A little impatience, a lot of progress

Which stands for Dossier to China! 

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you that our adoption process has had a few minor set backs (not that we would ever be bitter or impatient, we are much too zen for that).
However, we are beyond thrilled to be able to report that our dossier (aka our life on paper) is officially winging its way to China (don't mess this up FedEx or you will have one angry almost mama on your hands!). 

I have no idea what the FedEx Panda team is,
but it sure seems like an adorable way for our paperwork to get to China!

Once our paperwork is safely in the care of the Chinese government, we will be eligible to be matched. As we talked about in this post, we are eligible to be matched with a kiddo (or 2, but 99.9999% sure it will only be 1) of either gender, under 18 months old and our baby could have any of the special needs that we have decided that we are comfortable with.

During this time there may be some slow blogging as we will most likely not reveal that we have reviewed a match until after we have decided if that match is our child. We are doing this largely to make sure that we are making the right decision for us and not getting everyone's hopes up, but also because the Chinese government and our agency frown upon advertising a match until we have a few pieces of paper in hand that say our child is officially ours.
China releases a new list of kiddos eligible for adoption once a month, but we have been told that a referral could come at any time. At that point we will have 48 hours to say yes or no. One of the reasons we liked our agency is that they told us up front that their primary focus during matching is on the kids, not us. They want to make sure that kids get good homes and if we don't feel like we can best deal with the needs of a given child there is no shame in being honest and saying so. We don't anticipate saying no to a match as our agency knows us very well by now, but it could happen, once again a reason why we will probably wait to announce a match.

All this to say, thanks for sticking with us so far. I know it has been a long haul since this announcement back in December, but thanks everyone for your support and encouraging words. Hopefully very soon we will have more exciting news!

DTC

Any guesses on what the letters DTC mean in the China adoption world?

I'll leave you in suspense until Monday, but yes this means there is good news!

So have your documents been sent to China yet?

Thanks for asking! 

It could be worse....

We haven't had the greatest adoption paperwork week. We had some setbacks that aren't worth going into detail about, but were ridiculous and hopefully they are taken care of. Still no idea when our documents will FINALLY get to China, but in the interest of having a more positive attitude I decided to look up animals that have a longer gestation period than our adoption is taking. We started our paperwork in November 2012 so we're going on about 8 months and as shown below, it could definitely be worse!

1. Giraffes: 13-16 months, plus they give birth standing up and their babies have to survive the fall to the ground!

2. Manatees: 13 months

I especially love the look on the mama manatee's face as her baby is attempting to eat her arm.
Ahh the joys of parenthood!

3. Dolphins: 17-19 months

4. Elephants: 22-24 months

And finally the longest gestation period I could find (according to professor Google) is the frilled shark with a gestation period of 3.5 years. Seriously, 3.5 years???
Also, frilled sharks are really funky looking animals so I have substituted a picture that won't terrify young children.

So hopefully this post has given us all (mostly Brian and I) a little perspective.
We will return to regularly scheduled blogging when our file is finally on it's way to China!

Stuff we love

Hey all! Sorry for the lack of posts! 

As a change of pace, I thought I would show you some things for the new kiddo that we love. 

We have been really trying to hold off on buying much stuff until we are matched, but it is getting harder and harder the closer we get! 

We have received a lot of great gifts so far for our kiddo and wanted to give a big thank you!

 We REALLY appreciate the love! 

This carrier is very comfortable and will get a lot of use as we have been told that carrying our kiddo helps with attachment. Here's hoping our kid will be as light and easy going as the panda!

Source
This little puppy is the perfect size to bring to China (packing for this trip will be a whole post itself, I can't even imagine how hard that will be!). Plus with every purchase a donation is made to a rescue shelter. We have always been big advocates of pet adoption and hope to pass this passion on to our child. 

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Along the same lines, anyone in my family can tell you that I had a teddy bear obsession collection when I was young and I have several sizes of this Gund bear that I still can't seem to get rid of (even though they are missing eyes and are obviously falling apart well loved). 
So our baby definitely needs a Gund of his/her own (mostly because I don't share well)!

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Brian bought me this necklace for Mother's Day and I can't even explain how much I love it.
 I love the cut out of China, I love the saying underneath (I searched the world for you) and I love how the saying is a little hidden because our journey to our child is so personal and special. 

Source

I love this quilt (obviously with China instead of Africa)! It will make a great first comforter for them, as well as a beautiful keepsake for the future. 

Check back soon for more updates! Our documents are in their final stages of being sent around to various consulates around the US and will hopefully be on their way to China in the next few weeks! Once our documents are "logged in" we will officially be eligible to be matched with a child. Can't wait!

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!