Sunday, July 13, 2014

July 14th US Adoption Rule change



We are one day away from the July 14, the infamous rule change in the US.  Last Thursday we saw the USCIS rules for “the change”.  We were grandfather in under exception E.  However, it states that we cannot change or update government documents and our home study on or after July 14.  Well our home study per Ukrainian rules is set to expire around the end of August. We were also not sure how Ukraine would like our home study expiring while we are in country.  So what to do…

I called our home study case worker and begged her to update our home study this past Friday since this Monday is July 14.  She let me know she could not update the home study.  What a crushing blow.  I wanted to break down right then and there; however, I knew I had to figure something out.  All I needed was our signature page update of our home study, which could not get updated unless something in our home study could change. Home study’s go over your finances, living situation, and what you are looking for. So I started to think, what can I change in my life to get an updated home study? Well nothing has changed with our finances or living situation.  The only thing that could change was what we were looking for.  So I told her we decided to raise our age range from 0 – 6yrs to 0 – 7yrs old. That would work. She did it Friday so our date on our home study is 7-11-2014.  We are good for 6 more months from that date.  

Jeff happened to be in a plane while all of this took place. So I told him I changed our home study to say that we’d be willing to take 6 kids.  He freaked out but still loves me.  I did tell him in the end what I actually did, after he finished trying to see how we could afford 6 kids.