Final homestudy visit is done!

Well, Tom came by at 3:30 yesterday, sat and interviewed the kids, and then walked through the house. We went over paperwork, he said he had everything except the certificate of Hague training, which I will have Ky send to him, and that was pretty much it.

Unlike last time, the kids were all together, with me, around the table. No private interrogations. He seemed impressed with them, and all that they are involved in. The kids were relaxed and talkative. I was relieved that they were open and said what they thought. When asked what her favorite thing was about school, Myleigh said recess. When asked what her second favorite thing was, she said outside recess. I had to offer that she loves reading, and she piped up quickly with, Im a good reader, too.

Mindy told him that she has two plans for after high school. One, and she said this sheepishly, is to spend time at Disneyworld, in their college student program, being a Disney character. She thought he would think that was kind of silly, but, he really got it, and said he had heard a lot about that program, and how much charity work they do. Then she said that she wanted to be on the BYU ballroom touring team, and he nodded approval.

Mstthew was quieter, but, had no trouble answering questions about being the one to go to China. He is so excited about that, and it really showed. He was fairly bored until Tom asked, who is going to China this time. He perked right up and beamed about it. Myleigh said she wanted to go, and I had to say again that we haven't decided yet about that.

Then the tour, which went well, the house always shows well. Being decorated for Christmas just made it that much nicer. And then, we were done.

Still, I am not going to get overexcited, not yet anyway. We still have to clear the USCIS. Once we know about that, we can breathe out.

Tuesday is the big walk through

The homestudy agency has all the paperwork. AAI has everything they need, and the dossier is clipping right along. Tuesday we will have Tom over for the interview with the kids and the walk through of the house. I don't think I could clean our house any better, and for a third time no less.

Im still waiting for that other shoe to drop.

Christmas is just 14 days away, and we are basically ready. All but the baking and the stocking stuffers are done. I don't think we will have a party this year. Even though my house is certainly clean enough for one, I just don't have the gumption to pull one together. We usually have friends over on Christmas Eve after the luminaria lighting at the cemetery, but, I haven't even heard if anyone plans to go this year. We will be there, of course.

The neighborhood is opting out of giving gifts this year, and doing some charity work instead, which is great by us, since we really don't know too many people anyway, and haven't spent much time at church, what with working weekends most of the year and all. The kids know more of our neighbors then we do.

We were asked to be on the ward activities commitee this year, and when it came time to organize the Christmas party, I wasn't able to go to the first meeting, so Tim told me the theme was Polar Express and I wrote up an outline of my ideas for the party, thinking they would probably pick one , maybe two of my ideas. No, they took the whole thing. Loved it, in fact. So, then I felt responsible for pulling it all together, and had to quickly delegate everything I could just to keep myself sane. After all, I have an adoption to pull together people. I do not have time to run a party.

So, in the end, I was left responsible for the entertainment, and asked Mindy and David to perform their waltz and quickstep to a medley Mindy recorded from the Polar Express soundtrack. That went pretty well, and everyone was very impressed. I asked the primary to put together the song When Christmas Comes To Town, with two soloists, and having the rest of the kids come in on the third verse and chorus. That went really well, too. The kids sounded great, it was pretty magical.

I had recorded several cd's of old Christmas music, Bing Crosby etc, and played it throughout the night as ambient music. The Polar Express was read aloud, while images from the book were displayed on a large screen. All the kids sat on the floor in the middle of the room. I had set the tables up in a large oval to give David and Mindy room to dance, and the kids just loved having all the room to run around.

It was just a fun night. Now that the party is over, and the shopping is done, I can focus somewhat on the adoption. Still so much to do.

Second visit down and at least one to go

Tom came right on schedule yesterday, and met with Tim and I individually. It seems like that went well. He plans to meet with the kids on the 16th to interview them, and then walk through the house.

I sent the packet of paperwork to WIA yesterday,. they will probably get it today or tomorrow, and then our background checks can begin. I haven't heard yet about any reference letters being received but, I'm not sure WIA will tell me as they arrive, so, maybe when Tom comes back next time he will have that information.

