With this post I want to catch up writing about our new counselor meeting. A while back we requested a new counselor with our agency because of the lack of communication we have had this last year. On January 19th we met our new counselor, Julie. Going into the meeting we were apprehensive. With the communication we have had thus far we could only think that things were not going to get better and that our agency just wanted us to sit back and be quiet. Well once we met Julie we felt pretty good about our relationship. She was as upfront as she could be and respectful of us and our feelings. We felt good leaving their office that day. We did not get any new information but we had a renewed spirit about our communication. Since then I have emailed Julie quite a few times and she immediately responds even if she doesn’t have the answer. Thank you Julie!
We went into the January 19th meeting with questions. Some were about the paperwork we need to start renewing and repaying for. Other questions we had were about how they find out their information or if we wanted to change countries what would be an option (we want to be prepared with a backup plan if Nepal were not to work out). We had a good conversation with Julie and she never seemed to rush us.
One question in particular was “Does Nepal recognize that we are choosing a boy up to the age of 18 months?” The reason I questioned that is because on Nepal’s application there are check boxes for ages 0-1 and 1-3 only. When we had to check a box on the application we had to choose the 0-1 box and add in handwriting “up to 18months”. Our home study also states that we would like a boy up to 18 months and the cover letter to our dossier states this as well. I needed reassurance that we had this stated in many places. I also wanted reassurance that Nepal will look upon this favorable because there are not a lot of infants and I thought that by us putting up to 18 months would help us. I felt better looking over the paperwork showing where we stated this information, but I will never know how Nepal looks upon it.
We asked if there were more boys than girls or more girls than boys. We asked how many children are registered with the Ministry. Julie was going to ask the Director to try and find these answers out. At this time they are not able to get this information. I just sit and wonder sometimes if there are more boys than girls would we get a referral sooner. It seems that more PAP’s have requested girls.
Shaanxi Time
2 years ago