ICAB Meeting

Today, we went to ICAB for our exit meeting. (ICAB is the Inter-Country Adoption Board -- the Filipino governmental agency that oversees all international adoptions). It's located in a small office building in a residential area. The person assigned to our case was Kathy de la Cruz. She was a very nice, young lady. She gave us Camille's her passport and Visa papers, Camille can officially travel with us back to the U.S. Here is her passport photo. How cute!

We were also given gifts to help us teach Camille about her Filipino heritage. Very thoughtful gifts, indeed.

We were also blessed by seeing Deborah at ICAB. She was there to find a family for one of the children from her baby home. She also gave us a wonderful album/scrapbook with nice notes written by Camille's caretakers.

During our stay there, Ms. de la Cruz showed us around and explained why there are what seem to be unnecessary delays in the process. She seemed equally frustrated that adoptions to U.S. families take so long. It seems to me that if the U.S. weren't so strict on its end, then ICAB would be more willing to send children to the U.S. But if ICAB has the option of dealing with, say, Norway or Finland, which have much less restrictive adoption procedures, then it will be more inclined to take the faster and less complicated path by sending the child/children to the non-U.S. country.

I found the experience to be quite positive. For the past two years, communicating with ICAB has been difficult, if not impossible. So it was nice to see ICAB "face-t0-face", and to be able to express our opinions about the entire process.

Camille Update: Camille is adapting well. She still prefers her mommy most of the time, and she didn't whine or hit as much today. She is very curious about everything she sees, and she also quite a really good climber. Oh, she's finally eating more than just rice now.