Still waiting for something to go wrong. Praying it doesn't.

Today is devoted to Christmas shopping all day. The malls open in a half hour, so, better get a move on.

Next homestudy visit is tomorrow

Well, tomorrow afternoon we have our second, of three or four, homestudy visits. Tom will be interviewing Tim and I seperately. He said that for China they require three or four visits. Not sure if he will be doing three or four, so, I am planning to have him interview the kids on the next visit and then tour the house on the last visit, unless he has other plans.

The final packet of paperwork for WIA will be on its way tomorrow, which gets our background checks started. Holding my breath on that one. With so many states taking so long, who knows how long the entire background process will take. We can't complete the homestudy until the background clearances and the reference letters are in. It's just a long waiting game right now.

Once the homestudy is written, we can submit our I800a to USCIS, and then begin waiting again. It is taking about 90 to 120 days on average to get the approval from them, so, Im looking to March before we can confidently move on any child we see on the lists.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It's Turkey day, and I'm working a four hour shift this morning. I'll get home at about 11am, and start the turkey. We never eat before about 5pm, so, I have plenty of time. James is coming over today, and it will be great to see him, as I haven't been home on the days he has come over for about a month now.

The kids had their medical checkups yesterday, and I got the letters written for WIA. That completes all the paperwork I need for the homestudy, except for the reference letters to all get in. I'll send the packet of documents off tomorrow.

I have emailed Ky at AAI to see if there is a form she can email me, as I do not have the official financial statement, and know I will need that for the dossier. Once I have that filled out and notarized, I can batch all the Utah documents and send them for state certification. I have to nail Tim down on getting the marriage certificate and his birth certificate, as we are using his credit card for ordering, and he and I need to coordinate that. I will wait to have my birth certificate certified until our marriage certificate is here, as they are both from Maryland.

After that, it's just waiting to see how the homestudy goes, and as long as we continue to have a green light from WIA, I will go ahead and get the big pile of docs certified. Then, it's just wait for the homestudy to be completed, and send it, along with an I800a application form, to USCIS. Right now the processing time is between 90 and 120 days for that document. But, it's the last document we have to wait for, so, hopefully, we can get the rest of the dossier docs done long before that one comes back in. If we get the homestudy done by Christmas, we are looking at March or April for our I800 approval. It seems like it is still so far away, but, I know the time will pass quickly.

More paperwork to do

Today I need to contact Maryland about our marriage certificate. Apparently, we need to get it from the archives since we were married SOOOO long ago.

I need to get Tim's birth certificate ordered, and contact his sister Michelle to write us a letter of reference, and then get that in the mail.

Im waiting to hear back from WIA to see if the doctor's letter for the kids can be an all in one or if they each need to have a letter.

Somehow AAI put our file in the Ethiopia program office, and I had to call last week, after we got our agency packet for the wrong program, to have our file sent over to Ky in the China program. Now I am just waiting for the financial statement form to get it filled out and notarized.

Then I just need to wait for Tims birth certificate and our marriage certificate and I have all the documents gathered that we have control over. Once they are notarized, I can batch them and send them for certification. Since the Hague convention changed the rules, some may only need apostille's, so, I need to get that figured out by contacting my courier, Laura at Assistant Stork.

The homestudy has begun

Wooo Hooo!!!!

We officially had our first homestudy visit on Monday, and to my surprise, it went very well.

Tom Baxter, who prepared the first half of our postponed homestudy back in 2006, is handling the homestudy this time, and he said he can use most of our original paperwork.

We have the next visit set up for December 1st, due to all the holiday scheduling conflicts, which is fine, it gives me time to finish preparing the paperwork I do need to get, and to hand out the reference letters.

We need four reference letters, one of which has to be a family member.

