It’s been a while since we last sent an e-mail about our adoption journey and today I finally have some time to sit and write about it, so here goes… The “summary” is, that our Dossier (paperwork) is in China and now we are waiting for our “log in date” from which we will wait 14 months for a referral. At this point, it looks like we’ll be flying to China sometime in February of 2008 to get our daughter. We have been grouped with 26 other couples who completed their Dossier with the same agency and in the same time frame we did and many of them will be flying to China when we do. We are called “group number 282″ and a few of us have already contacted each other through e-mail and a web blog that Kent set up for us to communicate through. Now the waiting begins!
Some of you know that our 1993 Ford Escort finally “died” this summer after over 275,000 miles of faithfulness! We were sad to see her go because she (we affectionately called her, “Essie”) gave us good gas mileage and many trips with fond memories. Suddenly we were faced with putting all our miles on our gas hog, the 2001 GMC truck, which was supposed to be only for recreation use. Well, we panicked (can’t afford another loan on top of the adoption loan), then prayed, then researched long-lasting cars through Consumer Reports at the library, then prayed, then waited, then prayed, and finally found a silver, 1994 Ford Escort with only 87,000 miles. Our “Silver Bullet” was a HUGE relief and answer to prayers because it was cheap ($1950) and has the promise of many more miles (going by our first Escort wagon’s record), not to mention, the new tires we’d just put on Essie fit the Silver Bullet and we were able to swap seats, since Essie’s were in better condition. Basically, Essie has become our “parts” car! Essie did spoil us with cruise control and automatic windows & locks, but we’re still very thankful for our Silver Bullet…it’s an automatic, has air conditioning that works, and it fit into our tight budget! :-)
In mid September I took on a temporary, part-time job as a receptionist in a podiatry office to help pay for some of our adoption expenses. I met both doctors in the two musicals I’ve been in, for the last couple years, because their young sons were also in the musicals. They approached me with a job offer to work Tuesday and Wednesday and every other Friday. We’re so thankful for the extra money and that my employers are fine with me working just 14 months…just until I get a referral from China, cause, after that, I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom…I can’t wait! :-)
Now, for the long details of the past few months of our adoption journey…
We sent our I-600 A form to the US Citizenship & Immigration Service on 7-1-06 and received the I-171 H form (approval to bring our daughter into the US) on 8-23-06 via e-mail. We quickly readied our MN generated and notarized documents (Application Letter, Physical Exam Forms & Doctor Letters, Financial Statement, Employment Verification Letters, Home Study Report, Police Reports, and made a copy of the I-171 H form that had to be notarized as a “copy of the original”) and sent them all on 8-25-06 to the Secretary of State of MN with fees (thankfully, the cheapest state so far at $5 per document) and a cover letter to be “certified” as legal documents. Later on that same day, we received our snail mail version of the I-171H form and realized that it had a “typo” in the form of an expiration date on my fingerprints of 10-18-1907 instead of 2007 and that the snail mail version had a signature from the department head on it that the e-mail version (that we had already sent to the Secretary of State) did not. We panicked, prayed, and then contacted our Family Coordinator with AWAA for advice, then we contacted the agency that produced the I-171 H form with the expiration date error and they corrected it with a new form within two weeks. We also sent in a second notarized copy of the I-171 H form, with the signature on it, to the Secretary of State with another fee and cover letter the following Monday. We got all documents dully “certified” by the State of MN back on 9-8-06.
The next step was to send all those documents (10) along with our marriage certificate and another cover letter and a fee of $20 per document plus a $5 handling fee to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for “authentication”. On 9-12-06, while I was making two copies of all documents (one for the Chinese Consulate to keep and one for us) at Kent’s office (his employer graciously allowed us to make as many copies as we needed through our adoption process…what a blessing!) in preparation for sending them to the Chinese Consulate, I noticed that our physical exam date was 2-15-06…7 months ago. Again, I panicked because I knew that the Chinese Consulate would not “authenticate” a document that was older than 6 months according to the guidelines we were given. We called our Family Coordinator and she said all we could do was send it and “hope” they didn’t see the tiny, little date of 2-15-06 on our Physical Exam Forms. Fortunately, our blood work and doctor explanation letters had not been done until June, so the form wasn’t notarized until June and that was the “bigger” date we hoped they would notice. Here I had been praying that the Chinese Consulate would handle our papers efficiently and thoroughly and suddenly, I didn’t want them to be so thorough with this particular document! :-} We sent out an e-mail asking for prayer and on 9-22-06 we received all 11 documents back from the Chinese Consulate dully “authenticated”…and quicker than we anticipated! Whew, what a relief!
