Why I've Been M.I.A and an Un-Update on the Adoption

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  I've sat down multiple times to write this post, and it just hasn't happened.  Tonight, though, I'm going to get it all out :).

On the 27th of October I got an e-mail from Wacap.  They decided to send Ramya for surgery to correct her renal reflux.  When they took her in, though, she had a UTI so they were not able to set a surgery date.  Instead, they were keeping her in the hospital until her UTI cleared up and were doing the surgery after that.  Our agency was told...

“We had problems getting a date for the surgery as her urinary tract infection had to be addressed and treated prior to the surgery. She is still in hospital and is convalescing well. I will send you the discharge summary as soon as we get it."

We still have not gotten a discharge summary, so I am not even sure if she has had the surgery yet or not, or if she is still sitting in the hospital waiting.  It breaks my heart thinking of her just sitting there, in pain, scared, and all alone.  It makes me want to cry.  Actually, I won't lie, I have cried.  I'm having a hard time thinking about it.  I just really want to get her home so that I can be there with her and for her, and be the one making the decisions for her. 

We have also had some delays with our dossier paperwork.  We had it all filled out and went to get our apostilles from the secretary of state.  More than half of our paperwork was missing some of the verbiage needed to get the apostilles, though, and it had to be fixed.  We went to the bank to talk to the guy who did most of it, and of course, he was on vacation.  We waited until he got back and just couldn't get him in the office.  I finally wrote all the correct verbage down myself, convinced that they would reject it, and sent David downtown (about a 30 minute drive) to try and get the apostilles.  Thankfully they gave it to him on all but two pages, which were our passports.  I had written the verbiage for written documents, not photos, on them, so they had to be fixed.  David drove back to the house, got our passports, and rushed back to get them corrected.  After getting those stamped he brought them home for me (I've got a good man :)).  We went to Staples that night to copy all the pages.  It took quite a while because they had stapled the apsotilles on the front of each of our documents, so we had to scan, turn, scan, turn, scan, turn, well, you get the picture.  It took a while.  97 pages later we were finished.  We got home and I opened my mail to find more paperwork.  I stayed up to work on it that night, so that it would be ready to mail with our Dossier.

The next morning we had my mom come over to take some family pictures of us in semi-formal attire.  The photos will be send to India along with our dossier.  I packaged up both sets of paperwork (the dossier and the new paperwork) and drove it to the post office to get it off to our adoption agency.  I sent it priority with a delivery confirmation in hopes of getting it there quickly and safely!

Today after the baby I watch left, I hopped on the computer to check my e-mail.  Let's just say I wasn't too happy.  There was an e-mail from our agency that basically said that CARA, the organization that oversees adoptions in India, is postponing all new paperwork/adoptions until the beginning of the year.  They were originally going to still work on special needs adoptions, but now they may even be halting those. 

Unfortunately this morning we received news from two orphanages that they had just received from CARA a circular advising that CARA will now not be processing cases of children with special needs prior to January 2012. 

I wasn't able to get ahold of our agency, as they were already closed for the day, so I'm not sure if Ramya's orphanage is one of the two in India that got word that adoptions are postponed.  I'm absolutely heartbroken and saddened that our adoption may, once again, be halted.  It's just not fair.  Our agency is going to write letter and fight it, and I will absolutely write one too if they will let me, but i feel so hopeless.  I know God has a plan, but this waiting is rough.  Right now, I'm praying for a miracle!!

We just payed a nice big adoption bill and I"ll post our fees so far, just in case anyone is interested.  We're going to start up some fundraising.  If you are local and have any goodies you don't want any more, send them our way!  Big, small, we'll take it all!  We'll be having a big garage sale in December for a fundraiser.  My friend Amanda is also hosting a thirty-one fundraiser.  There are great bags, lunch boxes, organizers, and other great stuff, all that can get personalized, that the company sells.  10%-15% of all sales goes towards our adoption.  You can check out more information here (http://www.aworthyjourney.com/2011/10/ready-for-some-christmas-shopping-join.html).  A few people have asked me to put a chip-in button on our blog so they can chip in towards the adoption.  I'm not ignoring this request, I promise, I just want to wait to see if there is a way to make donations tax deductible first :).
 
That's really it for now.  Please be praying that we can get approved in India quickly, without any more delays, so that we can be one step closer to bringing Ramya home.  Most importantly, please be praying for Ramya and that God's hand will protect her. 
 
 
Adoption Fees Paid:
 
Oasis Adoption Application Fee $75
Fingerprints $35
Court Fee for Fingerprints $62
Learning Partners Classes $149
Dr. Luberto- Physicals $65
Homestudy Fee $1,250
Birth Certificate Certified Copies $60
Apostilles Round 1 $36
Apostilles Round 2 $69
Apostilles Round 3 $6
First Round of Wacap Fees $6,050
 
Total So Far: $7,857.00