Unprecedented Delays

We had been putting off a vacation for over a year as we expected to travel to Peru last Summer, then last Fall, then last Winter. Finally, we scheduleda vacation this Spring Break to get away for a week.

Good thing we did, because we ended up having to deal once again with frustrating and unexpected bad news while we were gone. We heard by email on Tuesday that we would not be getting a referral at Thursday's consejo. The reason given? The new psychologist at SNA in Lima had decided there was a need for a full psychological report on the children we were hoping to adopt.

This was something not encountered in the 24 years of our adoption agency's involvement with Peru. Just like the requirement for psych reports on our natural-born children (in January), this is apparently a new part of the system, not something specific to our case.

What made it so surprising to us was that we understood the children had already been shown our pictures to begin preparing them for the adoption. But apparently whatever report was prepared by the psychologist at the orphanage was not sufficient for the federales. We had even received word by email that "The Millers were declared suitable to adopt two to three siblings, one of them a girl, from 5 to 13 years old" just a few days before. Huh?

Waiting is hard on us. Now we think that waiting must be extra tough for the kids, too, because they already know someone is ready and willing to adopt them. We understand being adopted is no piece of cake, either. We will be introducing a huge disruption into these childrens' lives; but we believe it is all for the best. We want them to be prepared, but we also don't want to be guinea pigs for a whole new process.

Remember, in Peru they eat guinea pigs...or worse.

The Latest

So, no posts for a few months there. Here's what happened in the interim.

In December, we waited through two consejos and didn't hear anything.

In January, we were notified that we needed to submit new information. For families with children already, Peru decided to require a psychological report on those children. The previous psych report was on the parents, with a paragraph about the other children's attitude toward the adoption and a report on the family dynamics. Now, you have to provide a personality profile and detailed information on each child. That took us a while to put together, so we were not able to get a referral in January or February.

Also in January, we were notified that there was a sibling group of three that had been cleared for adoption at the orphanage where we had volunteered. After much soul-searching, we decided to change our letter of intent and name these children. The main reasons were that this group is two boys and a girl, with a boy the oldest, and we thought that was a better fit with our other boys. Also, we thought it would help these children to be adopted by someone they had already met.

In March, we were asked to sign another letter indicating our intent to adopt this sibling group, and then were asked to send photos to be shown to the children. In Peru, children can request to only be adopted with their siblings, or even reject adoptive parents once they meet them, if the children are not comfortable with the adults. This is mainly protection against unfit parents, and we haven't heard of it ever happening. But in our case, apparently they thought it would help the children feel better about agreeing to be adopted if they could prepare them ahead of time that their new family were people they had met and also let them know they would be moving to the US. We will also be bringing Alex with us so the children can see how we interact with him and they can start bonding with him. Needless to say, Alex was very popular when we were in Peru--the children all liked having someone their own age to play with.

Given these latest developments, we expect a referral next week at the March 24 consejo. If so, we will apply to USCIS right away, and hope for better than the normal 6-8 week turnaround time for the I-800 application. We are ready to travel any time. However, the trip will likely start in mid-May.

Andrew will be home from college in May, and already has a paid day job and a volunteer evening job in his field of youth theater. He and Bear (our dog) can have some bonding time. Aaron would stay with a friend from high school until finals, then move back home. We would regret missing Aaron's 16th birthday in May, but will just have to celebrate before we leave. Neighbors and friends will help them out while we're gone. They may have a regular "tour de Champaign" for meals. Otherwise, there'll be a lot of frozen pizzas and pop-tarts.

We hope to be able to share good news in another 10 days or so.