I need to get letters from our Dr. stating our health, and have the kids looked at and letters written for them as well. We will be sending in our background check forms, and all the required documents probably in the next two weeks. It all depends on how quickly I can get the kids in for a quick checkup and have the letters written. Everything has so far gone so smoothly, I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Praying it doesn't.

Tom seems to think our homestudy will go very quickly, but, I'm not so confident. So many things can still go wrong or cause a delay, not the least of which is the reference letters. One person takes a long time, drags their feet, forgets to send it in, loses it, whatever, and the whole process is stopped in it's tracks. The background checks in all states we have lived since we were 18 could be a sticking point, since Tim has lived in Minnesota, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and California, and I have lived in Minnesota, Utah, and California. All of those states will have to be checked.

Still waiting

I sent the application forms for the homestudy to WIAA last monday. Still haven't heard anything, hoping to hear that they have accepted us tomorrow. This waiting isn't as bad as it was when we adopted Myleigh. I seem to have a lot more peace about the whole thing.

Now that we are planning on a trip to China in the coming year, suddenly, we are looking at decisions regarding whether to take what would end up being expensive trips for potential funerals.

Tim's grandmother's health is failing. She basically raised him for the first four years of his life, and he is so close to her. We would definitely want to go to pay our respects to her in Minnesota. Then there is my mother. We are far from close, and in fact have not spoken for three years. I found out two weeks ago that she had not told a surgeon performing a gall bladder surgery that she had been diagnosed two years ago with emphysema. She probably did not share the fact that not only does she have arrythmias but, that she is also addicted to pain medications. She is a three pack a day smoker, and doesn't want to give that up, so, she just didn't tell the doctor much of anything. After the surgery, she was being discharged when she started having difficulty breathing, collapsed, and had a heart attack. Tests revealed two badly clogged arteries to her heart, so, when she stabilized, they performed bypass surgery. During that surgery they discovered two more blocked arteries, and that her lungs were in terrible condition. The couldn't complete the last two artery repairs, the tissue was so flimsy it wouldn't have held up. She crashed once on the table, and they had to stop the procedure completely. She is now on a respirator, and they have given her less than a 10% chance of survival, and even if she lives, she will likely be on a respirator for the rest of whatever life she has left.

So, now that they feel some obligation, family members are calling me that I haven't heard from for probably 30 years to tell me how bad things are. The one sister that I still talk to called the day it all happened, and I had her relay to them that I know all about it so they would leave me alone. Either way, we may be seeing one, perhaps two funerals soon. I have no hesitation going to Minnesota for Tims grandmother's funeral, but, I really don't know if I will spend the money to go to Pennsylvania for my mother's funeral. That sounds terrible, but, she, along with the rest of my family, have had absolutely no interest in me or my children for 25 years. They don't even know their names, and I would be surprised if any of them cared about our little Myleigh. They are all so prejudiced and bigotted. It just isn't a good place to be.

I guess I will cross those bridges when I come to them.

Finally

Here we go.

The check and forms are on their way to WIAA. The coming week will be about gathering the last documents originals, and prepping them for certification etc as needed.

As soon as WIAA has approved our file, Tom Baxter will be calling us to get the homestudy visits scheduled.

Yes my timeline is way messed up at this point, but, oh well, so much has been going on, it just wasn't going to happen any other way. There is just no way to tell how long USCIS will take, it is looking like about 90 days at this point. The homestudy could take as long as two months. We are realistically looking at another 6 months, so, sometime in the Spring. In the meantime, I will be processing paperwork, and watching the SN lists for our little one to pop up.

Just a slow month I guess

The process is really not moving forward just yet. We are waiting for our funds to clear from the equity we got from the sale of our old house to send the $1700 off to WIAA to get our homestudy started. Our medical paperwork is in flux, the office wrote our old address on some of the additional paperwork, so, it had to be redone. They did not notarize the medical clearance form, even though the notary is part of the form itself, they just initialed and stamped it, so that will need to be redone. sigh

Tim's employment letter is done, but, my loser LT is dragging her feet, she hasn't even said she would do it. I'm going to have someone else do it for me instead. Can't wait til she is replaced.

