November Adoption Update

When people ask how the process is going I say, "it's moving along." I hate to bore people with the details if they don't REALLY want to know. And I struggle with making any story concise, which I have found to be especially true when talking about my sweet little Chinese daughter.

The LONG and tedious home study will hopefully be complete this week when we receive in the mail the notarized copy of the official 9 page report. Once we receive that, hopefully within the same day, we will send off that same notarized copy along with a 16 page form called the I-800A to the US dept. of Immigration. This is the form that will probably take 3-4 months till we receive it back. Don't ask me why it takes so long. I don't know. This will be the last form we need to have in our hands to complete the dossier. In the meantime we are working on gathering the rest of our dossier paperwork, most of which we will be WALKING into the Secretary of State's office next week to be certified. This is a HUGE bonus that we live in the capitol city where most of our paperwork needs to be certified. (Many people need their paperwork certified in other states so they have to wait and worry about the mail to take it both ways). Once it is certified we will have to mail it down to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco where it will be authenticated. This is all a part of "working on our dossier". It's a process. Woe.

With all of that said, we recently found out that once our home study is notarized, which will hopefully happen this week, we could possibly receive a referral; basically that means a picture and name of a baby that will be ours. Woe, wild. We won't be able to travel until China receives our dossier and issues us a date to travel (which is required for our visas). But still, we could have a picture of our daughter soon. This is somewhat mind boggling as we try to not get our hopes up knowing that it could be a year or so still....but yet it COULD be in December. I am so thankful for God's peace that He has filled us both with concerning this......His timing is perfect. However I think I am going to FREAK OUT when I receive her picture. Wonder when it will be??????????????????????

Currently, as we work on the paperwork ,we are also trying to figure out a name....which I think we know but not telling the world yet.....and discussing who will travel with us. I'd LOVE to bring all the kids....but I just don't think it would be wise to bring Caleb. The older two are up for debate. We go back and forth on it.

Well, that's the adoption scoop as of today. It's a wild ride. God is so good.