The WAIT continues (seems to be longer, and longer)...

This coming September marks our 3-year residency here in the Philippines so I decided to contact DSWD to get an update on our adoption process last week.  The Social Worker who originally did our home study, interview and received our required paperwork last May 2015 left DSWD shortly after so our case was passed down to her supervisor.  

In the email, I asked what required paperwork we needed to turn in to her since Patrick and I needed a new NBI Clearance and Medical Certificates. I also mentioned that I was to give birth this coming August so we wanted to postponed our adoption until April 2017 to give us a chance to adjust to the new baby.  After a couple of days, she finally emails me back and told me to contact her back in 2-years after I give birth because "there should have 2-years nurturance required" for our new baby.  I emailed her back and let her know that our original social worker never mentioned this requirement to us knowing that my husband and I were trying to get pregnant the whole time.  It's upsetting and I'm very disappointed that we were misinformed, but we are more than willing and very thankful to be able to adopt in the first place, even if it takes 2-years.   

I'm still curious though if this "2-year bonding period" is under the Philippine Law or just a policy that adoption agency follows.  According to an email from another Social Worker (private adoption agency in Manila), "it is a policy, but we could not remember where it is written."  And if so, no one from DSWD has been able to provide me a copy of their memorandum of such policy.  Very frustrating... definitely "more fun in the Philippines."

So... August 2018 is when we can continue our adoption process.  By then, at least Patrick will be a Pilipino-Citizen already!  

The loooooong wait continues... 443 days to go!

On May 7, 2015; the hubby and I turned in all the required paperwork to our social worker at DSWD Main Office in Alabang. 

 

According to our social worker, the wait for our daughter was about 1-3 months... BUT ONLY IF we were exempted from the 3-years residency requirement here in the Philippines.  She said she would do her best to write on her report that we should be exempted because I am a Filipina (with Dual citizenship) and we have no plans/intention to leave the country anytime soon.  

Today, I got a call from our social worker. As my phone vibrated and her name flashed numerous times on my phone, waves of emotion came over me... I was overjoyed, nervous, and anxious.  I finally answered and received updates from her about our adoption application.  Everything looked good and we could have been matched this month ONLY IF we fulfilled our 3-year residency here in the Philippines.  No big deal, I guess our wait for our daughter is going to take longer than I thought, but 1 year and 4 months is not that far away from now.  Patrick and I are a bit disappointed that we won't have our daughter next month, but we're also grateful for the time we have until she arrives so we can save more money and by that time, Liam will also be starting Preschool and so it'll give me more time to spend with our daughter. 

Rule On Domestic Adoption:

          Section 7- 2(e) That he has been living in the Philippines for at least three (3) continuous years prior to the filing of the petition and he maintains such residence until the adoption decree is entered.

👧 Only 443 days left...😍

the light at the end of the {required paperwork} tunnel...

Getting all the required documents to continue the process of our adoption took longer than expected. Patrick and I are did everything we can to get it done, but we've reached many obstacles along the way...

Now I will go through the documents required individually and the troubles we faced!

1. Questionnaire/Survey (pre home-visit):

Patrick and I wrote 14+ pages on each of our forms, paragraphs of detailed answers to all the questions on the survey. A day before the social worker from DSWD was suppose to come to do the home-visit, our laptop crashed, hard-drive wiped and Patrick's work all gone. Luckily, I had written my answers on my phone's Notes App so I was able to print my out with no problem.

2. Birth & Marriage Certificates:

My officially NSO birth certificate cannot be obtained until 12 days after I had requested in at the Municipal Hall of Carmona, Cavite. It usually just takes 3-5 days, but because of Holy Week and being a holiday, it has taken longer.

Our social worker from DSWD has not gotten back to us about whether or not we can turn in a copy of Patrick's birth certificate and a copy of our Marriage License because we only have one original for each documents that we acquired from the United States. I'll make copies to turn in and show our original, perhaps.

3. Medical Certificate/Laboratory Results:

This was easy, except for the part when Patrick had to get HIS blood taken... NO problem, just afraid of needles. Results indicated that we're both healthy enough to adopt and our Doctor recommends it!

