New information

Okay, it seems that Commonwealth was denied for the US Hague accreditation and that Taiwan is a NON-Hague country.
http://adoption.about.com/od/international/f/whathague.htm

So Taiwan had nothing to do with Commonwealth closing their doors. If we choose to stick with international adoption the key is to make sure the agency has been approved for the US Hague accreditation...just to be safe. Apparently this law came into effect April, 2008.

Where do we go from here?

I am speechless right now so I am going to copy the email we received from Commonwealth:

"With a deep sadness and concern, we are writing to tell you that Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc. has made a very difficult decision to cease providing adoption services. The Board of Directors met Thursday, July 31st to review the status of the company and all options. The Board concluded that it was necessary to seize operation and begin to transition families to other adoption providers. That said, please know that we will do everything possible to transition your adoption into another adoption agency. We have informed our licensing authorities and believe that we will have guidance, support and cooperation from them. We are still a licensed agency, have not closed our doors and will do our very best to assist all families in their process to the best of our ability."

"In order to insure uninterrupted adoptions we are talking with several other tax-exempt adoption agencies so they may take over certain programs and see these adoptions to completions. We will communicate with each family individually regarding your specific adoption, including the agency we are recommending to work with."

"Difficult economic times and the failure of obtaining Hague certification (which we very strongly believe was unjustified) was devastating to CAII and its programs. This denial immediately affected almost one third of our families and several programs. Established programs have longer waiting times from matching to placement or travel, which is prohibitive to most adoptive parents and costly. Other programs have simply closed down. A few promising new programs are small and cannot yet reliably serve the number of families willing to risk starting over again, as our contract spelled out, we have no control over the foreign agencies and how they handle their adoption programs. International adoptions in general have recently been subject to dramatic changes."

"Our situation is not unique. In the past few months we became aware of other agencies that had closed their doors and there are many, if not all, experiencing difficulties to some degree where they have to lay off staff and generally downsize their operations. Please know that we will do all we can to stand by you and work with you so not to disrupt your adoption process or at least minimize the disruption."

"This is very disappointing to us since we felt that we successfully addressed the economic situation. However, the denial of Hague certification a month ago and failure for us to complete an affiliation with another tax-exempt organizations that we have been in discussion with for some time brought us to a place where we have to begin to transition families to other agencies."

"Please be gentle with us. Know that we will do whatever we can to make this process as painless as possible for you. There is going to be a subsequent letter sent to you regarding your specific program arrangement."

At this point we don't see any reason to continue with an international adoption. We are so confused right now. We were also informed: "With the arrangement we are working out you will not be losing any of your monies - you will pick up where you left off with us. Please be patient - we will be sending information out to you about this in the next few days." I don't know...right now our thoughts are that if Commonwealth is not able to come through for us on an international adoption, what makes us think another agency can?

Right now we are waiting to see what our options are...we'll keep you posted.

Acceptance

Ok...it's been a few days since receiving the bad news about the extended wait time and I think we are okay. From day 1 we've been told by our agency that there will be fluctuations and to always be ready for change. Guess we just weren't ready to hear that.
I did a little research on foster parenting through the State of Tx...thought maybe we could do that during our wait time. No, not what we are supposed to do...didn't get that tugging at my heart from the Holy Spirit that we need to go in that direction. Domestic? Nope, still nothing. 'Be patient' is all I am hearing right now. It is very hard to do...and some of my family does not understand why we are staying with Taiwan...'there are children here in the US that need homes'. Although that is very true it is not what is planned for our life. How do you get other people to understand that?...
Thanks everyone for all your thoughts and prayers...it's a long road ahead of us and hopefully it won't get any longer than what it is now.

Shane and Misty

Discouraged

We got an update from our adoption case worker today about the wait time for a referral. It seems the wait time has been extended from 24 months to 30 months. At this point, with the new time frame, we still have 2 more years to wait for a referral. That's not including the few months we will wait after that for the court proceedings to take place before we travel. I can't tell you how discouraged I am right now and my first reaction is to switch over to domestic. At this rate Jeffrey will be almost 9 years older than his brother or sister...and I'm sure not getting any younger either. :)

Of course the only thing to turn to now is prayer...God's plan. Although he has revealed to me in the past that we are on the right track it feels that we are running as fast as we can, although in the right direction....on a treadmill.

Please pray for our patience and renewed reassurance.

God Bless,
Misty and Shane

I-171H form

We received the I-171H form from USCIS and are 'able to furnish proper care to an orphan'. Yay!

No news to report. We have done all we can do...it is all up to God at this point. He will give us our child when the time is right.

As I was looking through our paperwork this morning it occured to me that we have accomplished so much up to this point in our journey. It all seems so surreal and at times I get glimpses of a child hidden behind all the paperwork we are caught up in. God is certainly making us work for this angel we are about to receive....as well as our first one for those who know all the complications we had while trying to conceive Jeffrey.

Thanks for reading and God bless!

Shane and Misty

P.S. Just felt like posting a pic of Jeffrey and myself. :)

Waiting....and waiting

5 months and counting on the waiting list. Still nothing new to report. We are also waiting for the I-171H form from USCIS.

On the plus side I have found something to keep myself occupied during this long waiting period. I enrolled at one of our local community colleges for classes for a medical coding certificate. It is designed to be a 1 year certificate but at the rate I'm going it may take 1 1/2 years. The class I'm taking is medical terminology and the studying has consumed a lot of my free time during the week. It's amazing how God's plan is always perfect. :) You don't know how many times I have thought about switching to domestic adoption to be able to get a baby sooner (I'm not getting any younger you know!) but God always gives me that reassurance that our baby is in Taiwan and that we are doing the right thing. Besides, our wait time is about the same time it will take to get the medical coding certificate and possibly for me to get started working in the medical field. I know we are doing the right thing. : )

Thanks for reading and I'll let you know of any more updates.

Misty

A big thanks!

We just want to thank all who have made purchases through our online mall. Every little bit helps! Thank you!!!

Shane and Misty