How many bankers does it take to write a form letter?

So part of the dossier package is a letter from a bank that states you have an account in good standing. It amounts to about 3 sentences and a date on letterhead with a notarized signature. How much effort does it take to get such a letter from our bank of choice?

Well, we have an example letter provided by our agency, which I brought to my local branch. I approached the customer service desk, made my request indicating that my wife and I were in an adoption process, provided the example letter, and was told I could be given an automated account verification letter, which the rep proceeded to print out before I could respond with, "Thank you, but that type of letter won't work for me," (The automated letter contains balances, no signature, and thus no ability to notarize a signature).

I suggested that I knew this to be an unusual request, but perhaps someone could type out a letter to match the example I had attempted to provide. The woman looked at me as if I had insulted her, and said, sorry, she couldn't do that.

So in as calm a tone as I could muster, I stared the woman down and said, "You do realize that without this letter, I can't adopt my child. Perhaps there is someone else who could offer some assistance." This seemed to have the intended effect. She called one person, who blew her off (I continued staring). She called a second person, who after a few minutes of negotiating, instructed the rep to type the letter, which could then be signed by the supervisor.

My rep now took her seat behind her terminal and I could see the wheels starting to turn - I think it was going to be the first time since I don't know when that she was going to have to do a task that was not a brainless procedural set of keystrokes (although, when you think about it, I was asking for a 3-line letter copied from an example she had right in front of her).

But before she could start, I asked if the bank had a notary. She said yes, but she was out today (insert you favorite game show or video game YOU LOSE - THANK YOU FOR PLAYING sound effect here - I like WA WA WA WAAAAA).

Still, she said it was no problem - I could take the letter down the street to the notary at the pharmacy, to which I responded - would the person she spoke to on the phone be willing to walk down to the pharmacy with me (since it was that person's signature being notarized)?

"Ohhhhhh."

At which point she smiled, because she knew she didn't have to do the letter today...

Score after 1 day: 1 Bank Rep + 2 Supervisors = 0 letters Time spent: 1 hour

On day 2, I came in ready to go... I had the card of the supervisor who had approved the unusual letter writing request. I approached customer service and asked, "Is your notary here today?" The rep (different rep, but same species, I'll call her rep2) replied yes, yelled behind her and walked away from me, before I could start my letter-writing request summary.

The notary appeared, and I said, "Sorry to bother you. I actually need a letter written before you can notarize it - can one of these reps help me with that?" She waved me off and disappeared, leaving me standing there with no one.

Rep2 finished off her latest gossiping with the other reps on duty that day, wandered back to her station near me. I started to say I needed a letter written, but she cut me off, saying "You asked for a notary, so I gave you a notary." I just smiled, and asked for the supervisor, providing the card I had taken at the last minute the day before.

I then waited for twenty minutes for the supervisor to arrive - I'll call her SuperV - she was actually very nice, listened while I explained what I needed, took the example, and said she would get someone to help her write it, and she would sign it and would get one of the notaries (emphasis on PLURAL notarIES) to notarize it.

A few more minutes go by, I'm hanging out, finally I get called up to where the letter is being worked on. In a cubicle, SuperV is hovering over rep3, who is attempting to type the letter (i think by manually carving each individual letter into a stone tablet). They ask me about which account date to use, just my name or my wife's name also, etc... another few minutes go by... finally they print a draft, and my oh my, it has everything we need... it just screams FORGERY. It's black and white, on standard issue cheap paper, it's badly centered, it's using Courier font which makes it look like it was done on an ancient typewriter. SuperV says I should have a seat and she'll have rep4 (who's a notary) take care of that part as soon as he's done (rep 4 having just started a conversation with a family of 3 about a home loan - tick, tick tick)...

Of course, I'm thinking at this point, as my stay for day 2 passes the 1 hour mark, not only do I have what looks like a forgery, but rep4 was probably around yesterday except rep1 either didn't know he was a notary or deliberately told me the notary was sick to avoid having to do the letter. tick tick tick...

Finally after 10 more minutes, rep4 emerges, the letter is signed and notarized, and I am on my way...

Final Score: 4 Bank Reps + 1 notary + 1 SuperV = 1 (forged-quality) letter

Time spent: 2.5 hours

did you notice...

...the changes to our adoption timeline (on the right sidebar)?? Our NY State criminal clearances came through today and I had my long awaited doctor's appointment! I also checked in with Gladney regarding our homestudy report and they, in turn, checked with our social worker who promised to have it to them today - meaning we should be Gladney-approved very soon!!

On another note, if anyone is having trouble with their holiday shopping, check out Oxfam Unwrapped and Kikoy for presents that are fun and charitable.

a little of this, a little of that

I apologize in advance for what it likely to be a fairly disjointed post, as I seem to have many unrelated things on my mind at the moment.

First, I just need to vent. Oh where, oh where is our NY State criminal clearance? And why is it taking so long for our social worker to write up our homestudy report??

