Questions, questions, questions

So the number 1 question of the week, "Why would you have to stay there for 9-12 +/- weeks?!?" Followed by, "How are you going to live without your children for that long?" or "What is your poor husband going to do without you and with 5 children for that long?"  All totally sound questions that I really do not have the answers to.  Insert sad face here :-(

And to answer those questions, and get the complete run down on how things operate, and the "in-country" process, Paul and I sat on a conference call for almost 2 1/2 hours yesterday with the agency's Ugandan head and our adoption facilitator.

First thing's first, you land, find Father Michael or your driver and handler, drive to your hotel, get settled, go to sleep.  The hotel list that we are given is almost 2 sheets of hotels, and lists of the amenities - running hot water, private bathroom, wifi, an open kitchen to cook food yourself, etc.  You kind of scan through the lists of places, pick which amenities you definitely need, and start calling or emailing these places to book a room.  $50 a night, no private bathroom, but free wifi vs $40 and a bathroom but no hot water vs whatever other combination.  For around $65 a night, you can get wifi and a bathroom and maybe hot water, but that depends on the power anyway - which will go out for undisclosed periods of time without rhyme or reason. And then you multiply that amount, in your head, by 12 weeks?!?  All of these places are compound type set ups, standard with guards with AK-47s, courtyard for kids to run around, and 10 other frantic and exhausted adoptive moms in the same but different process.

The next morning you get your son, you eat breakfast (we bring protein bars and trail mix), you meet with your lawyer, take a nap, practice answering serious questions, try to bond with this amazing new 4 year old, unpack and get organized, etc.

Day 2, dress your new child in a suit, get in your Sunday best (Paul in a 3 piece suit minimum) and call your driver, and head to the courthouse.

SIDEBAR: They gave us the name and number of a driver who we are supposed to use.  For $20 a day, plus gas, he will come and take you wherever you need to go.  You pay by the day, so normally you stack 3 or 4 things up in a day - embassy, grocery, and then you would take the driver out to lunch with you, etc.  They also give you a list of places people like to eat at - on it was Cafe Javas - which I described as a really nice gas station with a tiny Chappys Deli attached to the side - Starbucks type drinks, deli sandwiches and salads, run by Indian families - and cinnamon roles the size of your head...and clean bathrooms. Huge plus.  And even though I have ridden a poda poda, we have been advised that during this trip, and because we are in the capital, not a village, that the idea is ridiculously stupid.  

BACK to the Schedule:  So out we go with our driver, translator, 8 million pieces of paper and our son to the courthouse.  And although it says that you have a case at 9 AM, expect to be there all day.  In fact, you might show up and they might cancel it all together and have it rescheduled for a week from that day, without warning or excuse. Have a bag packed with snacks, food, and toys for your new son to play with for all of those hours that you are waiting in the lobby.

And then end of the hearing, which is only 30 minutes long, you might get a ruling right away.  Sometimes they ask for different things that they have never asked a soul for, and then you would have to come back in a week or two to present said items.  Pray this does not happen because Paul's trip would be extended and this might cause the most havoc of all.  Or definitely more devastatingly, they could rule a flat out no, and we would go home heart broken.  This has happened once.

If we get a ruling that day, or whenever we get a ruling, then we do 2 things.  First, we contact the passport office, and bring all of our paperwork and forms and pictures, and start the passport process.  This is the longest part of the process - you wait for hours and hours, entertaining your son, while sitting in an office surrounded by posters that talk about how adoption is bad, and that we are stealing Ugandans youth.  Our agent reminded us to be happy, ignore the posters, and bring Christ to this dark little office.  I can do this.  However, once you leave, it can take 3 weeks to get the passport.  

Secondly, you email the Embassy and beg for a quick appointment, saying "My husband is leaving to go and rescue my sister from my children, please let him do whatever he needs to do in order to leave."  And then you get an appointment emailed to you, and he fills out forms, has stuff notarized, etc.  When the embassy clears him to leave, then he can sprint home to run the show, solo.

During this 3 week waiting time, probably solo, I take our son to the Wentz clinic and have a complete medical exam done for yourself and for the Alabama DHR who has to approve the medical in order to approve his entrance into the US.  They will walk me through any conditions they find, go through labs and blood work for diseases, parasites, etc. They reassure you, talk about caring for this new child, list things he might need to get back on track health wise if something is ailing him, you can get prescriptions, etc.  Then you can go back to the hotel and call the UAB International Adoption Clinic and discuss what their reports say to get more information.

Once the passport is done, I then call the OEM and have the Visa medical exam done.  You can only get this done when the passport is complete and picked up.  They only do them on Mondays and Wednesdays, and you go back 3 days later to have the TB read. And then they finish the report.  So if you are lucky enough to have the passport done on a Monday, you can go on a Monday, get the TB read by Wednesday or Thursday, and be done by Friday.  But not hitting that target date, can cost you a whole week, and bump the 1 week OEM to a 2 week OEM.  And we were told that they are always slammed, and that they often get paperwork mixed up when they send it to the embassy - like half of a little girls chart is stuck to yours, or something like that.  But, once they are done, they send the sealed exam results to the Embassy.  In the meantime, you contact the embassy and make an appointment for the exit interview.  It could take a week to get the interview.

Once the exit interview comes, they go through all of the paperwork that you brought, you have filled out, have had notarized, etc,  And then, just like that you leave - within 3 days of the exit interview you must be out of the country.  Everything is hurry up and then wait.  Hurry hurry, get it done, and wait and wait for results.  She kept stressing to us that everyone will be warn out and every judge is different and every family is different do just do not get anxious by all of the people there and their different stories.  In fact, this last time, there were 3 families that showed up, and the last family to show up left first, in 9 weeks, and the other two are still there.  Ack.

So how do I fill 9 weeks +/- of time?  Well, I am going to be there with Father Michael, and going to the villages, and seeing projects, and teaching at Arthur's Red Star School once or twice.  And we have been sponsoring children through World Vision for 3 years, and I am trying to go visit our little boy at one of the Ugandan Projects.  And last time I was there, Jeff and I wanted to go to Kibeho Rwanda.  Father and I are now trying to pick up where we left off, and head down there for a weekend.  Other than that, there are so many Anawim Ministries people that I need to catch up with and see - Maria, Moses, and many more.  

I am getting excited, but more anxious about my sweet sweet souls at home.  I will get to them tomorrow. :-)