The police clearance letters are still not done. The detective that is doing them for me has probably forgotten about them. So, I have emailed him to gently ask if he has gotten to them yet. again, sigh

I really am way behind on everything, so, as far as my timeline goes, well, I just don't have one. Whatever happens, happens.

It's almost Halloween, and we are gearing up to push it all forward starting next week.

Medical clearances are done

As far as I can tell, we are done with the first big hurdle, the medical clearances. We met with the Doc on Monday morning, and by Wednesday afternoon the office called and said our papers were done and ready to pick up. Tim is supposed to be getting them today, but, I would be willing to bet good money that he forgets. If I'm wrong, I'll owe him something I guess, but, it just isn't in his nature to remember things like this. So, if he hasn't, and since I work all weekend, I will swing in and get them on Monday.

Hopefully, they are done correctly, and notarized. I will fax them onto Ky at AAI to make sure before I get them batched for certifying.

More changes, but, better

We are not using West Sands adoptions. After waiting a week to hear back from them, I finally called their office and was told that the social worker would contact me. Anther week goes by, and I get an email stating that because China is now a Hague country, they cannot do our adoption homestudy. They apparently think that because they are not a Hague approved agency, that they cannot perform homestudies for the countries that are now part of the Hague treaty. According to Ky at AAI this is not the case, any state certified agency can perform adoption homestudies regardless of their Hague status or lack thereof. Because of the problems with communication, and their lack of a clear understanding on Hague homestudies, it would be better if we just stuck with WIAA. They may cost twice as much, but, usually, you get what you pay for, and in this case, it looks like that is true.

We have our medical clearance visit on Monday, and our employment letters and police clearances will be done this week. If we can get through the medical clearances with no problems, then we will move on with the homestudy. We won't hear from AAI, whether they will accept us as clients or not, for a couple of weeks, so, we'll see on that.

Get Ready, Get Set.......

All the application paperwork is together, and ready to go to AAI this week.

I am looking at a different homestudy agency, WestSands Adoptions. I went on AAI's website and they refer you to 1800homestudy.com to look for a homestudy agency, and WestSands came up for Utah. I know WIAA is already Hague accredited, so, they are a fine choice, but, WestSands costs less than half to do our homestudy. That said, WestSands did not recieve Hague accreditation as an adoption agency, but, I am having trouble confirming if they need to be in order to just do the homestudy, as long as they are licensed to do them, isn't that just as good for the dossier as long as the adoption agency itself is Hague accredited? I am still digging on that. Plus, I can't get WestSands to answer my emails, so, I will need to call them to confirm. Ky at AAI is out of the office for a week, so, I will need to wait til she gets back to confirm with her.

In the meantime, I am checking on the RumorQueen site for the answer.

And the beat goes on

Today I sorted all the old paperwork I have from the previous homestudy attempt, and the new paperwork for this homestudy. Everything is carefully filed in my red file dossier, divided into sections based on what it is for- homestudy, USCIS, dossier, agency, misc, official document originals, and a section for things ready to be mailed.

I can't believe how much stuff I have already. All I really need to get for the homestudy, that I know of, are the medical clearances, the financial statement, and those are pending, as I know WIAA will have their own form for the financial, and we haven't recieved our packet from AAI for the medical clearance forms, so, we can't schedule our physicals til we have that.

All I need for USCIS is the homestudy.

All I need for the agency is to complete the financial statement they sent with their application packet, and that will be done tonight, and attach the copies of our last three years tax forms.