I sincerely apologize for every time I read a blog where someone else was venting about how hard all the waiting is during the adoption process and I self-righteously thought to myself "how could they be complaining... it's only been XX days/weeks... we were told it would take at least YY days/weeks...." I was soooo wrong! We haven't even gotten to the tough part (the wait for a referral) and I'm already struggling with a lack of patience. Not to mention all the crazy scenarios going through my head while I anxiously wait for the results of our criminal background checks, even though we should feel quite confident about this (think George Costanza in a Seinfeld episode and you'll know where my mind is going these days).

Then there's the homestudy. It looks like most other people had their homestudy reports completed within a month of their homestudy visits. We're at 3 weeks post-visit now and haven't heard a thing. This is even harder than the criminal check because we can't proceed with other steps until the report is completed. Perhaps our social worker is just trying to find enough words to describe all the fabulous things she discovered about us? ;)

Okay... enough venting. Ryan has suggested that I take up a new hobby now so that I can get through the rest of this process without losing my sanity. I think he's right. Any suggestions?

On another note.... This weekend I finished Melissa Fay Greene's book "There is no Me Without You." This seems like a rite of passage for those adopting from Ethiopia, and I have to admit I wasn't really that interested in the book when I started it. But it is truly an amazing, inspiring, and, at times, heartbreaking story about one woman's efforts to help orphans in Ethiopia. I absolutely recommend it - especially if you are planning to adopt or know someone who is adopting/has adopted from Ethiopia. In addition to the story of this particular woman, you will really learn a great deal about the AIDS crisis in Ethiopia and why so many children are in need of homes.

Speaking of which, we've talked quite a bit to friends and family about what we can all do to help children in Ethiopia. It's something Ryan and I have thought about a great deal. We don't consider the adoption to be a humanitarian act - it's far more selfish than selfless. But we do feel a strong connection to the country which will be the birthplace of our child and we know that we want to make a long-term commitment to Ethiopia. We're still exploring the best way to carry this out and will definitely share our plans with you. We appreciate so much people's interest in joining us in these efforts. For now, I have posted (on the sidebar) links to the humanitarian aid pages of our adoption agency and Melissa Fay Greene's website, where you can learn about many great organizations working in Ethiopia.

And finally, one more change of subject. I want to wish D&K congratulations on the birth of their third little girl!! We're so happy for you guys!!!

we've been cleared!

I was actually intending to write a quick post today to lament about the lack of adoption-related news, but we just picked up our mail and found our FBI clearances! I don't even think it's been two weeks since we sent them in, and I was under the impression that it could take much, much longer for the FBI to process them, so it was a really nice surprise.

Now if we could just get NYS to confirm that we aren't criminals....

one year ago...

(photos by cappy hotchkiss)

the waiting begins

Good news: New York State has confirmed that we don't have histories of child abuse! Better news: my employer prepared yet another employment verification letter for our dossier and everything looks good!! I need to fax a copy to Gladney so they can confirm, but I'm pretty confident that they finally got it right. Yay!

We are now entering the part of the process which consists mostly of waiting (a lot of waiting). We have largely tackled all of the items to meet both the agency requirements and completion of our dossier. We still need to write an essay about why we want to adopt from Ethiopia and I still haven't had my doctor's appointment (you know, the one I scheduled a hundred years ago)... but that's about all we have to do at the moment. We are waiting on NYS criminal and FBI clearances, a write-up of our homestudy visit, and we need to arrange to have our dossier documents authenticated (we will largely be relying on a service - KBS - for this)... but until some of these things happen, we don't have much to do. Kind of nice and kind of frustrating (as one might call me a bit of a control freak).

Fortunately, we have a good weekend ahead of us to help us pass the time.... Tomorrow, we are having dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant with friends, and Saturday we'll have a great night out to celebrate our anniversary, followed by brunch at my parents' house on Sunday. And next week I will begin my diet :)

home cookin'

Not much news on the adoption front, but I promised to update you on our cooking lesson. It was a lot of fun and we (ok, Ryan) learned some great new recipes and cooking techniques. If anyone in the NYC area is ever looking for a great gift idea, I'd highly recommend the company - Home Cooking New York. We did a Spanish menu (paella, tortilla espanola, garlic shrimp, tomato bread, and a pineapple dessert), but they'll do pretty much anything you want. We'll be eating well all week long!


(ej was hoping to take part too)

ups and downs

The last few days have been pretty uneventful here. I obtained another employment verification letter for our dossier and... it is still wrong! I've been assured that another revised copy is on its way to me - hopefully, it will be waiting for me when I get back to the office after the long weekend. So much effort for such a simple letter. I have to admit though, our HR Dept. has been super accommodating about providing the letter (the normal policy is to provide verifications via a web-based system, but that won't work for our purposes). They never even asked why I needed the letter, which is huge for me, since I'm not ready to talk about our adoption plans at work.

We have had our share of frustrations trying to obtain certain documents from our employers, insurance providers, and the government... and we also experienced stress and sorrow earlier in the process when our agency put us on hold due to some pending changes in the Ethiopian adoption laws which would have made us ineligible to adopt at this time (there is still a small chance that the laws could change at any point and that our adoption will be postponed by several months). But more than not, the process has moved smoothly and we expect to complete our adoption around the time we originally hoped.

