I know I haven't been good at communicating with friends and family lately; when you all ask about where the Kid is and when we get to meet her I can't seem to get beyond a seething "it sucks, I'm pissed, I don't know, I can't talk more about it or I might explode. And we're trying to get this house ready to sell and exploding would be messy and who has the time to get gunky brain matter off ceilings right now anyway (and well, I guess I have time because I don't have any Kid to be busy with but the point is I don't WANT to clean the ceilings so leave me alone!)"
So let me elaborate from safely behind the shield of my computer screen.
The adoption process in a nutshell can be divided into two phases, a US phase and a Vietnam phase. In the US phase, we're getting a dossier together -- doing a homestudy, collecting mountains of paperwork, getting approved by the USCIS to adopt, etc. Then that dossier gets sent to Vietnam, and in Vietnam the government reviews our application and dossier and also reviews the baby's situation -- is he/she truly an orphan, has there been unethical/illegal influence, do any of her birth family want to claim her, etc.
The Vietnam part is handled in two places -- a central government agency called the DIA (sometimes IAD) in Hanoi, and also within each individual province where the baby is from. For us, the Kid is from Bihn Duong province, outside Ho Chi Mihn City (Saigon). So there is lots of back-and-forth between the province and Hanoi reviewing our dossier, the baby's paperwork, etc., and verifying that we're acceptable potential parents, the Kid is truly an orphan available for adoption, and we're a good match for each other. The efficiency which with this process proceeds varies from province to province, and perhaps even from agency to agency, depending on their history of working in Vietnam (ours has little), and on top of that Vietnam itself is still fine-tuning it's rules and regulations, having only re-opened to international adoption a year and a half ago.
Our adoption is through the "old" process -- we received our referral for the Kid before our dossier was received by the DIA. So we didn't wait that long for a referral; all our waiting time is coming between referral and travel (seven months so far). Nothing wrong with doing it that way, although now it's more common for the long wait to be between dossier submission and referral, with just a short wait between referral and travel.
A few weeks ago I, in a total jackass move, posted excitedly about my belief that we were 4 to 6 weeks from travel. That was because we heard that the provincial government had signed off on everything and sent it all up to Hanoi for one final review, after which travel dates would be issued. But as is apparently par for the course, things aren't moving as quickly as one might hope. The DIA has not yet signed off on our case. They have signed off on others in our agency group, so something appears to be happening. Just not for us. There appears to be no rhyme or reason as to which documents get signed and which languish, sad and lonely and crying for a friendly hand to come to their rescue (nice anthropomorphizing, hmm?). Our agency has nine families at this stage. Our documents were among the first to be sent from the provincial government to Hanoi. But it looks like they're going to be among the last to be signed and returned to the province. And our agency this week dropped some hints that make me think that we need to be prepared for even more delays. Like "not even in June" kind of delays.
Which really sucks. I hope I'm wrong.
On another note, when I was in Portsmouth recently I saw this sign, which tickles my idiot funnybone to no end. Is there a particularly pokey white duck in Portsmouth that deserves extra consideration? He sure looks like he's doing his best to hurry right along. Nicely done, Portsmouth!