The next step was to mail our completed Dossier to AWAA in McLean, VA, but it wasn’t complete because I hadn’t taken the time to create our photo album pages. We had stuff going on that weekend and the week nights that were going to keep me from getting to the photo album until Wednesday night. I new that AWAA had to receive our Dossier in McLean, VA, by Wednesday, 9-27-06, at 2 p.m., in order for them to send it off to China that next Friday, 9-29-06. I fussed and stewed over the fact that I was going to miss the deadline, until we received an e-mail from AWAA on Monday, 9-25-06, stating that due to a Chinese National Holiday, they wouldn’t be sending any Dossiers to China on 9-29-06 and that all Dossiers would have to wait till the following Friday, 10-6-06, to be mailed to China. Wednesday evening 9-27-08, I hurriedly put together a seven page Publisher document with pictures of us, our puppy, and our house, per the guidelines we were given, and on Thursday, 9-28-06, we mailed the whole kitten caboodle, after making more copies (one for us and one for AWAA) and taking photos of the menagerie of paperwork spread out on our living room floor, to AWAA in McLean, VA. Since it wouldn’t be sent to China till 10-6-06 anyway, we decided to save postage and send it all via Priority Mail instead of Express Mail. Funny how things work out…all that fussing and stewing for nothing! :-}
On Monday, 10-2-06, we got a call from our Family Coordinator informing us that she had received our Dossier, but that we’d have to either have our doctor letters changed (which took us WEEKS to get) or our Home Study re-worded due to differing terminology between the two. Our hearts sank to our toes as we faced the possibility of many more weeks and more “certification” and “authentication” steps. However, our Home Study provider stepped up to the plate and “saved” us the agony of more time lost, by changing the wording in our Home Study and e-mailing it the same day to our Family Coordinator. Our Dossier would be sent on schedule! Hallelujah!
Our Dossier was officially sent to China on 10-6-06 and it is 3-6 weeks from that date that we’ll receive our “log in” date. It’s from the “log-in” date that our Dossier spends 6-8 weeks in the Translation Department then it starts moving through the three departments at the China Center of Adoption Affairs. So, we’ll wait about 14 months from our “log in”date for an actual referral of a child from China. Thus begins the “waiting” period. Time to get projects done, find a pediatrician, begin to buy baby clothes (I’ll wait for spring yard sales, I think), and get the nursery ready. I need to get a crib mattress and make some quilts in primary colors to go in our crayon-themed nursery and make a diaper changing pad for the top of an antique commode I plan on using as a dresser/changing table. Those will be the “fun” things to accomplish. :-)
We’ve also been reading a wonderful book by other families who have adopted from China to help us prepare for the trip and to help us know what to do if our child is not physically well when we get there…scary, but all too common. Kent is also beginning to look into grants from different Christian agencies to help us with part of the expenses, but so far they are mostly for those who adopt “special needs” children and for those who attend a “church” in a building, neither of which do we qualify for. We’ve been discouraged by this, but, we’ll press on.
In the meantime, I was starting my new job and realized that because I was making an employment change, that meant that I had to update our Dossier with a new Letter of Employment, Home Study Addendum, and a new Financial Statement. We were hoping that since the job was going to end when we got a referral from China that we wouldn’t have to bother with all the extra paperwork, but our Family Coordinator said it’d be a favorable thing in the eyes of the Chinese that we were making more money and that we did need to follow through with the paperwork. So, that is my next thing to do. I’ve already had my employers write a Letter of Employment and this week I’ll fill out a new Financial Statement that we’ll have to notarize and then we’ll have our Home Study amended. Then we’ll send these three documents through the same steps…”certification” by the State of MN, “authentication” at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, and finally to McLean, VA, to be sent to China, all at a cost of about $205. Uff da, it made me rethink accepting the position in the first place, but in the long run, it should help to pay for about 1/5th of our adoption costs, so, we’re glad for that!
Wow, you made it through another long, “wordy” update. Thanks for being interested in our “journey” and especially for those “thought” prayers you send our way! ;-)
