We are in Translation!!!!

Our agency called us yesterday to let us know we passed critical review and our dossier is being sent for translation!! I'm so glad everything was ok with the dossier!! Translation takes about a week then it will go to China (DTC)!!!!

Final Document Off To Agency!

So our Dossier is complete and the last document has been all certified and authenticated today and Fedex'd to our agency! Here we come Critical Review!

I-171H IS HERE!!!!

Ok for those of you who don't know what that is or why I am so excited.. this is the LAST piece of paperwork I need to send to the agency. It is the Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition. This means we will make the agency's deadline!! All I need to do is spend a few days in NYC getting it certified and authenticated and off to the agency it goes. The next step is the agency will review all the paperwork and translate it and send it off to China. This is called DTC. Then when China gets it they log it in, LID. The LID is important because they match children with families by the LID date. So everyone with a LID before us gets matched first. That is why it's so important to get LID asap! THEN WE WAIT!

I bought Raven a couple of books from Barnes & Noble this weekend. One about a panda and another about a cat, both board books. They were on clearance so why not. Can never have enough books!

Now that we KNOW we are meeting the deadline, it's so much easier to refer to the baby by name, even though she probably will not be born until next year. She might not even be conceived yet!

Life is good! (I saw that on a spare tire on the back of someone's car today as I was going to get the I-171H notarized - how appropriate!)

USCIS Approval Email!

After emailing USCIS (Immigration) on Monday asking for a status, I got an email yesterday stating that our case was pulled and will be reviewed. I got an email today stating that we are approved and the approval notice (I-171H) will be mailed in 3-5 days!! That is the last thing we are waiting for. I'll be stalking the mailman now till it comes. Then I'll go into the city the day after I receive it to get it certified and authenticated, will probably take 2 days. Then I can Fedex to CCAI with some more fees. Looks like I'll be DTC (Dossier to China) in April since it's getting close to the end of the month.

At least we know at this point we are definetly making the deadline for China! Then we just have to sit back and wait. Right now the wait time is up to 18 months, but I'm hearing it'll probably go to 24 months if not a little longer. That's not good but at least in the meantime I'll have enough time to get some things done around the house adn save some money as well. We'll be able to take our time with the nursery and maybe can either get a new fence for the backyard, or maybe new windows. We need some furniture too. We are also thinking about getting me a new car since my car is 11 years old now. Maybe get something a little bigger with a hatchback. I think I need to make a list! haha At this rate, 24 months will fly by!!!

Dossier off to CCAI!

I will be heading to Fedex in a little while to drop off the package that contains our Dossier, minus the I171H which we are still waiting for. Here is a picture of all the docs spreadout on my table. They include:

Adoption Petition

Financial Statement

Medical Report - Freddy

Medical Report - Chris

Police Clearance Letter - Freddy

Police Clearance Letter - Chris

Employment Letter - Freddy

Employment Letter - Chris

Birth Certificate - Freddy

Birth Certificate - Chris

Marraige Certificate

Homestudy Report

Passport Copy - Freddy

Passport Copy - Chris

Doctor's Letter - Freddy

3 Passport Photos - Freddy

3 Passport Photos - Chris

Couple Photos (Need 3, but included more)

Family Photos (Need 8, but included more)

AND

A full set of copies of everything!

The agency will only be able to start the review if time permits since this Dossier is incomplete. They usually only start the review process when they have a complete Dossier, but since so many people are probably trying to get in before the deadline, they want to get started reviewing as many as they can, if they can.

When I get teh I171H and have it notarized, county certified, state certified and authenticated by the Consulate, then I just need to send it to them with a check for the fees and if they haven't started review at that point they will start.

ONE MORE DOCUMENT TO GO!!!!

I went to the Chinese Consulate in NYC today to get 3 more documents authenticated. Now we are officially only waiting on the I171H from USCIS!!!!!! In the meantime I can send all of the dossier documents and photos to our agency so they can start to review them if they have time (they usually only review complete dossiers). Once we get the I171H it'll probably take about 2 days for me to get a copy of it notarized, county certified, state certified and authenticated at the Chinese Consulate, then Fedex it to the agency. Hopefully USCIS will be good to us and get it to us sooner than later.

