What's Happening Now

Many of you have been asking me why we have to wait for John to come home. You've also been asking me whether John will be an American citizen, a Korean citizen or have dual citizenship when he comes home. I figured it was time to update my blog to answer any quesitons you may have and let everyone know where we're at in the process.

I thought today was going to be our lucky mail day, but I was wrong. Right now, we're waiting on approval from USCIS to adopt John. The form we submitted to USCIS is called an I600, and the approval they send to us is called an I171. The I600 is a petition to classify an orphan as an immediate relative. Luckily, we've already submitted the I-600A (application for advance processing of orphan petition) prior to receiving our referral, and received approval from that form (the I171H) a long time ago. This SHOULD expedite the process, although by the looks of it, it hasn't expedited it TOO much! The approval (I171H) we received a while back was approval from the US government to adopt a baby. This was based upon our fingerprints and homestudy reports written by our social worker. The form that we submitted this time was not accompanied by nearly as much information. The approval we are awaiting now is based solely upon John's eligibility as an orphan. I wish they'd just hurry up with it. Other states are issuing their I600 approvals (I171s) in a day and we've been waiting a month already!

Once the I-600 is approved, the US Embassy in Seoul will receive the notice of approval from USCIS. The Embassy will then inform SWS in Korea so they can prepare the immigration visa application and medical examination. After receiving the visa application, the visa is NORMALLY issued the following business day, but given all the drama going on in Korea right now, who knows when anything will happen.

We are also waiting for updates from SWS on John. We asked SWS to provide us with updated medical records and pictures, but haven't received anything yet. We hope to receive this within the next couple of weeks.

We are also hoping to receive a letter and/or pictures from John's foster family. We sent a package to the foster family a few weeks ago. In the package, we sent lots of NY memorabilia for the foster dad and foster sons, a framed picture of the foster mom with John, a gold locket with pictures of the baby in it engraved "With Love, Chan Hyuk" and an Estee Lauder make-up bag for the foster mom, a baby picture book filled with pictures of me and Joe in it for John to look at, and 2 baby outfits and a bear blanket for John. One of the outfits we sent had doggies on it and the other had an airplane on it in honor of his grand appearance. I also enclosed a book that I made with pictures of all the extended family, with words in both English and Korean on each page. I also sent a copy of that same book to John's birth mom. We also sent some disposable cameras and asked the foster mom to take pictures with it and send us the pictures (or cameras so we can develop them) and, of course, we also sent a thank you note to the foster family. We are so grateful to them for caring for John during his first few months of life. Here are some pictures of the gifts:











When John arrives in the US, he will be a Korean citizen until we finalize his adoption, which will likely be 6 - 12 months after he's been home. After his big Finalization Day, he will have US citizenship.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Here's the latest from our agency:

October 25, 2006

Dear Korea families,

Many of you have called and emailed me requesting updates on your cases and on the situation in Korea in general. I sympathize with the frustration that all of you must be feeling during these uncertain times, and your hopes of hearing new news about the status of your cases. Please know that it is difficult for me to respond to the volume of inquiries and continue to run the Korea and India programs effectively. Therefore, I would ask for your patience, and please be assured that I will send out a Korea newsletter, such as this one, once a month, and I will contact you individually as your cases reach their natural “timeline deadlines.”

Regarding timelines: we are still receiving one to two child referrals a week, and they are for families whose home studies arrived in Korea during July. This means that currently there is a three-to-four month wait for a child referral from the date of home study submission. We are not sure if there will be a slowdown around the January 2007 mark, when the new policies come into effect.

Regarding the political situation in North and South Korea, Mr. Lee, Seung Hwan commented in a recent conference call on the gravity of the uncertain and uneasy situation for all Koreans. He said that the political issue before the government has taken precedence over issues of adoption at this time. He was reassuring that the adoption process will continue to move smoothly forward between SWS and Spence-Chapin.

Two Spence-Chapin families traveled to pick up their babies this month, and one baby arrived here by escort. Four referrals have arrived this month thus far, as well as two sets of legal papers this month.

Be patient, bear with us, and please be assured that you will all be united with your children in due course. We at Spence-Chapin will do everything in our power to continue to effect swift, efficient and loving homecomings for all your children.