27 days since LOI

It has been 27 days since we sent our LOI for Holly, and 21 days since we received PA.

WAAAHOOO!!! Our dossier is complete!!!

It came today via Fedex. The completely certified, and authenticated dossier of all the documents we need to bring Holly home.

Now, we send it, along with our agency fees, to Small World adoptions, they will translate it and send it to China for the final, and I do mean final, review.

In tracking the package we sent to Holly, it arrived in China on Thursday the 25th, so, I am hopeful that she has received it by now, and knows who her new family will be. I wonder what she thinks of us, and if she feels any connection at all. I'm just so excited, and anxious to get to China to bring her home.

Just one more week

I contacted Steve at the Assistant Stork today, asking what the status is of our dossier. The State Dept had a death of a co-worker, and that delayed processing of our dossier a bit. It is now at the Chinese Consulate, and is expected to be done on Friday. Hopefully, that means it will be on its way back to us on Friday.

Time goes slowly by

Waiting for our dossier to be completed and sent back to us is going slowly. Still, they should be done today and on their way back to us, arriving next week. Once they are here, we will combine our family life photos, and passport photos with the dossier of documents, package them, and send them to our agency along with our next fee installment. Then, they will be translated into Chinese, and sent to the CCAA to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. This is where our notaries, and time stamps are most important.

As long as all is well, the CCAA will send us a LOA. They usually take months to send these out, average being 90 days, but, today I saw posted on another adoption website that someone received their LOA in less than 30 days, so, perhaps things are speeding up. Doesn't matter to us, really. We have planned a late fall trip, so, earlier would be ok, but, we are already settling in for the wait.

We sent Holly a package of gifts. Mailed yesterday. We sent her a backpack with a couple of Disney stuffed animals, hair barrettes, bracelets, and rings, a play sleeping beauty cell phone, a cute sucker shaped like a Daisy. I also put some fruit snacks to share with some of her friends at the orphanage. We put together a photo album with pictures of all of us, our house, some of the things we do, and put subtitles in both english and simple chinese. I made a coloring book for her by typing out the story of our adoption trip. For instance, page one talks about how Tim, Matthew and I will be coming to China on a big airplane. I pasted a picture of an airliner and pasted the dialogue in both english and simple chinese. Each page had a space where I had Myleigh draw a picture of what that page is about, so on that page she drew an airplane with our faces peeking out of the windows. I then laminated the page, and bound them all together as a book. I sent washable markers and an eraser for her to use to color, erase, and color again. I asked, in a note, for the staff at the orphanage to read her the story and let her color the pages. We are hoping this will help Holly to understand at least to some degree what is going to happen when she leaves the orphanage. Maybe she will have less stress, since there won't be so many unknowns, and as each page is fulfilled, she will recognize it, and know what is coming next. Like checking off a calendar.

We will send her another package, unless things move quickly, with a few things, but, this is basically the big package. I have been gathering some things to take with us to China, toys, some clothing items, etc, but, most of what we will get her we will wait until we have her in China and take her shopping for, to make sure we get the right sizes. It will also be a way of passing some of the down time we will have while waiting for her passport before going to Guangzhou.

Packing lists, yes already.

I am trying to keep myself busy while I wait for our dossier to be authenticated, so, I decided I need to start picking up the things we will need for the trip a little at a time. In order to know what to get, I had to know how old she is and what part of the country she is in, and what time of year we might be traveling. Since getting the referral, I know that she is 4 years old and wears about a 4t in clothing. She lives in a sub-tropical climate, which means, even in winter it only gets down into the mid 40's during the day, and we will likely be traveling in the Fall at about mid 60's to 70's during the day. The last few days of the trip will be in Guangzhou, which is even warmer, so, we may not need the warm coats unless they are expecting cold temps, which we will know when we get a bit closer to traveling. I am planning for that contingency by leaving room in our carryons for the coats.

I've divided the packing into several lists. A list for each of us, Tim-myself-Matthew, and a master packing list. I also have a running shopping list that will be updated as we get the things on the list.

When packing for a trip like this, you consider the fact that you won't be far from a Walmart or other store, but, you may have a sick or grieving child that would prevent getting out to the store for at least a few days. Also, it will be a two week long trip, and while we will have the laundry done a few times, we don't want to risk running out of clean clothes, especially if we get stuck in China due to weather or some other unexpected delay.

