The end of the chase...for now.

The adoption community typically refers to the time compiling the necessary paperwork as the "paper chase." I am extremely happy to report that after a little over 6 months, we have finished our dossier. It is now being reviewed by our agency and will then be sent to China to receive a Log In Date (LID). Once we have our LID we are eligible to be matched with our little girl.

I would be much more excited if not for a couple things. First, I am exhausted. Most of our paperwork wasn't a big deal, but the last month has been brutal. So much mailing back and forth and hoping things go through quickly. So much shifting around my entire schedule so that I can run papers to the Secretary of State's office to be certified. I spent a good three hours yesterday printing our pictures, picking up new doctor's letters (my old one wasn't thorough enough and our agency didn't feel like informing me during the 2+ months they've had it), rushing to the post office. All while calling brides to reschedule and dealing with a house that has no A/C and the swamp cooler isn't working.

Secondly, our agency sent me an email letting me that they hope to send our paperwork to China the second week of July. I was told 9-11 business days and also told that sending what we had while waiting on our I800a approval would speed things along. In what scenario is mid-July speeding things along? At this rate we'll be lucky to be eligible for the August list. I'm emailing them, but I am not exactly sure how to tactfully say WTF.

Oh well, we've hit a major milestone and after 2 1/2 years, what's one more week?

So, now what? Well, once we get our LID we wait to be matched. We were told to expect to wait between 4-6 months for a match. It could be sooner, or it could be later. Each month the list that China releases has different children on it, so it completely depends on how many files our agency is able to lock-in and how many people are in front of us in "the line." I'll probably have to eat my words, but I feel like it's very likely that we'll be matched in December. We would, of course, be thrilled to be matched before then, but seeing as how things have gone thus far I am trying to not get my hopes up for things to move quickly.

So, anyone want to place your bets now about when we'll be matched?

Happy Birthday...

To me!!!

Today I am officially old enough to adopt from China!

It's been an extremely long time coming, but our last delay in this adoption (so far, I guess) is past. This morning I had a whole blog post planned in my head, but then I had to work and pretty much lost all the great insight I was going to lay down for you guys. Oh well.

Instead, I will try to give some idea of how long we have waited for this day. When we decided to adopt from China I was still a couple months away from turning 28. My cousin's little girl (who totally tried to steal my thunder by hopping on the Summer Solstice B-Day Train) wasn't born yet, nor was my sweet niece Lilly. My nieces Charlotte, Hazel, and Chloe weren't even tiny cluster of cells. I have been waiting to start our adoption wait for 793 long days. This is the longest freaking "pregnancy" ever!

I'll post updates tomorrow on our paperwork and the gift that Kevin gave me this morning that made me cry. Today, however, I just want to enjoy my birthday.

Approved!!!!

Today has been a good day and it's not even 9 am yet.
I called and spoke with our USCIS officer (we got assigned last Friday) who informed me that we were I800-a approved on Monday and that he mailed the papers Tuesday. Our courier called me yesterday to say that the rest of our paperwork has been sealed and is on it's way to us.

So what does this all mean? Well, if the I800 arrives today, I can get it notarized, take it to the Sec. of State's office for certification and have it ready to send to D.C. by Monday. Also, our other papers will come tomorrow and I just need to make a copy, attach our pictures and a few other things and send it off to our agency for review. To make a long story short, it looks like we will be DTC (dossier to China) in June!!!

In other happy news, I am almost done dyeing scarves and baby slings for our local farmer's market which is good since A) it opens on Saturday, and B) adoption is expensive. We've also had an opportunity present itself that would mean we could actually get the remainder of our adoption expenses saved up by the time we would travel. A few major things have to fall into place, so if you could send some good vibes our way that we can get it figured out that would be amazing.

Here's hoping everyone has an excellent Thursday!