Baby Steps!

We have finally pulled together all the documents we need for our "paperchase"!!!! The last of our documents was notarized TODAY!!!!!

I cannot do anything else until my passport arrives (tomorrow or Tuesday) Then, with passport in hand, I will be able to send our documents to their individual states for apostille and the area Chinese Consulates for authentication. We are having family hand carry these documents from here, so our packet should be ready even before the homestudy is certified by the state!

It may not seem like much of a milestone, but you should see my cheat-sheet at home! I made a huge graph of all the steps we needed to take...and MOST OF THEM ARE DONE!!!!

Now - if that PA would just hurry up and arrive! Today is day 20 of the wait! The "average wait" is up to about 47 days, but someone just received theirs in 19 days. {Sigh} I'm not very good at waiting!

New Information

Day 13 of the PA wait! But we did get new information today on Nicholas! He has grown! Our last update was from almost a year ago, so our agency requested an update and it arrived very quickly!

He is now almost 36 inches tall and 32 lbs. He is keeping right in his growth curve, so everything looks great! He has been ill, but is fine now. He has had frequent respiratory infections and was hospitalized in April. :-( He was diagnosed with "transient hypogammaglobulinemia" which sounds bad but is a common childhood disorder that is usually outgrown. It basically means that his body doesn't build up immunities so he gets sick easily.

This disorder can cause frequent respiratory and ear infections. We may have our first glimmer into what caused his deafness.

Other than that - he is reported to be very independant and can do simple gymnastics.

As for the paperchase, etc.... all we are waiting on is my birth certificates. All the others have arrived. I'm not sure what the hold up is.

Waiting Waiting Waiting

I will go back and fill in the blanks, but for now - here's where we stand today:

Our LOI (Letter of Intent) was sent to China on 6/10/05. This is our letter expressing our desire to adopt Waiting Child #10, Xi Weiyi. We had to include personal information and a lot of information about how we plan to care for Xi Weiyi, aka Nicholas, once he comes home. Because Nicholas has a "special need", we had to show we were prepared to address that. Nicholas is deaf. It was actually very easy for us to put the letter together, as we are very ready to bring Nicholas home! I've seen the school he will go to, interviewed the staff, checked with the local children's hospital on a plan of care.... it's all ready.

Now we just wait. The average response from China arrives in 35 days. They will send back a "Pre-approval" (PA). Pretty much it says they approve the adoption pending we get certified by the state and the US grants his immigration and we don't get arrested between now and the adoption. :-)

The homestudy is about 1/2 way done. We still have to finish the last bit of our autobiography, then schedule the last visit. This goes to the state for judicial approval. The earliest this will happen is August 6. (Here in AZ you have to first submit fingerprints, then wait 60 days before the courts will address it!)

In the meantime, we are still paperchasing. That involves compiling birth certificates, marriage license, letters from the police department, employment letters, medical letters and so on. Each of these must be notarized, then sent to the state they were issued in for Apostille - kind of a verification of the notary. THEN they go to the regional China Embassy for Authentication. Once all those are complete, we will have our Dossier.

We are also waiting on Immigration (CIS). We filed an I-600A petition to adopt overseas. Once it when the homestudy is complete and approved, this will complete the I-600A. We'll get an appointment for FBI fingerprints, and once those are submitted we wait for the I-171H document to arrive that will allow Nicholas to come to the US.

Whew - tired yet...there's more. The Dossier, the homestudy, and a copy of the I-171H then go to China (DTC - for dossier to China). China will log the file in and issue a log-in-date (LID). They usually tell the adoption agency what the LID is and then China issues a Travel Authorization (TA) about 75 days later. The travel time frame is usually 6-8 weeks from teh TA date.

THEN we can go get Nicholas and bring him home and start our journey together.