Where's Waldo?

Now that our I-800A approval is back, our dossier (aka our entire life in a stack of papers) needs to go through a few steps before it goes to China. I recently asked our coordinator where everything goes and Brian made a little visual.

Makes perfect sense, right?? 

So our paperwork could be in any one of those cities as we speak.

Hopefully they will be heading along the red arrow by the end of June! 

Watch out for the next step, its a doozy!

Remember this picture and this post?

Well look at it now!

Yay for check marks!

That final checkmark for the I-800A was done on Saturday when we received this document:

If you can read the tiny writing, it does say that we are approved for 2 children. We are open to twins or siblings, but the chances of it happening with Chinese adoption are incredibly rare, so don't get too excited.

Yes my friends, that means that we are OFFICIALLY done with the paperchasing portion of this adoption! Yes there are lots of papers to be filed once we are matched, but I think the excitement of being matched and finally getting to see a little face that is ours (and FINALLY being able to shop!) will take over and it will feel completely different than this past 7 months has felt. 

So what's next?

The most exciting part! Our dossier is being sent (hopefully today) to be translated and certified. Not sure how long that will take, could be a few weeks, could be a month, but once that is done our documents are sent to our agency's coordinator in China and they will take them to be officially logged in. Once we are logged in we will be eligible to be matched from the shared list (list of kids that are ready to be adopted) that comes out once a month. We are hopeful that we will be eligible for matching with the June shared list, but it's possible that the July list will be our first chance. Either way we are just happy to be looking towards the end of this part of our journey and more than ready to start the next part knowing who our son or daughter is. 

P.S. Extra bonus points if you recognized where the title came from!

An update in 2 pictures

This conversation repeats about every other day, 

which is as often as I'm allowing myself to email them. 

We will let you know when the reply changes! 

Why we need our own reality show

We have been getting asked a lot lately about the show "The Little Couple" and what we think about it.
For those of you who don't know, The Little Couple are Jen Arnold and Bill Klein (You can learn more about them here or here.) They both have forms of dwarfism and are pretty amazing people. We have been fans of the show for a long time. They seem like really nice people and it's fun to watch how they adapt their lives to their small stature and don't let it become an excuse for not experiencing life. Their new season just started and the season premiere showed them deciding to pursue the adoption of a little Chinese boy with dwarfism.

First let me say, I love love love that they are showcasing special needs adoption and obviously adoption from China is near and dear to our hearts. My issue comes from the fact that it is a little frustrating to watch how "fast" their process is moving. I am well aware of the magic of reality tv and the need for things to move quickly to keep viewers' interest.
The thing is, although you all are very sweet to read our blog and wanting to know about our journey, the reality of adoption is it is A LOT of hurry up and wait. We have been at this for 7 months now and are still probably 5-8 months from getting to bring our child home. It would be nice if they hinted at how long this process actually takes and that even fame and camera crews cannot speed things up.

Their most recent episode showed them deciding to also adopt a little girl from India and in the blink of an eye they were decorating a room and they made it seem as though they would be able to just swing by India on their way home from China and pick her up too. So not true. As far as I can tell, they are now home with their son and they are still waiting to travel to India to bring her home. It sounds like it has been 8-9 months since that video clip where they first heard about her.
That my friends is the reality of the international adoption timeline.

So, we are really happy for Bill and Jen (yes we are on a first name basis. I'm sure they are reading this right now and wanting to become our BFFs) and thrilled that international adoption is getting some tv attention, but if TLC is looking for people to star in a series that truly shows all the waiting, sighing, paper cuts, many trips to the post office and large check writing that REALLY comes with international adoption, give us a call.
We'll be here by our phones. We've gotten really good at waiting.....

WOO HOO!

YAY! Our fingerprinting is DONE!!!

We were a little nervous at first because there was quite a line when we got there at 7:50. And when it was our turn at the desk the USCIS employee gave us MAJOR side eye when we told her that we were told we could walk in early for our appointment. However they just asked us to wait until everyone who actually had appointments went through and then they had no problem getting ours done. These people are SUPER efficient and patient, the DMV folks should take a lesson from them!

We're not really sure what comes next, but this was the absolute last step that we had any control over before we are matched, so now we are just waiting for our paperwork to be processed by who knows how many people before it gets sent to China! We will keep you all updated, thanks for the support!

In case anyone reading is a prospective international adoptive parent, our tips for getting fingerprints done early are to get there at 8:30 instead of 8 to avoid the first rush of people that do have appointments because they have priority. Also don't expect to pass the time by playing on your phone, drinking Starbucks or eating breakfast because they don't allow any cell phones, food or drink and they are pretty serious about it. Other than that just be polite and smile, it was easy!

Tomorrow!

Just a quick update to let you all know that we need massive prayers/good juju/happy thoughts/whatever tomorrow morning as we head to the USCIS office to try to get our fingerprints done earlier than our appointed time. Our real appointment time is only a week away, but if walking in earlier means that we get our paperwork processed a few days faster, then it is SO worth it!

We will let you know how it goes!

Waiting....

It was a huge rush when our I-800A was mailed off. We really felt like we were making progress and things were moving. And then this week comes and we are back to waiting....We received the letter confirming that they received our application. We also received an email from our coordinator, a text message and an email from the government saying the same thing. Nothing like a little redundancy in the process! 

We are now waiting on our letter to let us know when we can go get our fingerprints done. I've never been so thankful that the US postal service didn't cancel mail on Saturdays!  This letter will give us an assigned time to do our fingerprints, but we have heard that if we beg, smile pretty and bring coffee and muffins they *might* let us get them done early. We will let you know when that is so you can send lots of good thoughts our way!

So that's pretty much it. I thought about taking a sad picture of us waiting by our mailbox, but then it snowed 50 feet again so this is the best I could do!