XinHua Waits

End of this blog

2006-06-13T19:26:00.000-04:00

Now that we are finally going to China, I'm ending this blog and starting a new one. Please visit http://rhiannecomeshome.blogspot.com for the rest of our story. Our sweetie will soon be waiting no longer!! :-)

I got the call !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-10T17:30:00.000-04:00

I can hardly breathe, but I got the call that my TA has arrived and is in my agency's hands. Our tentative travel dates are July 1st - July 15th, with a July 13th consulate appt. Oh my gosh, so many things to do, my mind is whirling. We still haven't arranged for care for our animals - we have two Italian Greyhounds that are like babies, so not easy to arrange something for them. I planned to buy new luggage, gotta get on that. Visas!! must send those off to the courier tomorrow. Gotta make a list....
I'm still amazed that this dream is finally going to come true. Three weeks from today, we may be flying halfway around the world!!!!!!!!!!

TA, oh TA, where are you??

2006-05-31T01:32:00.000-04:00

Ok, I am starting to see other adopting families with our same LID getting their TA's. I hope this means ours is not far behind!!
Of course, D just had a fit when I read him some other online messages about the 'squatty potties' in China, and threatened (not really) to stay home. Geez, I would think it would be so much less an issue for a guy, if you know what I mean.
I think I should be sending away for our visas very soon, I'll ask for guidance on this issue from my agency tomorrow.

LID and XinHua update

2006-05-01T00:42:00.000-04:00

Two teeny bits of good news. First, we got our LID and it was even earlier than we hoped, April 4th! So only about 10 days to get logged in, and I think that includes being translated in China. And we had requested that our agency get a health update on XinHua. The information that came back was pretty brief. Um yeah. Skeletal, really. She weighs 50 lbs and is 48 inches tall. Oh, and she's a girl. I am grateful to get an update but would it killed them to have included just a wee bit more info??
I've been seeing some very quick Travel Approvals for people who are also adopting waiting children from China. One was only 39 days. Yowza! I told my boss I would most likely be traveling in July, do we dare hope it could be June?

My dossier is in China!!

2006-03-28T07:23:00.000-05:00

I'm so happy I can hardly believe it! My dossier finally winged its way to China, arriving there yesterday. My agency's coordinator in China will review it and then deliver it to the CCAA. The agency director is estimating I will have a log in date of April 10th or so. Lots of prayers and good wishes have contributed to us getting this far, but I won't completely release my breath until we are actually holding XinHua in our arms.
There were a significant number of TA's(Travel Approval) received yesterday as posted to the Waiting Children China Yahoo group, and the waiting time from LID really varied from just over two months to over three months. And there are people who are still waiting whose LID was over 100 days ago. It's hard to understand the rhyme or reasoning in that. I'm trying to estimate worst case scenario here, so if it takes 100 days from LID, we would be getting our TA in mid-late July and then traveling in August sometime. Whoo-boy! August in Guangzhou! Better get geared up for that experience!

Almost, almost DTC!

2006-03-22T14:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I got an email that my dossier came back from being authenticated in DC. Yay!! However, somehow my passport pictures and family pictures got lost. :-(
I am 100% sure I enclosed them when I sent my dossier to my agency. However... they do not have them. So today, I'm running over to get new pictures made of my digital pics and sent off to my agency. As soon as they have those, my dossier will be on its way to China!!

Next stop... D.C.

2006-03-14T03:21:00.000-05:00

My agency sent me a brief email today to let me know that my dossier had been recieved and was already being sent on to DC, where a courier will do the State Dept. step and then Chinese consulate authentications. They expect to have the dossier back next Monday or Tuesday. Woohoo, I think that means everything looks good to go. I just can't believe this is finally happening, it seems too good to be true.
After this, I think just the translation needs to happen before it all gets sent off to China and will at long last be able to say I am DTC.

And it's on its way!!

2006-03-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

Yep, I did it. Got all my state authentications done w/no problems, double checked to make sure everything on the checklist was checked off, and fedex'd off my dossier to my agency! Now please pray that nothing will be found wrong with any of the paperwork when my agency reviews it all.
I didn't have any problem driving to Harrisburg yesterday, got there in record time but then spent 30+ minutes driving around looking for some reasonably close parking spot. Since I drive a minivan, it's not easy to find a quick spot on busy city streets. Anyway, I finally parked and found the office. There was one other couple waiting before me, and it turned out they are adopting from China as well, and they live in a town fairly close to me. We might run in to one another again in the near future, I think. Anyway, it only took about 10 minutes for all the notaries to be approved and the seals applied. $165 bucks later, I was out of there. One HUGE milestone, hopefully achieved.
My agency does the consulate authentications, and the translation, so I'm not sure how long it will be until I am DTC. I'm optimistically thinking 2 weeks until it's mailed off to China, but I don't know how realistic that is.