WOOOOHOOOO.. almost there!!

Another step closer....

Last time we went to USCIS there was a snow storm. Today we attempted to drive to the city in a rain storm! Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will keep me from finishing this paperwork! We ended up getting off the expressway and taking the train in. Of course when we got there the sun was out! We received our completed homestudy reports yesterday, had another little bump with the Notary's Commission expiration which we got fixed. Today we dropped our homestudy off at USCIS, which they need to finish processing our paperwork so that we can get approval to adoption and orphan from overseas (that's actually how they phrase it). So we were told to call them in 3 weeks to "gently" ask if it was done yet. Mind you, we only have 3 weeks left to get this last document to the agency so we are cutting it close.

We also went to the State Dept. to get 3 more documents certified and I am going Monday to the Chinese Consulate to get them authenticated. That will only leave the USCIS doc to be completed.

We are soooooooo close! Once we get our paperwork to China we can relax.. for about 2 years.. HAHA Right now the wait time to actually receive a referral of a child is 18 months I think, but I keep hearing rumors it's going to go up to 24+ months because of all the last minute people trying to get their paperwork in before the deadline. So we'l just have to be patient and keep ourselves busy for 2 years. There's plenty I can do around the house... like THE NURSERY! LOL Among other things. Freddy is going back to school for Fine Arts. I want to take the dog to another training course. We'll keep busy for sure.

LOVELY DAY!

After many voice messages and emails, we just found out tonight that our fingerprint clearances came through yesterday according to our social worker! She will have the completed Homestudy report on Thursday!!! That means that we can move to the next step!! Most importantly, we can hand in a copy of the report to USCIS so that we can get the last document for our Dossier, the I171H, which is supposed to take about 4-6 weeks. Hopefully we will get it sooner because we need to get everything to our agency by 4/13 which is a little more than 6 weeks away. In the meantime, I can get 3 more documents certified and authenticated (including another copy f our homestudy report) and get our Dossier to our agency, without the I171H, and then send that document when it comes (after certification and authentication).

What is pretty ironic in a couple of ways is that we had Chinese food for dinner and this was one of our fortunes...

Several hours later we got the news that the clearances had come through! So it does look like we were meant to go to China!

Yesterday was a GREAT day!

Wednesday we called USCIS in NYC to see if they were doing anything to help speed up the process for people trying to make the May 1st CCAA deadline. They basically said no, BUT that we should hand in our I600A application right away (usually you have to wait and submit it together with the homestudy report in NY) and they would be able to at least get the fingerprint process underway. Usually you apply then wait 2 weeks for an appointment letter. So we applied yesterday which was interesting because it took us 2 hours to get into the city thru the ice and snow. Then we asked if we could get a fingerprint appt letter while we were there so we didn't have to wait 2 weeks and then even longer for the actual appt. The lady gave us an appointment letter and an appoitment for SAME DAY!!!!! I've never heard of that happening! Maybe because we were the only ones there, maybe because she said the lady that normally give out appointments was out, who knows! So we had to rush from NYC to Hempstead to the USCIS office there to get fingerprinted! So that is taken care of! We are just waiting on the homestudy report now, which we will have to hand into USCIS when we get it. The home study report is being held up by the Office of Children and Family Services who were supposed to be expediting those fingerprints 3 weeks ago. Technically we should have had clearance 2 weeks ago. And now, our social worker is on vacation until Feb 26th! Good timing! NOT! I sent OCFS an email because this is really holding us up. At least we are half way done with USCIS though, that is such a relief. I think once we submit our homestudy to them it takes 4 - 6 weeks to get the final document, I171H. I hope there are as good to us about getting it to us quickly as they were getting us a fingerprint appt.!!!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting....

