SOFA Letter

We emailed the requested SOFA letter to Daniela today and she has already replied, "We will release the requested statement as soon as we receive the original letter & documents."

Yay, now we can start our home study!

Little Miracles

Following Raul’s recommendation, I emailed Little Miracles to introduce myself and ask some questions. I wrote that I was concerned about being a “guinea pig” for a new program, assuming they even got their accreditation. Andrea Jacobs emailed me back, introducing herself as the caseworker for the Colombian program. She has spearheaded many pilot programs for Little Miracles and assured me that the personnel they have contracted with in Colombia (ie. attorney and translator) have years of experience. She offered to set up a time to call us to address all of our concerns.



Tonight we got to talk to Andrea and her enthusiasm is contagious. She seemed very knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. She reiterated that she has worked on many pilot programs and is very excited to get this program started. She also said they have worked with Randy Barlow on many occasions and had nothing but good things to say about him! After our chat, Victor and I feel very confident in our decisions to use Randy (Jane) as our social worker, and Little Miracles as our adoption agency. Now I just keep praying that they get their accreditation, and soon!

On a side note, we received an email from Daniela of the Italian Central Authority, saying that she needs “a declaration by U.S. military authority, stating that your presence in Italy is governed by the NATO Status of Forces Agreement and that you are neither nationals of nor residents of Italy.” Victor is working on getting this letter from work.

Decisions, Decisions

So now that we’ve decided on a social worker, we need to look for an adoption agency. The agency we used for our first two adoptions no longer exists; they closed their doors the day we first held Diego in our arms. The Program Director, Raul, saw us through the completion of Diego's adoption and was invaluable to us during that time. He was savvy enough to get the Colombian program transferred over to another agency (Gladney), unfortunately, this past spring they downsized and he was let go. He has since started a consulting business, helping adoption agencies get Colombian accreditation. He is currently working with an agency (Little Miracles) that he is fairly certain will receive accreditation by next month. He says they have a lot of experience working with military families that are stationed overseas, which is good for us, but I worry that they will not get their accreditation or it will take longer than expected. I also worry how effective they will be in Colombia if they are just starting their program.



Through my own research, I have also found an agency (Adopolis) that has received many favorable reviews. They are a small agency, but very knowledgable. I've emailed them for information, but haven't heard back yet.



So we still have some decisions to make, but hopefully we'll have it figured out soon. I'm eager to get started on all that paperwork :)

Italian Exemption

We sent off our Italian exemption letter today:

Dear Sir/Ma'am,

My husband and I are currently residing in Naples, Italy under the Status of Forces Agreement. Victor is active duty military stationed at U.S. Naval Hospital Naples from June 2011 through June 2014.

We are starting the process of adopting a baby from Colombia and are requesting authorization to conduct a Hague adoption through a U.S. Hague accredited adoption agency, and for authorization for our U.S. Adoption Service Provider to conduct our home study in Italy. Basically, we are asking for an exemption from the requirement of adopting through the Italian system and permission to adopt through the U.S. process.

Our adopted child will have U.S. citizenship upon completion of the adoption and will be living with us under sponsorship of the military. As previously stated, we are only living in Italy temporarily and are habitually domiciled in the U.S.

Thank you for your attention and support in consideration of this request.

Hopefully, we will receive our approval soon!

Let the Games Begin...

So now that we've officially made the decision to adopt again, we have to find an adoption agency to work with, and a social worker to complete our home study. Through contacts here in Naples, I came across the name Randy Barlow. He founded the company American Adoption Professionals Abroad and specializes in helping American families living abroad. After perusing his website, I immediately knew I wanted him to conduct our home study. I can’t really say why exactly I felt that way. It was just a gut feeling, but I’ve learned over the years to always trust my gut. So I emailed him for more information, and received an email back from his associate Jane, who conducts all home studies in Italy. She was very helpful, and confirmed my feeling that this was the agency we were meant to use.



One of the things Jane told me was that because we were adopting from a Hague Convention country (Colombia), through another Hague country (U.S.), while living in a third Hague country (Italy), we would have to get authorization from the Italian Central Authority on International Adoption. Basically, we have to request an exemption from Italian adoption law and permission to adopt through the U.S. She said they usually approve these requests so I guess it’s really just a formality, but we can't start our home study without it. I can already see that this adoption is going to be more complicated than the others.