Some Unexpected News

So earlier last week I received an email from my family coordinator that had encouraged us to talk to anyone interested in adopting to give her a call.  Come to find out there are more kids who need adoption than they have adoptive parents.  

I wrote my FC and asked her what that meant for us.  She told me that my original estimated time frame of 12 months has been pushed up to 6 from our LID date!!!!  That means we are looking at getting our referral around early March instead of September.  

After we receive our referral and say yes to it then we head into more paperwork and hopefully short after bring our baby girl home. 

So we have about 6 months to fund raise and sell Origami and Jamberry  like crazy so I apologize in advance if I annoy you. ;)

Update

So I have had a lot of people ask me recently where we are at in our adoption.  

Currently China has all our paperwork in hand and we are considered "paper ready".  Basically that means we are recognized as adoptive parents.

Now we wait on the adoption agency.  We are basically in a "take a number" kind of a line.  The program we are in about 90% of families are asking for the exact same child that we are, 0-2, female, minor to correctable special needs.  The agency only gets so many files released to them to match with families.  

So say there are 20 families ahead of me and they only receive 5 files, then I still have to wait for 15 more files to be released before they get to me.  Files come randomly, sometimes in large quantities and sometimes just a few.  So in a nutshell it's a waiting game.  A very HARD waiting game.  

A year ago from this week is when we started exploring Adoption.  Some days it feels like just yesterday and others it feels like its been a life time.  I can't wait till we get that phone call telling us a file is going to be sent our way.  Until then we will just pray for our little girl that she is well looked after and that God holds her in His arms until I can hold her in mine.  

And to keep us busy during the wait we will raise funds to pay that $25,000 bill that will come when she is ready for us to come get her.  As you already know I sell Origami Owl but now I've recently added Jamberry to the resume.  ALL commissions will go directly into our Mei Mei account.  

We also plan to run some more fundraisers as soon as the holidays pass.  Some things we were thinking about doing is a concert, BINGO, Restaurant fundraiser.  If you have any ideas that could help us get closer to our goal I am open to any and all suggestions!  

I would like to also take a moment to thank ALL of my friends and family for being SO supportive.  We could NOT do this without out all of you.  We are continuously blessed day after day by you, so thank you for being great!

We have our LID!!!

Last Friday 8/29/14 we got an email telling us our Dossier was on it is way to China (DTC) it made it to China on Tuesday 9/2/14, and yesterday I received an email with our LID (Log In Date) 9/4/14!!  That was super fast, I know some who have had to wait a month to get it and ours was 2 days!!

Feeling so much excitement and anticipation for the road ahead of us.  Now the prayer is that God hand selects our baby girl and puts her in our path at just the right time.

Until then, we will raise money to go get her.  Onto the Amazing Race!

Dossier to China

I keep updating facebook but forget about writing it in my blog.  I will get better..... I hope.

The whole family took a trip to Chicago last week.  I was so very excited to receive my I-800a papers in the mail so I could travel to Chicago before work started up.  August 11th, my birthday, I spent sitting in the Chinese Consulate.  I loved being there!  We were one of the only white folks there and we were admist a handful of little babies running all around.  One little girl came up to me and said "hi", I said hello back but I was a bit dramatic.  I responded in a way as if this little girl was Mei, Mei, minus tears. LOL  I'm pretty sure I scared her father.  HA!

    

We received our Dossier back Fed Ex this Tuesday 8/19/14.  We immediately went to our funds and started pulling them all together.  The bill this time around is $6,200.00.  I have now spent all of our Mei Mei savings on this step plus we had to use up all our savings and emergency account money to pay this bill and we still end up short.  No worries though we were able to scrape up some more other places to just make the bill.  Waiting on funds right now to be transferred into our account. We were going to send our Dossier in to the Adoption Agency today but decided to wait one more day for the funds to show up.  So tomorrow we will send this lovely package off to McLean, VA. where it will be translated into Chinese.  

Now I understand a lot of people do not fully understand what is going on and most of the time I'm not sure if I do either.  But I will try my best to educate you so you will have a better understanding.