Sadly, yesterday I received a very stark reminder about the uncertainty that surrounds adoptions. As we have moved through this process, I have found myself a bit addicted to the blogs of others also going through the adoption process. The blogs provide a great wealth of information about the process, what to expect, etc., and also create a community of people sharing similar experiences. So it was terribly heartbreaking to come across a post on the blog of one woman, also adopting from Ethiopia, who had received a referral last month (i.e. she had been matched with a child and was just waiting for her court date to make the adoption official), only to learn that the birth parents changed their minds about relinquishing their daughter. I am so sad for her and cannot imagine the pain she feels right now. I hope that her story will have a happy ending very soon.

Anyhow, I don't mean to be writing such a depressing post... As I've said, we could not be happier or more excited about adopting and becoming parents. But we are also guarded and cautious, and hope that our friends and family can bear with us and understand that the process of adopting is like being on a roller coaster, with lots of ups and downs.

With that, I am going to get back to enjoying the long weekend. We are having a personal in-home cooking lesson tonight, so I'll try to take a few pictures of our spanish-flavored creations and post more on that tomorrow!

we've been studied

I see that my dog (?) already shared his thoughts on the homestudy (we always knew EJ was special), but thought I'd add a few words...

So, yes, the homestudy was yesterday. I think overall it went very well. The only downside was that after all our cleaning, the social worker barely checked out our sparkling clean apartment! Anyhow, even though it lasted almost three hours, it went by really quickly, and there was nothing that really surprised us or caught us off-guard. And EJ was on his best behavior (thanks to a really good new bone).

It is definitely a milestone - although there is still a lot (A LOT) of waiting ahead of us, we have largely completed the paperwork involved in the adoption process, and completion of the homestudy will enable us to proceed with the final steps (agency and DHS/CIS approvals and ultimately submission of our file to Ethiopia). Up until recently, the idea that we would one day bring home a child seemed like something so far off, something we talked about over and over, but was too far in the future to really plan for. We are starting to realize that this future is not quite so distant.

One more note - we owe our friends and family many, many (belated) thank-yous for taking the time to write such kind words about us and providing references for us. We feel really lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives.

Living on the ej: Strange Lady in our House

So I figured since my picture has been up here a couple times already, I needed to get on board with this whole adoption thing. I guess it really is happening - I mean this lady was in my pad yesterday for like 3 hours asking my people questions about adoption, writing things down, blah blah blah (taking away quality petting & fetch time if you ask me). From what I gather, mer & ry weren't kidding around when they said I would be getting a little brother one of these days. I guess I'm ok with it - my cousin Matthew is a cool kid to play with - so as long as we can be clear that my bones are my bones, we should be all good, especially if he's a quick study on the art of opening kitchen drawers (one in particular known to have fabulous yummy TREATSSSS!!!). Sorry, lost control for a minute there, speaking of which, I've got some important business to take care of, so ciao (chow?) for now.

Arf!

ej

progress!

A busy morning here... We got fingerprinted for the state and fbi clearances and made our way to the county clerk to pick up a certified copy of our marriage certificate. Both efforts were successful, but if NYC ever wants any advice about how to improve their process for obtaining a copy of a marriage certificate to make it easier or less confusing, please feel free to give me a call. Thank goodness that Ryan is so patient and can make me laugh under any circumstance, because I was definitely not feeling so happy a few hours ago!

Now we're back to cleaning.... More thanks to Ryan because he continues to work hard, while I am enjoying a coffee break. I have the best husband.

running around

It was marathon day here in NYC, so Ryan and I went to Central Park for a bit to watch the runners and look for one of my friends who was running (we saw him just shy of the finish line and he looked terrific!!). I am always so in awe of the runners.... I would actually love to run the marathon myself and like to think that one day I might go for it (I write this even though I currently run way less than I did a couple of years ago... which is way less than it was a few years before that... you get the point). Anyway, we did hit the gym tonight and I had a better run than I have in a while (if nothing else, seeing 38,000 people running 26.2 miles is excellent motivation for a workout!).

On the adoption front, we're hoping to go to the county clerk tomorrow in person to get a certified copy of our marriage certificate (if you've seen my posts below, you understand that trying to obtain it by mail seems to be a lost cause) and to go get fingerprinted for the state criminal clearance and FBI clearance.

We are also gearing up for our homestudy on Tuesday - i.e. cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning (fortunately, we're both off from work tomorrow, because we did not exactly make great strides on that front today). I have to admit that sometimes this whole process doesn't quite feel real, but I imagine the homestudy will change that a bit. It will actually be the first time we meet with anyone from our agency in person. Everything else we've done so far has been by phone, email, and in writing. The homestudy is also the final step before our agency officially "approves" us, so it's definitely a milestone.

I don't have much more to share today, but we'll definitely check in after our homstudy visit - hopefully to say that it went very well.