The last trip to China to bring Myleigh home I took a veritable medicine cabinet, and while I didn't use hardly any of it, I was so glad I had it. This time, I will again bring plenty of American medicines, enough for all of us for two weeks.

I won't need to bring too many clothing items for Holly, since we will be taking her shopping in China, but, again, not knowing what her health or state of mind may be, I will bring several outfits to be on the safe side.

In case of lost luggage, I always distribute clothing evenly among all the luggage so no one gets to China and finds they have no clothes to wear because their suitcase got lost or misdirected.

My packing lists are on the side bar if you're interested.

PA has arrived today!!!!!

After only eight days, we received pre-approval from China to adopt our little Holly Jun. Our agency rep, Carol, was so excited at how fast this arrived that she sent the message in all CAPS. Now we can send Holly a package and start communicating with her. Tim wants to send her something special from her Daddy, possibly a locket with our picture in it. I have a lot of plans of things to send, and that includes the baby doll I bought for her this week. I plan to put together a box that includes a picture book of photographs of each of us holding her baby doll, and just pictures of our house, inside and out. I will have to talk to the Half The Sky program reps to see what they suggest we send and what they think we should not send.

Now, finally, I can post her picture on our blog.

So far so good.

I sent our dossier packet to the Assistant Stork on Monday, and Steve called me today to tell me they arrived this morning. There was one glitch, and it was the I797c. Apparently you don't send the original, you make a photocopy, have it notarized, state certified and then authenticated. Since we didn't do that and no one told us we needed to, I sent the original, and he called right away to let me know about the problem and offered to fix it. He was so wonderful, and is making the photocopy, having it notarized, and then will take it onto the state dept for the final steps. He said this wasn't the first time this happened, and that he was confident in the fix. We'll pay a little extra for the extra trips he will make to Washington DC, and for the notary, but, that's not as big a deal as if we had to do all those steps ourselves. We would have had to wait until Monday to do the state certification, since that was going to be my first day off. Then, wait the week for it to come back, and then send it to him for the remainder of the steps. That would have easily added weeks to the process.

As it stands, with Steve doing this for us, he expected to have the documents to the State Dept on Tuesday, pick them up later that day, drop them off to the Chinese consulate that afternoon, and then it's about 4 days later that he can pick them up. We may just have the whole thing in our hands by the end of the following week, and then can send them onto Small World to be sent to China.

We have finally chosen a name for our little Cricket. After seeing her face, and getting to know a bit about her, we chose Holly Jun Nicole Anderson.

More interesting facts

Ok, so, years ago when we initially planned our adoption, I told Tim that this child was "his". I just felt that she had a strong connection to him, more than just that she would be his daughter, but, that perhaps this adoption was a promise he had made.

Anyway, in reading the interesting facts about her home province Hubei is known as the "Minneosta of China" because of its many lakes. Since Tim was born and raised in Minnesota, this just strikes me as a very interesting coincidence.

Interesting facts

I learned today that the provinces that Myleigh and Jun are from share an interesting link. Myleigh is from the Hunan province and Jun is from the Hubei province. The name Hubei means "north of the lake, and Hunan means "south of the lake". The lake they refer to is East lake. Both girls were brought from the East "China" to the west "US". I found this very interesting. There is a good chance we will be staying at the East Lake hotel in Wuhan, Hubei, so, that would be a fun fact to add to this journey.

Another fun fact, both Myleigh and Jun's Chinese names mean "pretty".

Jun's referral was sent to us on Myleigh's birthday. We didn't open it until June 1st. We sent our paperwork for Myleigh's adoption, to China on June 12 of 2002. Myleigh was found on June 11 2002. Our referral was sent to us for Myleigh in June 2003. It arrived July 3rd, 2003.

The month prior to both girls referrals, there was a pandemic that affected the world, for Myleigh it was SARS, for Jun it was H1N1.

Huang Fu Jun

Our new daughter is Huang Fu Jun. She is 4 years old and lives in the Huangshi social welfare institute in Hubei, China. She was born on December 5th 2004, the year of the monkey. She is a healthy, waiting child.

This is what the remaining process looks like.

