Investigations

Just to keep my blog readers (whoever you may be) updated, here is what I now know...

Families are being chosen, completely at random, for investigation. It sounds like the US Embassy looks at the stack of paperwork in front of them for each embassy date (ours is supposed to be 12/28) and just picks some to investigate. There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for the cases they select and they don't appear to just be investigating cases with red flags.

The investigation will be a physical investigation where the US Embassy sends one of their staff to the area where a child's birth parent, or finder, is from and then they will interview people in that area to determine whether or not the information in the paperwork is accurate. They are just trying to ensure that all adoptions are as ethical as possible.

Obviously, we fully support that measure, but it would have been nice to know about this possibility BEFORE we booked our $4067 worth of tickets and completely rearranged our lives for the next 2 weeks. Of course, we don't know whether or not we'll be selected and we may not know until the day before we are scheduled to leave, but I'd give it an honest 50/50, given what I know.

What does all this mean? Well, if we're picked, we won't be leaving 12/28. These investigations are predicted to take 1-2 months and then we'll have to wait our turn for another embassy date--which our agency only has two of each month. Fortunately, our agency has never had their ethics called into question, so I do not feel that there are any red flags with our case to be found. If there are, paperwork may need to be redone and it could take even longer. Worst case scenario is just that we won't have Kayla home until March, but she should still be coming home.

Of course, waiting until January/February/March would be devastating and rearranging all the details of this trip would be really difficult and very expensive, but I think we'll manage. My heart is what I'm most concerned about. This process has been hard and incredibly disheartening. I'm weary. I don't know how much more I can take.

A friend asked me how she should pray. If you're wondering, just pray for peace to surround our family. Obviously, God could intervene to bring our baby girl home, but so far, He hasn't. So, I've given up asking for that. He knows what I want, but I'm not going to change His mind or His plan, so I've just started praying that I will be at peace with whatever comes our way through the rest of this process.

I'll be sure to keep you posted. Again, we have no reason to think we will, or won't, be selected for investigation. It's just luck of the draw, or un-luck depending on how you look at it I suppose. Definitely keep us, and our baby girl, in your prayers. Living on pins and needles for now.