Our Dossier (big giant file of a ton of paperwork) will be sent into our Adoption Agency tomorrow (8/22).  They should receive it Monday morning, will translate it, and then send it off to China on Friday (8/29).

Once it arrives in China they will look it over and Log it into their system.  Basically saying we received your file and it is now in our system.  They will then recognize us as someone who wishes to adopt from their country.  We will then be notified and be given a "Log in Date" also known as a "LID".  

After we receive our LID is when the real waiting begins.  Even though it seems as though we have flown through this process so far, that really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. After we receive our LID we wait on our referral.  (Referral = Child's file).  This can take anywhere from a couple months, to years to get our first one.  I have emailed my Family Coordinator and asked her for some clarification on the wait.  Hopefully she can shed some more light, and I pray that it is more closer to months than years right now.  From what I understand once you receive your LID you get "in line" and you have to wait your turn before getting referrals.  

My prayer is that we will get Mei Mei in God's timing but if he see's fit would he please move mountains so we don't have to wait 2 years.  

That's about all I know right now.  I do know once you say yes to a child there is paperwork and more waiting for Travel approval (TA).  

So if you're reading this right now then that means you stuck with me through this whole blog and I thank you for supporting us during this big event in our life.  I appreciate ALL your prayers, kind words, encouragement, gifts, donations, and general support.  You all are a blessing to me and my family.  

Now onto selling the crap out of Origami Owl and Fundraising like a beast to raise $25,000.  That's our next bill.  Yikes!  Completely worth every penny.  :)

Ending Phase 1

I'm so excited I can hardly contain it.  On Monday first thing in the morning I will be going to the Secretary of State to get our Dossier state certified, then Monday the 11th (my birthday) we will be going to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to get our Dossier authenticated.

From there we wait for it to be mailed back to us.  Once it arrives to us in the mail off it will go our Adoption Agency to be translated. This will signify the end of Phase 1 out of 5.

Phase 2 will then begin: After translation it will be put on a plane and travel across the world to China.  Once they receive it and review it they will Log it in and give us a log in date, also known as a LID.  This LID is SUPER important and exciting because it means that we will FINALLY start receiving referrals.

Today was filled with many emotions for me.  Thinking about how far we have come already and yet how far we still have to go.  And about all the people in our lives who surround us and who continue to support us day in and day out.

Today I feel incredibly blessed.

Fingerprints and Fundraising

Well yesterday Jordan and I took a trip downtown to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building to have our fingerprints done.  It took us all of 15 minutes and was easy peasy.  They did it a little different then when I had to be fingerprinted last year for my job but it was pretty much the exact same thing.

For something so small it is a big deal to us because it is the last piece of paperwork we need for our adoption file.  Once we get the results back in the mail we can get our entire file certified and authenticated to be sent off for translation and then to China.

Before we know it we will get to select who our little girl will be then board a plane for China.  I am praying and trusting that the Lord will provide the funds needed for these next steps.  My God is bigger than the financials.  He has already proved that in this journey so far.

So project fund raise like crazy has commenced!  lol  We have two fundraisers currently on the board.  The Amazing Race Road Rally I have already previously posted about and our new 144 fundraiser.

Basically you pick a number between 1 and 144 and donate that number amount worth of money.  If we get people to fill up each number we will have raised just over $10,000!  That's amazing especially since for travel alone it is about $25,000.

See the pricing list for yourself.  We have just about completed section one and have to still yet pay for section 2-4.  http://www.awaa.org/programs/china/cost.aspx

We are continuing to save and filling out an application to get an Interest free loan.  Praying that it goes through because that could help out a ton.

Until then, I will continue to pray and ask God to go ahead of us and prepare the way.

Biometrics

It finally came!  Our appointment for Jordan and I to get our fingerprinting done.  Just one more step closer to Mei Mei!

Short, sweet, and to the point.  Just want to continue the documentation for our precious baby girl to be able to look back on. :)

Letter came today (June 30th)
Fingerprint appointment is set for July 17th, 2014