Last Homestudy Appt Complete!!

We had our last meeting with our social worker to finish up what she needs to write the homestudy! Also, she hasn't heard from NYS OCFS which is a good sign because they said they would call her if there were any problems finding our fingerprint cards, so hopefully they found them and if they did we should have them back by next week. She will call mid next week if we haven't heard anything. Once the fingerprints clear, our social worker can finalize the homestudy report and get it notarized and give us our copies. We have to immediately run to the USCIS (Immigration) office to had one copy of the homestudy in with our I600A form and then wait for an appointment to be fingerprinted (again). Hopefully this will take no longer than 2 weeks, then we just have to wait the 4-6 weeks for the last document from USCIS, the I171H. When we get that we gotta run to the city with a couple other documents to get state cerified and authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. THEN we mail everything to the agency. This has to be before April 13th! But it's looking good and we might actually make the deadline now, so I guess we were meant to adopt from China since things are going in our favor right now. We'll see in the next few weeks what happens.

So I think I mentioned before that I am building a bookcase/dollhouse for the nursery. I'm almost done, just putting some finishing decorative touches on it but here are some pictures.

I even have some books to put in it when I'm done!

Fingerprint update...

We got an email today from our agency that says,

“The NY state Dept of Child and Family Service has decided to expedite the clearances for China Adoptions. The petitioners need to have their agency submit the fingerprint cards overnight mail and the clearances will be done in one week.”

Only issue is that our fingerprint cards were already sent back to the OCFS. Our social worker called them and they have flagged our names and will know by Monday if they found the cards that are already sent and can expedite them OR they will send the agency new cards for us to get fingerprinted again and our agency will overnight back to them and then they will be expedited. Either way, we'll have our clearances done at around the timeframe they would have been done if they had not sent them back the first time and probably several weeks earlier than the new process would have been! So we still have a chance to meet the China deadline. Let's hope USCIS cooperates too!

In case we don't meet the deadline we have been researching Vietnam adoption and will be ready to switch over to another agency and the Vietnam program if we have to. The timeframe for a girl is about the same as China so we'll still have to deal with that.

Another snag....

We found out Monday that our NYS fingerprint cards were sent back to the homestudy agency because as of Jan 11th they need to be submitted with another fingerprint card for the FBI. So our agency mailed the original cards back to us along with new cards for the FBI fingerprints. We got those late last night and rushed to the police station to get fingerprinted, again, and then rushed to Fedex to get our Fedex out by 7PM (we got there at 6:30!) so that the homestudy agency can get the fingerprint cards back to NYS so they can begin the clearance. The snag is that it used to take 3-4 weeks to get the clearance, which was fine because that's probably how long the homestudy will take anyway, but NOW the time to process the child abuse clearance is 6-10 weeks!! That could definetly rule us out of China because our paperwork needs to get to our adoption agency by April 13th. Once the child abuse clearance comes back our homestudy will be done. Then we need to go to USCIS (Immigration) and submit it with the I600A form and wait 2 weeks to be fingerprinted (yet again) and then 4 -6 weeks to get the last paper we need, the I171H which then has to be certified and authenticated, THEN all the paperwork goes to the agency. This needs to be all done by April 13th! If the clearance takes 6 weeks we might be ok. If it takes more than that then we will not make our deadline and will probably have to change countries and agencies.

If we can't meet the China deadline we are going to go with Vietnam. The programs are similiar, maybe a little more $$ for Vietnam and a slightly shorter timeframe than China. The only problem is we will loose about $3000 because the agency we are with now only does China adoptions so with the exception of the Homestudy, we basically have to start over. We might also have to be open to having a boy or a girl since Vietnam apparently has more boys available for adoption than girls. Although I always wanted a daughter, we could have a son first. At this point I just want a child in this house! If we specifically request a boy I think the timeframe for Vietnam is 6-9 months and a girl is 12 months. The process is a little different regarding paperwork but I'm not worried about that.

So that's the story... still with China... but might have to change to Vietnam which is fine too. Maybe I should not paint the nursery pink anytime soon, just in case! I'm also working on building a dollhouse bookcase that I was planning on painting in pastels, very girly. I guess I can still do that, and then if we change to Vietnam and get a boy I'll just repaint the dollouse to be more of a barn/farmhouse and use primary colors! HAHA Always have to have a PLAN B! I'll also store away the RAVEN letters for baby #2..HAHA We'll just have to wait and see.

Craft Time!

Well, I just couldn't keep from making something for the nursery, and since we already picked a name, I got some unfinished wood letters from Michael's and painted them today and added some cute little daisies (the future theme of the nursery). Obviously, the name we picked for our future daughter is Raven. We'll probably keep part of her Chinese name as a middle name depending on what it is. We've been thinking about names for a while and this is one of the few names that we both agreed on. I also started working on a bedding set, pink and purple of course! I know it's a little early but I'm trying to stay positive that we will meet the deadline and then I will really start working on the nursery!!

First Homestudy Visit DONE!

YAY! Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The social worker was very nice and asked us a bunch of questions about how we met and why we want to adopt, etc. She took a tour of the house and that was it pretty much. Painless! Our next visit is next week. We have to have 4 visits total. Then she will write up the homestudy, which needs to go to my agency for approval, then to USCIS (Immigration) with the I600A form. Then USCIS asks you to come in for fingerprinting 2 weeks from then, then you get your final piece of paperwork, the I171H which has to be certified and authenticated along with another copy of the homestudy and then everything goes off to the agency for processing. The social worker seems to think we will make our deadline of April 13th. I sure hope so!! I want to start shopping!!!! Pretty much once your dossier goes to China and gets "logged-in", the rest is just waiting. More time to shop! LOL I also drove out to Riverhead today to go to the Suffolk County Clerk to get our Police Clearance forms certified. WOOHOO!

Running around today...

I took a couple of vacation days today and tomorrow and went into NYC today and went to the NY County Clerk and Dept of State and got a bunch of documents certified. One step closer to getting all the paperwork ready. I'm going to the Chinese Consulate tomorrow in NYC to get them authenticated. All we'll need then is the Police Letters, Homestudy and Immigration paperwork certified and authenticated. Our timeline is tight. Between getting the homestudy done, getting fingerprinted and getting the last document from USCIS, we will just about make it. If any of these goes longer than anticipated (Past April 13th) then we won't make it and will probably either have to wait longer to see if we can qualify under the new rules or go with another program/country, which means going with another agency and loosing whatever money we've paid so far. Hopefully we will make the April 13th deadline.