We have sent a letter of interest (LOI) to the CCAA. They will then send back to our agency a Pre-Approval letter (PA). Once we have the PA, we send our dossier which is still in the authentications process. When the CCAA recieves our dossier, they will give it an official log in date (LID), and we will then wait for a letter of approval (LOA) which means our adoption is officially approved by China.

At that point, we send our LOA to USCIS along with a new form I800, and they will then send paperwork (DS230) to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, telling them about our adoption. Our agency rep in Guangzhou will pick up a copy of that document, and take it to the CCAA along with other documents. From that paperwork the CCAA issues a travel approval letter (TA) which is sent to our agency.

When we have the TA, our agency makes an appointment with the US Consulate in Guangzhou to have our adoption paperwork finalized and our daughter declared a US citizen just before we leave China.

The timing of this appointment is very important, as it dictates all of our other official appointments. We cannot enter the US without the consulate approval of her travel Visa. We will need about a week, maybe five days, in her province to have her adoption finalized as far as China is concerned, and a passport issued for her to leave the country. Once we have her passport and her China paperwork is done, we have to take her to the approved clinic in Guangzhou for a quick check of her overall health, confirm she is the child we were expecting, and to have her immunizations done prior to entering the US. She will also need a picture taken for her Visa. That takes a day or so, and then the agency rep meets with the consulate to have all our paperwork looked over for correctness. The next day we bring our daughter with us to the consulate to swear that this is the child we were referred, and we promise to fulfill the obligations we signed off on in our paperwork, financial support etc.

Once all that is done, we are free to leave the country.

So, for right now, we wait for PA and finish the authentication of our dossier. We should be ready to send it to be logged in sometime the end of this month or beginning of next month.

Very close to an announcement

After the last time, we are not going to announce our big news until we have confirmation that the child we have requested has been locked and that nothing else can take her from us. Until then, I am sending our dossier to the dossier courier in Washington DC for the final steps.

Beginning of a busy week

I dropped off our Utah documents at the Lt Governor's office on Wednesday, and they said three to five days before we should expect to see them back in the mail. With the Memorial Day holiday this weekend, I'm looking at Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest, but, really, expect them to come on Friday.

Once they are back, I will package all the docs up and send them to my courier in Washington DC to have the authentications done at the US Secretary of State office, and the Chinese Consulate.

In the meantime, we can work on getting our passport size pictures taken, and take some candid family life photos. We should get Matthew's passport going, too.

Mindy's pageant is this Saturday, so, the preparations for that will keep my mind off everything.

Sad News

We lost our referral of the little girl we hoped to adopt. another agency found out about her and locked her file before we could. So, we continue to wait and search.

We have found her!!!

After such a long process, and so much searching, we have found our little cricket. Her name is Qu Le Yong, and she lives in Guangdong province. She is four years old, turns 5 on August 15th. We can't post pictures of her yet, as we don't have approval from China for the adoption, so, until that happens, all I can tell you is, she is so adorable, and has a very interesting story.

We dropped off the rest of our documents for state certification, and then we can complete our dossier and send it to China. The agency that she is listed with is Small World Adoptions. I feel pretty good about them, but, don't know as much as I will after doing more research. They come highly recommended by other adoptive parents, so , that is always a good sign.

Once our dossier is ready, which will probably be about a month or so, we will have to wait until it is approved by China. I will be looking into how long that is currently taking, but, I am thinking we will be waiting through the summer. We will miss her birthday, but, I am praying that we can at least have the pre approval in time for us to send her a birthday present.

I just can't express how much I love her already. I just can't stop looking at her pictures.

She is one of the two little girls that were on the Special Needs list that really don't belong there. She is healthy, happy, growing normally, and get this, she loves to pretend her toy cars are Police cars and she is catching the "bad people". For now we will call her Le Le which is her pet name in the orphanage, but, will choose a more permanent name. In Chinese, the name the orpahanage gave her, Le Yong, means beautiful music. She loves to sing, and make up her own words to songs.

Ill post more about her as I sort through all the referral information, but, for now, Im doing the Snoopy dance.

Big week ahead

This week brings with is many paperwork and financial challenges.

I need to get up to the Capital to get the dossier State certified. That will cost about $100.

Mindy's costume for the pageant is ready to be picked up from the seamstress, and I am thinking that will cost around $500.

