Moving Forward

It seems like I've been waiting for the home study forever.  I thought it was done about 6 weeks ago, then I had to wait for revisions, signatures, notary, and finally longer than it seemed should have been necessary for delivery.  But here we are.  I mailed it to USCIS today.  This should be the biggest remaining step before the dossier is ready to send.  I estimate that it should take around a month. 

The only other remaining task is to have all documents state certified, which will take less time to complete than the immigration pre-approval.

I'm keeping my hands busy with crocheting a blanket for Robin in the meantime.  I've got 8 and a half skeins of yarn to go before the third week of July.

Now to wait some more...

rc

Two Months In

It's hard to believe that we've only been working on this for a little over two months.  I have an appointment to sign the home study tomorrow, then it needs to be sent to USCIS so we can get our I-600A.  That will take a month or so.  Then we get our documents state certified and the dossier is ready to go.

In the meantime, I've finished the afghan and I'm reading a novel.  I need to work on the Amharic.

rc

Net Worth

Oh Geez.  Call from the home study social worker tonight, when I thought it was already done. Ugh.  I don't have enough net worth.  Criminy.  There's plenty of net worth; it just doesn't show up on paper for this "single woman".  Bugger.  Why didn't I know this a month ago?

Now to fix it.

rc


Addendum:  This was such a huge mountain-out-of-a-molehill event that it doesn't even deserve its own follow-up post.  It certainly didn't merit bourbon and a pint of Chubby Hubby.  Added the life insurance.  My mistake. Home study done.  Move on!

Weaving a Family - Untangling Race and Adoption by Barbara Katz Rothman

Rothman is a sociologist who writes from a combined personal and professional perspective.  She is a white Jewish woman who adopts an African-American infant midway through raising her two biological children with her husband.

She makes the point that biological race is constructed, but goes on to say that it still exists socially, so we have to deal with it.  One of her major points is that a black child has to learn to be black in America, because even those raised in white families tend to assimilate into black communities as adults.  The other is that a black child needs to learn about race because she will always have black appearance and its attendant difficulties.

I like Rothman's perspective much better than the previous authors.  Her concerns about race are more practical than ideological.  I like practical.  She spends a whole chapter talking about how important doing black hair properly is, even though this is far from a how-to manual.  I would have to reread this a few times to absorb many of the ideas she talks about.

My favorite moment from the book is the description of international, multicultural Passover Seder.  It's a perfect summation of the kind of heartfelt assimilation drives Rothman's view of the world.

rc