For the dossier I still need to get Tim's birth certificate, our marriage certificate, both of which have to be mailed for. I need to get our police clearances and employment letters signed and notarized. The medicals and the financial statement will be in the AAI packet they send us when they recieve our application fee, probably sometime next week, as I didn't have all the documentation they asked for until today. I am almost ready to print out our letter of interest and have it notarized, I just want to wait until I get the packet from AAI to make sure there isn't a format they prefer to follow that is different from ours. I'll gather the family life photos in the next few weeks, as I want to take all new photos for this dossier in our new house with the kids ages current. We'll take a few shots of the whole family, with and without the kids that live at home, and let the agency decide which one to use. I already have the passport page copies and then Tim and I can go get the passport size head shots for the dossier when we are closer to sending the dossier to AAI. The USCIS approval has to wait for the homestudy to be complete before we can apply for that, and once both are done, and all the official documents except the I800, are certified, authenticated, and an apostille where necessary are complete, and the letter of interest is also certified and authenticated, we are done.

I'm really looking at the following timeline as a hopeful progression, but, we learned last time around that nothing is set in stone, and the Lord will proceed at his own pace and in his own time.

Send applications to WIAA and AAI week of Sept 28, 2008, apply for Tim's birth certificate and our marriage certificate, and complete notarizations on financial, employment and police letters
Homestudy appointment scheduled some time mid October 2008
Medical clearances and family life photos completed sometime mid to end of October 2008
Homestudy complete first part of November and sent with I800a to USCIS
Send all documents to be certified, authenticated during the month of November 2008
Recieve I800 approval form sometime in December 2008 and send copy to agency
Dossier complete, and send to agency December 2008
Dossier to China by January 2009

We'll see if I can keep to this schedule or not.

Buried under paperwork

I have spent the past week or so sifting through what I have and what I need. So many little details need to be cleared up. I checked with our insurance company to make sure a special needs child would be covered under our policy, which she will. I needed to gather a master copy of that insurance anyway, so, two birds with one stone. I still have to send for both our marriage certificate and Tim's birth certificate, but, have plenty of time for that, as it is only for the dossier, we already have sufficient copies of those documents for the homestudy and USCIS, we just need new ones to be authenticated and included for China.

I'm really just focused on the homestudy for right now. The house is great, shows off nicely, so, I will just do a thorough cleaning just before the first visit. I still need to get the outlet covers, we really don't use them since our youngest at home is now 6, so, he may want to see that we have them for a younger child. I know he will ask about the stairways in our house, but, I already had planned on getting gates anyway, for future grandchildren. That and a couple of fireplace screens or something like that to keep the little one away from the two fireplaces.

I really don't expect this process to be smooth at all. Who knows what bumps we are headed for, but, the adoption road is never an easy one, and I am trying to steal myself for what is ahead.

Still waiting

Geez, we can't send in our fees to get our homestudy done until we close on the old house. The old house was supposed to close last tuesday, and then friday, and now maybe by the end of this week. I am going crazy.

I am thinking it is time to just do it, get it going, just send in the fee and go, but, Tim wants to wait until he knows how the whole thing will end up with paying off the line of credit we took out for the repairs on the old house. The profit from the sale will pay that off and bring down our debt/income ratio to a more acceptable amount.

So, we wait.

And change is good, right?

Okay, so we changed back. Our agency will be AAI in Washington. WIAA will do the homestudy. We just weren't comfortable being restricted to SN adoption when there could be a chance that NSN would work out for us.

So, back we went. Luckily, we hadn't started the homestudy yet.

Today I started filling out all the paperwork for both the adoption agency and the homestudy agency, so we can get started officially. That means coming up with $1700 for WIAA to do the homestudy for 1200, and the post placement report deposit of 500.

We will send in our application fee to AAI in about a week. No hurry, we really want to take it easy, because once it gets going, it will be a truly wild ride.

That is, of course, if we are approved at all. We have some challenges. First, we have a hit on our abuse clearances, due to my daughter who is now 27, back when she was 13, filed a complaint against Tim claiming abuse. It wasn't true, and we were never charged, but, the investigation is still on our records, and always will be. The last time around, when we adopted Myleigh, it was checked, and dismissed as not valid, but, now that China is a Hague country, it will be more important that the HS social worker clears it thoroughly. The agency approving us has to be sure they are not getting themselves into a problem with China for future adoptions. so, I am really praying this won't stop us in our tracks.

