Waiting...waiting...waiting

Dossier is complete for the second time after the addition of the psych report.  From this point, a referral could be tomorrow or 6 months from now.  Let's hope Honduras can be a bit quicker than 6 months.  Especially considering they've had my dossier since May  and asked for and were sent information about me (and all of the first families) back in January or February.  Anxiously waiting but definitely not holding my breath!

Honduras 101

Well, if you are anything like me, you may need a bit of geography and basic information about Honduras.  Honduras is in Central America, north of Nicaragua, south of Guatemala.  It has a Caribbean coast, and is probably best know for Roatan, off its east coast.  The capital is Tegucigalpa, which is basically due south of about Nashville, Tennessee.  (In my mind, I pictured Honduras much further west than it actually is.  I guess it's my west coast bias.)  Honduras is also slightly larger than Tennessee.  When I travel, I'll probably only be going to Tegucigalpa.  Though I'd love to take a side trip to Roatan or Belize, it likely won't happen.  We'll see...

In 2010, there were only 9 U.S. adoptions from Honduras; in 2009 there were 4. There are a few agencies starting adoptions from Honduras.  My agency sounds like it will be one of the first, if not the first, to get a Honduras program actually up and running.  Honduras is not a Hague country.  (For those of you not well versed in adoption lingo, this has to do with the Hague treaty that some countries signed regarding international adoption.)  You can find more info here about Honduran adoption statistics and information. 

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere.  I heard it was the 2nd poorest, next to Haiti.  Honduras has just over 8 million people, about 1 million of them living in Tegucigalpa.  They are 2 hours ahead of the west coast during standard time.  For more Honduras info, click here.

Because Honduras is so poor, many of the orphans are in charity run orphanages.  It is not clear whether my daughter will come from a state run or charity run orphanage. Here are a few random pics of Honduran orphans from various charity websites.  My goodness!  Don't you just want to bring them all back home with you?!

Hoops & Delays

As anyone who has adopted internationally can tell you, the process is full of bumps, glitches, hoops to jump through, and delays.  This adoption is no different.  I originally thought I'd travel in late spring.  Well, that didn't happen.  Then I was SURE I'd travel in the summer.  In fact, I even got a call from my agency in early June.  I was SURE they had a referral waiting for me.  Nope.  Instead, they had another hoop for me to jump through.  Honduras had approved my dossier, but wanted one more thing.  They wanted me (and all adopting families) to be evaluated by a psychologist, including a personality test.  Oh boy!  So after my insurance said they don't do that sort of thing, I cold called psychologists from the phone book until I found one with some adoption experience and a price I could afford.  Only problem, it'd be a month before I could get an appointment.
So jump ahead to mid-July.  My psychology appointment is done, but they are waiting on my personality test results.  Let's hope that this report is done and in Honduras's hands by the end of the month.  Maybe then I will have a referral in August.  But you know the saying, "Man plans, and God laughs."
So today's delay...Honduras had just now decided that I will have to make 2 trips to Honduras, up to 6 weeks apart.  Many countries do require 2 trips, but this is the first Honduras has ever said about it.   Both trips would be about 5 days.  I would likely go alone on the first trip, meet my daughter, sign papers, go back home...alone.  The second trip my mom and 4 year old Mia would likely come, we would have our official Gotcha Day, and do the U.S. paperwork, and then come home.  Though not what I had planned on, we can make it work.  It's just the up to 6 week DELAY from the first to second trip that gets me.
Like I said, just a bunch of hoops & delays.  Nothing new in the world of international adoption.  On the positive side, this adoption looks like it will take just about a year total, from start to finish.  A far cry from the over 3 1/2 year start to finish total from my China adoption.

Back to the Beginning...

I had always known that my first daughter Mia, adopted in 2009 from China, would have a sibling.  Now how that would happen, I had no clue.  When China closed its doors to singles, it was no longer an option for daughter #2.  There were a handful of other countries that let singles adopt, but for one reason or another (reliability of program, cost, length and number of stays in country), they weren't a viable option.  So, I enjoyed the daughter I had, and tried not to think too much about it.

Until about September of 2010.  My agency for my China adoption, Living Hope Adoption Agency, in Pennsylvania sent out an email about their new pilot program for Honduras.  Honduras was essentially brand new to the international adoption scene.  They had healthy children available and were open to singles.  I wasn't sold at first.  I was very hesitant about being a "guinea pig" in an untested, no track record program.  I kept in open mind, learned the background of how Living Hope got started in Honduras, and by October I had sent in my application and was ready to adopt again.

Adopting a second time was certainly easier in some ways.  I used my same social worker and had just seen her recently for Mia's one year update, so we didn't have to start from the beginning.  I also knew where to get my fingerprints done (3 different times, for 3 different agencies), where to get birth certificates, and so on.  Honduras was a bit pickier than China, in my opinion: more documents had to be notarized, on letterhead, written a certain way, etc.  Honduras is non-Hague, though, so that did simplify things.  (For my non-adoption world friends, the Hague Treaty is an international agreement between countries that sets guidelines for international adoption.  What it practically means, though, is adopting from a Hague country=more red tape and paperwork.)

So, jump ahead 7 months, and my dossier was completed, sent to my agency for legalizing and sealing, and then to the Honduran consulate in N.Y.  As of May 2, my dossier was approved by the consulate and on it's way to the IHNFA (the CCAA of Honduras).  Next step, referral!