Hard to believe, but....

2006-03-09T20:33:00.000-05:00

...I actually have all the documentation in hand, ready to go with me to Harrisburg tomorrow. I had a small heart attack when I was momentarily missing my employment letter which was recently re-issued by the H.R. dept to me. It wasn't in my dossier folder, and I went through every single piece of paper in my house and it wasn't there either. I then went to work and went through every drawer, every folder, every binder and it wasn't there either. Ok, I did a little spring cleaning while I was at it. I finally parted with some People magazines that were 6 years old, and dumped out unused Daytimer pages from 2002, etc, etc. It was amazing some of the junk I had in some of my drawers. Well, the ole cube got spiffed up but it didn't get me any closer to that magical piece of paper. I made arrangement to get yet another employment letter, which couldn't be ready until Friday, likely ruining the plans to get to Harrisburg, since my work is about 45 min in the opposite direction as the 2 hour drive to Harrisburg. Fortunately, I thought of one more place at home that I could possibly have put it and when I got home, there it was. What a relief! So tomorrow I should hopefully have everything state authenticated and mailed off to my agency. Yippee!!

State Authentications

2006-03-07T21:12:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow D is driving down to center city Philly to pick up our updated homestudy, and that is the very last piece of paper we need for our dossier!!!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe it. I am taking Friday off to drive to Harrisburg and do all our state authentications, and before I leave that town, I am mailing off our dossier to our agency in TN. Can you believe that after almost a year we are finally done with our paperchase?? I'm starting to believe this is actually going to happen. For a while, I just had to shut down and not talk about it or even read email from any of my many China adoption mailing lists. So now I have a lot of catching up to do. :)

Paperwork homestretch??

2006-02-21T12:57:00.000-05:00

So, got good news from agency concerning which paperwork doesn't need to be re-done. Both our medical reports are ok, which is a huge relief since it's more involved to get that updated. I got a new employment letter via interoffice mail today so that's done for me. My previous letter had already been state authenticated, but is now no good. Bleah. At least it was from NJ, where they only charge $5 for state authentications if it's for an adoption. Since I actually work in PA, I asked if the new letter could be notarized by a PA notary. Even though it's a lot more expensive to have the letter state authenticated in PA, it will save me time since I plan to hand walk my whole stack of documents through Harrisburg.
D already requested a letter from his employer [new job since November] and that should be ready tomorrow.
So the only things left to do are to pick up the new criminal clearances at our local PD, and get our homestudy updated to list D.'s new job. I called the homestudy agency today and they are closed until tomorrow. I knew they were going to Guatemala so I'm hopeful they are back as of tomorrow and can issue the update relatively quickly.
I'm thinking [assuming the homestudy is updated by then] of driving to Harrisburg next Monday and then fedexing off the whole dossier to my agency.
What a relief to finally have a path forward after so much waiting and waiting!

Finally Good News!!

2006-02-16T07:39:00.000-05:00

It has been so long, it's started to feel like this adoption wasn't going to happen, but I got a phone call last night from the woman at USCIS, and she is finally issuing our approval letter!!! I am so excited and relieved, it's indescribable. Of course, now I realize that some of our dossier paperwork has expired and we will have to re-do it, but it's nothing that difficult to re-do. Whew, we're finally back on the road again!

Homestudy...bleah

2005-11-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

So, last week I sent off an email to my homestudy agency, telling them that I still haven't gotten the notarized copy of my homestudy for my dossier. No response. I emailed again yesterday am, referencing the first email, and asking them to follow up. Later in the day, I got a phone call from the social worker, saying that she had received my email, and apologizing for not responding sooner. Okay. Seems that their office person up and quit the job with no notice, and they have been scrambling to figure out the state of all their pending homestudies. Still okay. Then she says 'we're going to try and finish up your homestudy as soon as possible so we can get that submitted'. Okay, deep breath, try not to panic. Stomach is feeling slightly sick.
Me: 'Ummm, I thought it had already been submitted to the USCIS....? I got an email from [the office worker who quit] saying it had been delivered to them on Oct. 13th.'
SW: 'Oh, okay that's good to know. You should be getting your approval soon then.'
SW: 'However, we have to ask you for more money. We've been asked by [your homestudy agency] to revise one section and we have to charge you for that. So if you could put a check for $100 in the mail, we can get this finished and copies to you.'
Me: 'Ok, I'll do that' (like I have a choice at this point)

Okay, so $100 isn't bad in the scheme of things. Certainly a drop in the bucket compared to the total expenses of adoption. And life happens, I'm not upset that the office person quit and left things in a mess, and that the homestudy agency is trying to pick up the pieces. However, I now have no confidence that the homestudy was actually delivered. She did tell me that they have been seeing approvals take 4-5 weeks. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since the alleged date of delivery. So if I don't have it in 2 more weeks, I guess we can try and find out the status. I will really not be a happy camper if they never got the homestudy and we have to start the wait all over again at that point. Bleah.

