Such Exciting News on the Adoption Front

Not our news, exactly. But in the long run I can only hope it will affect us, too!

In this last two days there have been at least EIGHT Medicals cleared on our adoption yahoo groups! We are lucky to hear about one Medical a week. And the news just gets better...

As well as so many Medicals clearing since Monday, we have also heard the most amazing timeline stories. Historically, I know of people who waited up to TWENTY ONE WEEKS for their Medicals to be cleared. These people, on the 'old method' of doing things had to wait for Court Approval before they could *begin* their Medical. That was *torturous*.

With the new and improved method that our agency is now implementing, the agency is now submitting the Medical files at the same time as Referral. This means the Medical could come through 12 weeks earlier than it used to - saving 3 MONTHS on our wait time to get our kids.

So to keep this as simple as possible - the new and wonderful news that we saw yesterday - one family got their Referral in mid-January. This is means that she has waited 9 1/2 weeks since Referral. Well, guess what? Using this new method of sending in Medical before Court Date, our agency submitted her papers two weeks ago. This Adoptive Parent heard yesterday that she got her Medical back. That was a mere TWO WEEKS!!!!!!

She hasn't even had her Court Approval yet. This means that when Court does come through she will be travelling days or at most, a few weeks later!!!!!!! This will been a real record!!! That means her total wait time from Referral could be as little as 14 weeks!!! Just over THREE MONTHS!!!!

Do you have any idea how wonderful this is for us that are waiting? We entered this adoption knowing it would take up to EIGHT months to bring our children home AFTER Referral. Now we are seeing miracles happening in THREE MONTHS!!!! This last situation was not isolated. The other stories were telling similar situations.

We can only hope and wonder if our latest Letter Writing Campaign made a difference.

We inundated our Members of Parliament and Minister Finley of the Canadian Immigration Centre with letters crying out for justice for the newly adopted Ethiopian-Canadian children sitting in orphanges, due to lack of man-power in Nairobi's High Commission (Canadian office).

I believe there were at least a hundred letters sent to the Minister, plus all our MPs, regarding this situation that is specific to Canada. And I know that a number of these MPs rose to their job and called and wrote to Minister Finley themselves.

Maddenly, I got a hopeless letter back from our MP, which I plan to rebut. A friend of mine said she was going to call me "Justine, Warrior Woman," based on my rebuttal letter. With her advice *grin* I am going to tone down my reply, before I send it. I might need the MP's assistance later, and so, I can't really burn my bridges, yet. It just *infuriates* me though, how useless and patronizing some of these government members can be.

This week has been the most exciting of all our weeks and months on these boards. As well as the Medicals clearing in record time, (Permanent Resident Visa route home) the first cases of the CIC (Canadian Immigration route home) have also been clearing. This is the new method of bringing the children home (Bill C-14 - what we did the CBC interview for in December). These have been clearing in about 6 weeks after Court Approval. So these are wonderful numbers also!!

Bottom line, whether we choose CIC or PRV to bring our kids home, both routes are showing that they are picking up their timelines and children are moving through the process quicker. This is an amazing thing. It shows that standing up and being heard, by writing letters, *does* make a difference!! The squeaky wheel gets oiled!! YEAH!!!

I can only hope that this will continue when we get our referral. We have now been waiting 15 weeks and 6 days. I pray that our referral is soon. I know it is in God's time, but it is getting harder to wait. Actually, that is not true. I am finding the time FLYING by. It is going so incredibly fast that I can't keep up!!! True. BUT, if I stop to think about it, it would be WONDERFUL to get a referral SOON!!!!!