Well, it's Monday so it's been a week since NYS OCFS should have flagged our fingerprint cards to expedite. Hopefully we will hear back this week that they have been expedited and the social worker can finish the homestudy. We really need to apply with USCIS as soon as possible so that we can get that all done before April 13th. Hopefully we'll be able to go to USCIS sometime next week.

I've finished the dollhouse/bookcase I was working on. Here are some pictures.

I've put it in the nursery already...LOL. And it just fits against the wall under the slant so that's good. I don't plan on painting the nursery till our paperwork gets to China, but I just had to dress up the bookcase with the stuff I already had!

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.

Moving right along...

We got a bunch of stuff done between yesterday and today including getting fingerprinted, requesting a police clearance letter, getting some documents notarized and certified adn going to the doctor for our medical reports. Productive 2 days!

We also got an email from the agency confirming that we need to get our paperwork to them before April 13th. Hopefully that will be possible. We will certainly try.

We also picked a name for our future daughter!!! I know it's a little early but it seems like most Intl. Adoptive parents-to-be pick out a name early. Makes it more real to call her by name instead of "the baby".

To announce the name to my mom, I made a Search-A-Word puzzle so she could figure it out without me flat out telling her. This is the easy version of that puzzle. I had given her questions to answer but they were specific questions for her so I'll just post the words to find here. Once the words are found, unscramble all the letters that appear in a pink square to solve the puzzle!

1 CHINA
2 GORILLA
3 GARDENIA
4 BLUE
5 PINK
6 SILVERBACK
7 JINGLES
8 AUSTRIA
9 PLAYPEN
10 CAMEL
11 RAYMOND
12 SEVEN
13 AIRPLANE
14 PERRY MASON
15 YOSHI
16 REINDEER
17 PANDA
18 FLOWER
19 SONJAHENIE
20 GODZILLA
21 RED
22 SNAKE
23 ELVES
24 COMET
25 BRUCE


The answer to the puzzle will be her first name and we will most likely keep her Chinese name (or some variation of) as her middle name.

Agreements Signed...

Ok so we signed the agreements and sent in the first payment! We actually have to get all of our paperwork in probably by the beginning of April so that the agency can review it and get it to China by May 1st. We contacted a homestudy agency and should be speaking to them on Monday. I'm not sure yet but I think we have to have 4 homestudy appointments, then apply to USCIS (Immigration). Our frst appointment will probably be in the beginning of January due to the holidays. That's only 2 weeks away but seems like FOREVER! Other things we have to do is make appointments for our medical reports, start the immigration process, get police clearances and I am sure I am forgetting a bung of things! I really hope we can get this all done by April. In the meantime we are both going to attempt to loose some weight just in case. That is what could hold us up if we don't get our paperwork in by April. We both have to have BMIs of under 40. Time to dust off the treadmill.

Well that's all for now.

WE'RE APPROVED!!!

We called the agency today and they told us we were approved! I was getting worried because China has just changed their eligibility requirements this past Friday and we do not qualify under the new requirements (yet) so that would have made us have to wait a while before applying again. It turns out that all we need to do is get all our paperwork in (called a dossier) by end of April in order to still be eligible under the existing requirements. So let the paperchase begin!!

I've been meaning to try to post some pictures so here it goes.

Here's a picture of our puppy Yoshi. He's a Shiba Inu and is 8 1/2 months old. This is one high energy dog let me tell you!

"Come on Mom, can't I have some more sugar pleeease?"

Yoshi got his first Xmas card today from my Mom with a cute little note inside for him and one dollar... (notice it has cats on the front)

If you can't read the note it says "To Yoshi, Merry Christmas. put this dollar in the bank for your little sister. Love Grandma". Now how cute is that?

We picked a different agency!

Ok, so after a minor glitch, our first bump in the road, we are applying with a different agency. We're going with our second choice (which should have been our first choice) Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI). We Fedexed the application today so they will have it tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will hear something by the end of this week or beginning of next week and can officially start the process.