Second, we have a failed homestudy from the last time we pursued this, back in 2006, a year after our son Nick passed away. We were not approved by the social worker from the homestudy agency we were using, a different one, due to Matthew being a slow reader, and due to the recentness of the loss of Nick. They suggested we apply in two years and that they would be happy to approve us, but, this time, we just don't trust them. They were extremely slow, took eight months to get around to telling us we weren't approved, and kept losing paperwork. It was a nightmare I don't want to repeat. Tom with WIAA took up our case back then, and after a long discussion with him about everything, he was ready to proceed forward, but, we decided that we wanted to postpone, mostly because it had been such a terrible eight months, and we weren't up for anymore disappointments. So, we postponed, and he said to call him when we were ready to move forward. When I contacted him this month, he said he still had all of our paperwork and was happy to work with us again.

And that brings us to today. Filling out applications, financial statements, and back to explaining the abuse hit all over again. I think we are ready to put our heads down and plod through it.

Everything in life is change

We are changing agencies before we even send in our application. After much research, and some advice from been-there-done-that families, we are switching to Chinese Children Adoption International CCAI in Colorado.

The baby we have kind of fallen for is on their SN list, but, the real reason is that we have become convinced by so much research and the references provided by so many families, that we just have to walk in faith that this is the right choice.

The costs are much less than AAI, and we can still save money by preparing our dossier on our own, which doesn't scare me. I know just how to do this, and CCAI provides a dossier guide to help us.

The Homestudy and beginning paperwork

I have recieved the certified birth certificates for me from Maryland, and have printed out the order form for Tim's from Minnesota. I will have to call Kensington, Maryland to order our marriage certificate since it is prior to 1993. I will be getting the police clearance letters done next week, and then the financial statement. We will need to have our medical clearances done. Will need to schedule those appointments next month. I have talked to Tom Baxter, and he has all our paperwork from last time, but, China will require most of the documentation be current, so, he really can only use the stuff that hasn't changed for our homestudy. We both make more money then we did two years ago, and we moved into a bigger house last year. We are just now selling our old house, that closes next week. Katie and James will both be out on their own, James already lives in his own place in Orem, and Katie will be moving out by end of December, so neither of them will be part of the paperwork.

That just leaves us with three kids at home, which makes us better candidates anyway, and there is less paperwork involved than there was last time with having James, over 18, living with us. We had to have him go through a physical exam, and he was going to have to submit fingerprints to USCIS for a background check, since he was an adult that was living in the home.

So, now I will be scheduling the physicals, and then afterwards, the homestudy. Once they are complete, we can apply to USCIS for an I800A appointment, and then go over to the sattelite office for fingerprints once our interview is complete. They will give us the fingerprint form to take with us. Once that is done, we wait for the approval in the mail.

The financial statement will need to be copied for Tom, and the original sent to be state certified, and then batched with the other docs to be authenticated.

The medicals, criminal clearances, employment letters, letter of interest, birth certificates, marriage certificate, and homestudy, will be batched and sent to my courier for authentications in DC. Then they will be forwarded, along with the passport photos, family life photos, copies of our passport photo pages, to AAI. Once the I800A arrives, it will be sent to AAI as the final document for our dossier. I will have to check to see if that needs to be authenticated, I believe it does, but, can't remember off the top of my head.

Now I find out that as part of the new requirements from the Hague treaty, the USCIS will require background checks for every state we have lived in since we were 18, which is a no brainer for me since I lived in Minnesota when I turned 18, and then moved to Utah and have lived here ever since, but, Tim lived in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Utah, which adds a state to our paperwork. Ugh.

We have made a decision on an agency

We are going to apply with Adoption Advocates International in Port Angeles Washington. They have both NSN and SN programs, and we can switch from NSN to SN if we find a child on the SN list before we get a referral from the NSN program. The great thing about their SN program is that they are on the shared agency list and have their own private agency list, so we have many more children to search.

