Monday, September 29, 2008
Please sign this petition
Originally, families in-process to adopt were to be under the old rules prior to Hague Accreditation. Now there are some glitches that must be ironed out. This link is to a petition that is circulating for the purpose of putting pressure on the USCIS and Dept. of State to follow the law and NOT make current adoptive families that are in process/waiting to adopt (paperwork already in the system) transition to Hague adoption case format/requirements. Ethiopia is not a Hague country. However, this applies to our China adoption as we applied right before April 2008 and before Hague. Please send this petition link to anyone you know who is a registered voter and is willing to help. http://www.gopetition.com/online/22112.html
Friday, September 26, 2008
Dossier
It's off!!! :) After a frustrating week of having to redo a bunch of stuff due to notary dates, the dossier is in the mail! Max and I went to Kinko's to copy it this morning, and then we went to the post office. My agency should have it by noon Monday. If all is good (fingers crossed!), then we should officially be on the waiting list next week. When I talked to the agency yesterday, there were still 6 on the list waiting for baby girls and 3 on the list waiting for baby boys. No referrals lately, but supposedly the courts in Ethiopia reopen October 1st, and then we should see some movement. The director of our agency is currently in Ethiopia. We'll find out when she comes back next week if they're adding a 3rd orphanage to our agency. We plan to have a great weekend knowing the dossier is done, done, done (hopefully). :)
Monday, September 22, 2008
Check out this website
Everything came really easy for this dossier collection! I hope the rest of the process goes this smoothly. Tomorrow I will go to my county to get documents certified. Wednesday I plan to get my homestudy, get it certified in another county, get everything certified at the Secretary of State, then it's off to the post office!!! I will let everyone know when we get our number on the waiting list! :) Check out the following website. It's such a cool creation and very close to my heart since this is 1 of the 2 orphanages our baby will come from. http://www.change4orphans.com/
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
LID!!!
Yesterday I got the news!!! Our offical LID (the date we got onto China's waiting list for a child match) is 9-10-08. September 10, 2008 - I have to say it again to believe it - a date I've been waiting for forever!
We are also diligently working on our dossier for our son or daughter from Ethiopia! :) I got our dossier packet from our agency Monday night and stayed up until midnight (even though I had to work Tuesday) working on stuff. I tried to stop several times, but I just couldn't. My excitement had me all geared up. Everything is almost ready - it's very different now that it's my second time around because it feels a little less overwhelming. It doesn't hurt that we're able to use our physicals and stuff from our China adoption since the physical was less than a year ago. Plus the Ethiopia dossier is much less intense! I'm just waiting on: my wonderful references to notarize their letters (you 3 are awesome - thank you!), my doctor to notarize his letter (which he said would be done Monday or Tuesday), the CPA to finish our employment verification letters (should be done this week), and the bank to provide their letter (which should be done the end of this week). Our agency got our homestudy yesterday. They will review it by next week. So, hopefully we'll be sending in the complete dossier within a couple weeks. The great thing is that we can be on the waitlist for Ethiopia before the 171-H (called I-797 in GA) comes. For those of you not in adoption lingo...this is the form from US Immigration which often takes a long time to get in GA (took over 4 months for them to give us for China adoption). In order to get the referral for our Ethiopian child, we need the I-797, but we can send in our dossier and move up on the waitlist without it. This could make a big difference in time until our referral. Right now there are 6 people on the waiting list for girls and 3 people on the list for boys. My agency said if we continue to leave our application open to either sex, it will likely be a baby boy. We planned to let God decide the sex again, but hmmmm.......I would really like to buy some girl clothes (or borrow them from all of you with girls). :) We'll see..... :) Here is the link to my agency's blog with some great pictures of some of the new babies who are already home!!! http://ianfamily.blogspot.com/ (How could I NOT want a girl looking at that?!) :) This is a link to a video that inspired me and got us looking into Ethiopia - I'm SO glad I saw it! http://www.allgodschildren.org/about/videos/ (Click on the 4th video down that says "AGCI - Hannah's Hope Ethiopia")