I need to get rhinestones for Mindy's pageant swimsuit, too.

Tomorrow I have a training to go to in the morning, then lessons for Mindy in the afternoon. Tuesday is a four hour staff meeting, and Wednesday is the city council meeting where Mindy presents her platform for Miss Salem.

Thursday Im back at work for four hours, and then more lessons for Mindy. I work all weekend, and, it's Memorial Day weekend so we will be hammered in Dispatch.

Somewhere in there I need to start stoning the costume and swimsuit. The end of next week is the pageant. Phew. Gotta keep moving, or as Dori says, just keep swimming , just keep swimming.

We're approved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just recieved an email from our USCIS agent telling me the following:


Good morning.

Your I-800A application was reviewed and approved on May 12. It was put in the mail that day so you should be getting it any time now.
Congratulations!

Kirk Giffen

It's official, we are on our way. Now, as soon as it gets here in the mail, I will be walking it, along with the rest of our paperwork, into the Utah Secretary of State's office for certification. Then, pack it all up and send it to Washington DC to the U.S. Secretary of State office for their authentication, and then, onto the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC for final authentication.

At that point we will need to know who we are using for our placing agency, as they will need to send it onto Beijing, China to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) office to be logged in (LID) and then reviewed for their approval of our adoption of a special needs child. Yes, another wait. Probably shorter than the last one though, I hope.

Paperwork almost complete

I sent the updated homestudy to USCIS yesterday. It should arrive on Friday. I haven't done this before, so, Im not sure how it will all turn out, but, I expect that, if this is the only thing holding up our approval, we should be immediately approved.

When USCIS issues an approval, they send you an email that day with that document, and then a hard copy arrives in the mail about two weeks later. I am hoping we get that email early next week.

Baby steps

After two weeks, finally, Tom Baxter has sent the addendum to USCIS.

I called Beesh yesterday to see if there was any news from Tom since he has never answered my emails, and I couldn't find his phone number. She said she had just spoken with him and that he had finally received the paperwork from her last week, which is a contradiction to what she had told be before, but, oh well, and he had finished writing the addendum and was preparing to send it out. I'm hoping that means this week. All I can really say at this point is, I would not adopt through WIAA. Thankfully, this should be the last dealing we have with them until we do our post placement visits and 6 months post adoption and 18 months post adoption.

Changes in the wind

We may be changing agencies after all. In calculating the costs we will end up paying for Mr Li's, AAI's in country attorney, travel expenses , and what we get for our money just doesnt seem worth it. AAI ends up being over $3000 more expensive than the other agency we are looking at, Families Through International Adoption(FTIA).

AAI wants $5075 up front to send our dossier to China. FTIA only wants $3000.
AAI charges $3350 for the referral and associated expenses, FTIA charges $1000.
AAI will then want us to pay $6180 in China for the remaining adoption fees, plus, we have to pay for Mr. Li's airfare, room, board and expenses if our daughter is in a province other than Guangdong, where he lives, plus, we have to pay his taxi fares and a daily fee regardless of which province she is in for Mr Li to complete the paperwork portion of the adoption, and then, he won't even spend any time helping us get to or from the airports, or help us navigate China when we aren't on official appointments.

FTIA charges $7560 in China, and provides a full time guide who stays in the same hotel we are in, and accompanies us at all official appointments, assists with the paperwork, and will be our escort wherever we go, including to and from the airports. Baseline difference is $3045 which would end up closer to $4000 to $5000 with Mr Li's expenses, depending on where in China our daughter is.

So, we are seriously going through the process of switching agencies, just waiting for the new list to come out just in case she is on AAI's private list. If she isn't, we are switching.

This week will likely have our paperwork moving forward again, with the i797c USCIS approval, finally.

Then, onto the Utah Secretary of State, and then the whole dossier goes off to Washington for the paperwork courier service to have US certified and Chinese Embassy authenticated. Then, we are done.

It's all coming together, I think.

Hooray for California

It finally came. Beesh from WIAA just called me to tell me that Jared from California called her this morning to ask for her email address. He immediately sent over our clearance, and she faxed it, along with the others, over to Tom Baxter for him to write the addendum.

Now we just wait for him to get that done and sent to USCIS, and we should hear from them shortly after they recieve it.

Phew, we are so close, it is almost scary.