They will also allow me to do as much of the dossier paperwork as I want, which is pretty much all of it. I know how to put together a dossier, and, I have some great dossier resources, like a courier that works in DC, which is where most of our docs have to go.

We can save time and money by doing most of it ourselves.

I found a precious little girl on another agency's shared list. If we are paper ready and her file has not been locked by another family, we will look into pursuing adopting her. That is a long way down the road though, and there are a lot of other families ahead of us in line to review her file. Her SN is one that would scare a lot of families away that are looking for something that is an absolutely non-special need issue. In other words, something that doesn't have any effect on the child, but, is more of a cosmetic issue. I am not afraid of what I have read, based on what I know from past experience with a similar issue with one of my other children, but, will need to review the file more closely if we get that opportunity down the road before I make a decision.

Search is almost over

We have narrowed the agency search down to two, Adoption Advocates International (AAI) and Wasatch International Adoption Agency(WIAA). AAI was recommended by a friend that just came home with her little one from China, and WIAA is local, and our social worker is contracted with them.

If we go with AAI, we will need to have him sign an agreement with them, but, he knows that drill pretty well.

The pros of AAI are that they will accept Tim's age for NSN, which WIAA said they would as well, except for one hitch. WIAA does not have an SN program to switch to if NSN for whatever reason ends up not being the right path for us, and AAI does have an SN program. In an email from the AAI rep, they stated they did not believe Tim's age would be a problem as long as we got our paperwork to China before he turn 51 in April of next year, but, they also made sure we knew we could switch to SN if we wanted. I just don't want to end up signing with them and find out they had no intention of advocating for NSN, and we have to go SN, when WIAA would have advocated for us.

Ugh!! what a decision.

Well, we will spend some time praying about it, and see what we decide. We have time, since we don't intend to apply to any agency until after our old house's sale closes the first week in September, and right now, we are busy getting kids started back to school.

Searching for an adoption agency

Here we go again, the search for an agency to handle our adoption. This is not an easy task, and certainly not as easy as it once was. Tim is right at the age limit for adopting a child with no special needs. We really don't think we could handle a child with a moderate to serious special need, and it wouldn't be fair to walk deliberately into that, but, we may be forced into that program simply because the agencies are mostly telling us that Tim is already aged out, as the CCAA will consider a person to be 50 already when they are just 49 and four months. So, by the time we are paper ready, he will be considered over the age limit.

Alternatively, and as I suspected, Wasatch International Adoptions is indicating that not only will be be successful if we pursue a non special needs (NSN) adoption, but, that they will accept us as NSN applicants. So, they are strong candidates as our prospective agency search continues. CCAI has basically dismissed us for anything other than their special needs (SN) program, WACAP has leaned that way as well, and I haven't even asked HFS, our previous agency, as they seem to have changed quite a bit and aren't the same agency I remembered. Since they are an out of state agency, and Texas, the state they are in, has extra requirements in the homestudy (HS) process, I don't see any additional benefit in using them for our agency when there are agencies just as good who are either in Utah (ie WIAA) or do not have the additional requirements.

So, the search continues. Currently, I have sent for info packets and am on a couple of yahoo groups that give info on agencies etc, and, I am asking around the China adoption community of parents, both currently in the process and those who have completed at least one adoption since the Hague treaty changed so much about the process and which agencies are even approved to adopt from China.

Adoption from China of our little cricket

We begin our blog with the paperchase for our second Chinese daughter, Isabella Nicole (insert chinese name here) Anderson, nicknamed Cricket.

Today is Friday, August 1, 2008.

Before we can get very far into this blog, I must prepare you that the next few months will largely be devoted to the paperwork, which may or may not interest you. If you feel the need to stick a letter opener in your eye at any point, please, step away from your computer and get some fresh air. We will still be here when you get back, and soon, the paperwork will be done.

We expect the paperchase to take anywhere from three to six months, so, sit back and relax. It's going to be a bumpy ride.