4. NBI Clearance:

Patrick and I had already had our NBI Clearance done when we first arrived in the Philippines in 2013, but it expired in a year so we had to get it renewed. Set up our NBI Clearance appointment online for the closest to us which is in Santa Rosa. We even paid for the fees at a local Bayad Center and had our renewal application printed out and ready to go. Then next day, we arrived at the NBI office and immediately was informed that Patrick could not get his renewed at their location. He needed to go to the main office... all the way in Manila! I explained to the person in charge that Patrick got his NBI Clearance there with no problem. The guy just kept telling me that since Patrick is a foreigner, they are not able to process. My irritability level was up at this point after explaining to him over and and over that we didn't have to go to Manila to do my husband's clearance before and I just wanted a CLEAR explanation why we are not able to process there that day. I had also informed the guy that their website needs to get fixed because it let my husband set an appointment at their local office and they had already accepted his payment. Patrick should not have been able to make an appointment online if he was not able to get his clearance at the local branch. Anyway, a week later, Patrick and I trekked on over to Manila via the bus to get his NBI Clearance taken cared off. “NO DEROGOTORY RECORD” for both of us.

5. Certificate of Attendance to Adoption Orientation

This was the easiest to acquire from the required documents checklist. We automatically got this certificate when we attended the Adoption Forum back in January 2015. The certificate is the first official paperwork we aquired to start the adoption process!

6. Affidavit of Guardianship

Patrick and I have a lot of close friends/relatives that we entrust our children to both in the United States and the Philippines. Choosing a married couple to take the responsibility of “guardianship” for our future child was not an easy task. We both looked at our options carefully and chose what is best for our little girl.

7. Recent Family Picture

We attached a few.
 

8. Proof of Financial Capacity

Along with a letter stating that Patrick gets a paycheck from is job, our savings both in Pesos and Dollar on-hand, we also included print out of our bank statements from BDO and Chase.

9. Letters of Character References

Only THREE letters are required, we have SEVEN, thanks to all our close friends! The people who wrote these references for us are so awesome. Patrick and I are so lucky to have them all in our lives. We are very grateful to know these people who took time in their busy schedule to write about Patrick and I and how much they support us in adopting.

May 7, 2015: The day we're going to turn in all of our paperwork to the DSWD Main Office in Alabang and seeing our very nice social worker :-)

We're Adopting! -- social media announcement

Patrick's picture he posted on Facebook to announce that WE ARE ADOPTING!

This is the picture I posted on Instagram/Facebook to let everyone know on the internet!

We already have two perfect biological children and can try to get pregnant anytime, so some people may wonder why would we want to adopt, too...

Liam - 2 years old / PeeJay - 4 years old

Parick and I have always talked about possibly adopting when we first started dating.  Our main reason to adopt is to provide a child (who may not have much); a loving, supportive family and a safe home because every child deserves to know what it feels like to be loved, wanted and cared for.  

Our Process before today's public announcement:

At the beginning of January, Nikki (mercyhouseph.org) let Patrick know the right people to contact for domestic adoption here in the Philippines, specifically in our region.  Patrick then sent an email to the DSWD office to get information on how we can start the process for adoption.  There was an immediate response from DSWD saying that we still needed to wait until we have resided in the Philippines for 3-years (September 2016) before we can even start the process to adopt.  DSWD's website stated that, "a foreigner can only adopt if he's a resident of the Philippines for continuous 3 years."

Bummer... we've only arrived in the Philippines on September 2013 so we did not meet the residency requirement.  We were both disappointed, but understood the reasoning and just had to be patient and wait until it's the right time.  

One night, I was sitting on the couch watching "Stuart Little" with the boys and something urged me to send DSWD an email.  I thought that since I have dual-citizenship and the fact that I am Filipina would give me a different response than Patrick.  I'm so happy that I did because the following was DSWD's response to my email...

This is the email response I recieved from DSWD inviting us to an Adoption Forum the next day!

January 31, 2015

Patrick and I attended the Adoption Forum at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) main office in Alabang, Muntinglupa CIty.  

March 20, 2015:

A social worker, Marivi Elnar, from DSWD office came into our house for our virst official home visit.  Ms. Elnar, Patrick and I went over the questionnaire she emailed for us to answer as detailed as possible.  Questions included memories about our childhood, our relationships with family members and biggest turning point in our lives.  Patrick and I each had over 15 pages of our answers that we printed out for Ms. Elnar to look over.  She read each one and asked us a few questions to clarity our answers.  Then, we gave her a tour of the house.  

Overall, it was a great visit.  Now, we need to send here some required documents to supplement her report about us.  

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS: 

Now Patrick and I are in the process of getting all the required documents so that we can send it over to DSWD as soon as possible.  We've already asked a few of our close friends to help us out with character references and affidafit of guardianship letter.   

Please continue to pray for our family and  for our soon-to-be baby girl! 💗👧