Thought provoking article

2005-10-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

I read a very interesting post on another blog today, with the author's explanation of why girls are abandoned in China. Read it if you get a chance: Link

Video!!

2005-10-23T13:40:00.000-04:00

The helpful woman from the China Care foundation sent me another wonderful surprise. It's the China Care 2005 dvd and Xin Hua is shown on the dvd several times. Each time is really brief and I can only say I recognize her because of the still photos I've seen and the outfit she is wearing. But it's still wonderful to see her laugh and smile in person! At one point she shyly hides behind a nanny and then flashes a little grin - awwww! It anyone else sees this video, she is the little girl in a red long sleeved jacket and she is playing with a bubble gun.

Final countdown for the paperchase

2005-10-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

Ok, I finally got confirmation that my homestudy was submitted to the USCIS. It was hand-delivered last Thursday. Supposedly, it should be about a 3 week wait to get the approval. I see more postman-stalking in my future....

Grrrrr....again

2005-10-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

Hmmm, well it's now the following Thursday end of day and I still haven't heard that the homestudy has been submitted. I swear, if I can get through this, I can get through anything! It wouldn't be so bad if every day's delay didn't mean another day that Xin Hua spends in the SWI with no family to care for her. :-(
One lesson this has taught me is that if (and that's a huge IF) we ever adopt again, we should get started on the homestudy well before ever getting attached to a child. If we would have had a completed homestudy before seeing Xin Hua's sweet little face, she would most likely be home with us right now. However, I also recognize that for D it was very difficult to agree to begin this journey in the abstract. Once he saw Xin Hua's picture and agreed that this could be our daughter, he was a willing participant in the process. Up to that point, it was very hard for him to commit to the idea.
I love the idea of adopting one more time, especially now that I have seen how the little boys on the China waiting lists languish so long without families. I don't know why the girls are snatched up and the boys aren't, unless most families decide on China in the first place because they are looking for a girl. That was probably a very important factor in my decision. I wanted another daughter and I wanted my bio daughter to have a little sister.
There's a little boy who whose file was sent to my agency at the same time as Xin Hua's file who is from the same SWI. I just learned that he lost his family for the 2nd time. Obviously I don't know the reasons behind why the families had to withdraw from the adoption process, but I feel so sad for this boy. He is just adorable and looks so happy in the pictures. I just want to bring him home too! Maybe in late 2006 or early 2007, depending on how our family has adjusted with the addition of Xin Hua, we can look at increasing our family yet again.

Homestudy draft - yay!

2005-10-06T22:15:00.000-04:00

Woohoo - I just got finished editing the draft of my homestudy. Only a few minor corrections here and there, otherwise all the info was accurate. I'm emailing it back to the SW tonight and I'm hopeful it can be submitted to the USCIS tomorrow!. Yay!!

And More names, well, just one name

2005-10-05T15:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, I think we've narrowed it down to one name: Katrien, pronounced KAY-tree-en. It's the dutch version of Katherine. D says it's "growing on him". What's kind of cool is that when I did a web-search on 'Katrien', a page came up that has Chinese character translations of names, including this name.
So, today is now 'mid-next week' as promised by
the SW. I know that she does hand-deliver the homestudy to the USCIS officer in Philly, but no word as of yet that it's actually been handed over.

One minor pecadillo happened in the meantime: one of my dossier papers was left out on the desk (yes, stupid, I know!) and my daughter wrote some codes for a game she was playing on the back. In pen. It's my notarized and state certified employment letter from my company. I'm really, really hoping I don't have to start over with that document. It took weeks to get since it came from my company headquarters in New Jersey and a couple of additional weeks to get certified in Trenton.

Progress!!

2005-09-26T18:29:00.000-04:00

I received an email today from the social worker saying that our homestudy should be complete and submitted to the USCIS by mid-next week. Hallelujah! Could things finally be moving forward?? I almost don't dare believe it's true.

