficult in some cases; if the birth mother was the victim of abuse or rape, or if she was living in a difficult situation or engaging in dangerous activities, the adoptive parents may feel reluctant to share everything with the child. 
Not everyone would agree that it is best to share with your child that he/she is the product of a rape. Sherrie found out her birth mother was raped and explained how much it hurt her to learn that fact, but she was glad that she knew the truth about her beginnings. 
I can't imagine telling a child/teen/ young adult that he/she was the product of a rape.  I don't know what I would do if I had that information about my child.  Would I tell him/her?  When, what age would be most appropriate? 
Sherrie feels it is important, no matter your child's beginnings, to never criticize the child's birth family.  It's easy for me to sit here and say: of course, I would be grateful to the birth family, I would appreciate their impact on my life, my family.  But the truth is, you might have information about your child's birth family that is negative.  Maybe the child was abused by his/her birth parents, maybe the birth mother used drugs or engaged in other reckless or illegal behaviors.  The point Sherrie tries to make is that by putting down the birth family, your child feels like you are putting him/her down.  So find something positive, and celebrate that.  Yes, there may be negative things in the child's history, but don't focus on those- celebrate the positive. 
The part of the book I found most helpful, was dealing with comments from others.  Sherrie had interviewed several adopted people, adoptive parents and birth parents to write this book.  I was shocked at some of the statements adopted people reported hearing from classmates and family members: "He's not my real cousin," "where are her real parents," those I expected but not: "Why did your parents throw you in the garbage?"  (Yes, an adopted child really heard that from a classmate).  People not involved in adoption, especially children, hear the shocking horror stories portrayed in the media and don't understand how it really works.  Its up to us, those involved in adoption as adoptive parents, children and birth parents to enlighten them.  Sherrie gives tips for dealing with the "real parent" issue. 
This is definitely a book worth reading.  Check out Sherrie's website: http://www.sherrieeldridge.com/

Immigration Approval Pending

We sent off our USCIS forms.  Its 3 separate documents- I-800a is the big one and then 2 other forms- one to get e-mail alerts about the status of your application and one to allow your placing agency to check on your status. 
We dropped the I-800 in the mail on Saturday (the husband said "post office is open until 4 on Saturdays" it isn't).  We sent is UPS who wanted $44 to send a 20 page set of documents to Texas and it wouldn't arrive until Aug 7th.  I knew that couldn't be right, $44 to take 10 days to Texas, I could drive it there and be back and still have time to stop at Nashville and Memphis.  (What can Brown do for you?)  I had the guy turn the computer screen around.  Well, first of all- he was wrong it would only take 3 days- which for $44 is still a lot, but you could also send it parcel post by United States Postal Service through UPS for only $4 and it would get there on Friday the 3rd. 
I'm not sure how long USCIS takes, once we get this back, we'll be ready to submit our dossier to Bulgaria and get registered with the Ministry of Justice!

Tragedy in Bulgaria

I've seen a lot of commentary recently about the tragedy in Bulgaria.
(CNN Story)

Please remember, Bulgaria is a safe country.  Iranian terrorists attacked innocent Israelis in Bulgaria because they knew they were more likely to be successful.  Israeli defenses are strong, and although attacks do occur in Israel, they need to be more sophisticated.  You might remember in the 1990s, Osama Bin Laden was behind numerous attacks against American embassies in Africa.  Washington Post- Bin Laden

I saw recently, a blogger reported hearing gunshots while in Sofia.  This is very unlikely, it was probably fireworks.  Bulgarians do not own guns at the same rate as Americans.  In fact, few countries have the gun ownership per capita and ease of obtaining guns legally as Americans do.
As with any other country, there are outlier Bulgarians who are hateful or insane, but Bulgaria is an overwhelmingly peaceful country.
Most Americans are not aware that many Bulgarians stood up for Jews during World War II.  The Orthodox Church leaders and many politicians spoke out against the deportation of Bulgaria's Jews to concentration camps.  As a result, the Jewish population of Bulgaria remained constant through 1945, though more than half of Jewish Bulgarians choose to emigrate to Israel by 1948.  Fate of Bulgarian Jews.  They were successful in protecting Jewish Bulgarian citizens, but antisemitism was prevalent in the country and the national leadership was joined with Hitler in the Axis of Evil.  Jews in then Bulgarian regions of Thrace and Macedonia were not saved. 
The international community- EU, USA and Israel have all stepped in to help Bulgaria make sure the people responsible for this terrible act are brought to justice.  My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.