We are also diligently working on our dossier for our son or daughter from Ethiopia! :) I got our dossier packet from our agency Monday night and stayed up until midnight (even though I had to work Tuesday) working on stuff. I tried to stop several times, but I just couldn't. My excitement had me all geared up. Everything is almost ready - it's very different now that it's my second time around because it feels a little less overwhelming. It doesn't hurt that we're able to use our physicals and stuff from our China adoption since the physical was less than a year ago. Plus the Ethiopia dossier is much less intense! I'm just waiting on: my wonderful references to notarize their letters (you 3 are awesome - thank you!), my doctor to notarize his letter (which he said would be done Monday or Tuesday), the CPA to finish our employment verification letters (should be done this week), and the bank to provide their letter (which should be done the end of this week). Our agency got our homestudy yesterday. They will review it by next week. So, hopefully we'll be sending in the complete dossier within a couple weeks. The great thing is that we can be on the waitlist for Ethiopia before the 171-H (called I-797 in GA) comes. For those of you not in adoption lingo...this is the form from US Immigration which often takes a long time to get in GA (took over 4 months for them to give us for China adoption). In order to get the referral for our Ethiopian child, we need the I-797, but we can send in our dossier and move up on the waitlist without it. This could make a big difference in time until our referral. Right now there are 6 people on the waiting list for girls and 3 people on the list for boys. My agency said if we continue to leave our application open to either sex, it will likely be a baby boy. We planned to let God decide the sex again, but hmmmm.......I would really like to buy some girl clothes (or borrow them from all of you with girls). :) We'll see..... :) Here is the link to my agency's blog with some great pictures of some of the new babies who are already home!!! http://ianfamily.blogspot.com/ (How could I NOT want a girl looking at that?!) :) This is a link to a video that inspired me and got us looking into Ethiopia - I'm SO glad I saw it! http://www.allgodschildren.org/about/videos/ (Click on the 4th video down that says "AGCI - Hannah's Hope Ethiopia")
Monday, September 8, 2008
My womb is in China
We have had an exciting day in our adoption journey! Here are some highlights so far:
February 15, 2007 - Information Seminar with our agency
August 29, 2007 – Agency application approved!
November 10, 2007 – Agency orientation (learn about how to complete our dossier)
November 19, 2007 – 1st meeting with our social worker for our home study
December 13, 2007 – 2nd meeting with our social worker
January 17 & 18, 2008 – got our blood work done
April 10, 2008 – Fingerprints taken with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)
August 16, 2008 – Got I-797 (approval to adopt from China) from USCIS!
August 29, 2008 – Dossier sent to main agency office for translation
September 5, 2008 – Dossier mailed to China!
September 8, 2008 – Our agency representative in China hand delivered our dossier to CCAA (the China Center of Adoption Affairs)!!!
YAY!!! It is SO exciting to think that our dossier (all of our family photos & all of the papers I’ve been gathering for the past year, filled with the hopes of our future daughter) is now in China, across the world. It is thrilling. I just told Justin my womb is in China!
February 15, 2007 - Information Seminar with our agency
August 29, 2007 – Agency application approved!
November 10, 2007 – Agency orientation (learn about how to complete our dossier)
November 19, 2007 – 1st meeting with our social worker for our home study
December 13, 2007 – 2nd meeting with our social worker
January 17 & 18, 2008 – got our blood work done
April 10, 2008 – Fingerprints taken with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)
August 16, 2008 – Got I-797 (approval to adopt from China) from USCIS!
August 29, 2008 – Dossier sent to main agency office for translation
September 5, 2008 – Dossier mailed to China!
September 8, 2008 – Our agency representative in China hand delivered our dossier to CCAA (the China Center of Adoption Affairs)!!!
YAY!!! It is SO exciting to think that our dossier (all of our family photos & all of the papers I’ve been gathering for the past year, filled with the hopes of our future daughter) is now in China, across the world. It is thrilling. I just told Justin my womb is in China!
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