More Names

2005-09-25T18:04:00.000-04:00

Ok, so most of my proposed names got nixed by D. So, I have a new list, and some of them actually got a grudging nod from him, what do you know. Here we go:

Anteia (ahn-TAY-uh) greek - wife of sea-god Proteus

Kalea (kuh-LAY-uh) hawaiian "bright"

Nailah (nah-EE-lah) african "succeeding"

Kellyn

Keilah

Raelin

One month later....

2005-09-25T15:38:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been just about a month since I last updated this blog. I think we finally got back all the paperwork requested by the SW and D drove it down to the homestudy agency office last Wednesday. No word yet as to when the homestudy will be finalized so we can get it submitted to the USCIS. I emailed them on Friday to make sure they don't need anything else from us, but no response yet. Please send your good thoughts and prayers that we will have the completed homestudy in our hands and that things will be moving forward shortly.

Today I am not...

2005-08-25T12:53:00.000-04:00

...whining or obsessing about what did or did not come in the mail. In re-reading my blog, I wanted to tell myself to "shut up already!". So instead, I will throw out some possible names for XinHua. Our 8 year old bio dd has a very unusual first name that's offbeat but not too weird or unpronounceable, if that makes sense. While we plan to keep XinHua as a middle name, we would like to give her a more somewhat more Americanized first name. Well, I'm partial to Irish/Celtic names, so they may not be that Americanized, hehe. So here are some possible choices:

Raelin

Adris

Aine (pronounced AWN - yeh)

Averill

Bryndis

Aravis

Rannait

Maille (MY-lee)

Arlais

Talaith

Kennis

Annis/Annys

Kellyn/Kelyn/Kellin

So far, the top choice is Raelin. Actually, my personal favorite is Aravis, but D doesn't like it since it's an invented name by C.S. Lewis.

Pass the cheese and whine....

2005-08-22T12:49:00.000-04:00

Four weeks and counting. That's how long it's been since I sent in our fingerprint cards to the FBI - no response as of yet. We have to get those back before our homestudy can be finished. I'm pretty sure the social worker told me it would take 'a couple of weeks' to get them back. However, I just went to the FBI website and it clearly states 6-8 weeks. Ok, on the bright side that means maybe only a couple more weeks. I've been anxiously racing home from work every day, hoping an envelope will be in the mail. And every day I'm depressed when it isn't there. My hopes for January travel to China are getting dimmer by the day. I'm constantly revising my mental timeframe of when the key events can occur and I'm really tired of doing that. I just wish we would have know that this would be required of us, I could have done it back in March when we started the whole process! Oh well, this is teaching me to be patient in the face of the unknown, right? Right??

Here are the pictures

2005-08-20T12:16:00.000-04:00

You can click the pictures and see them a little larger - Isn't she so sweet?

Updated Pictures!!!!

2005-08-17T15:09:00.000-04:00

Oh my gosh, I am so excited right now! A wonderful person who lives in Beijing and volunteers for the China Care foundation was able to contact the SWI where XinHua lives and obtained 2 new pictures of her! These pictures are much more recent than anything else we've had previously and she definitely looks more like a little girl instead of a toddler. Her hair is done in ponytails (albeit very short ones) and she has painted fingernails. She's wearing summer clothing so I'm assuming these pictures are very recent indeed. In the second, she's smiling and the giving the 'V for victory' sign and I can tell for sure that the picture on the ChinaCare homepage is definitely of her. I feel so incredibly lucky right now, it's indescribable. I have asked if any other updates or info can be obtained about XinHua and her current life, but will be happy even if I don't receive anything else. I'll try to get these pictures posted to the blog later today.

Keeping Busy

2005-08-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

Yep. Still waiting. 'Nuff said there. However, in my "spare" time, I've joined a number of Yahoo groups focusing on adoption. Everything from groups focusing on the China paperchase, to Raising Chinese Children, to Loving China's Children, and particularly Waiting Chinese Children. There's even a new groups dedicated to children from China with heart problems. These lists have really given me a wealth of information and provided an excellent resource for all my questions, both now and upcoming. I think it's really helped me become more prepared for what the future will hold after we bring XinHua home. We don't have any idea at this point how easy or rough her adjustment will be. However, others have graciously shared their stories so that we can prepare for the worst and hope for the best. It's a little tough because I get the impression that XinHua's orphanage is new to international adoption. Thus, there is no one that I can find who has led the way and can relate stories of what life is like in that particular orphanage and how prepared their child was to be adopted into a western family. But at the very least, I have some idea of the range of experiences based on what others have relayed.
I definitely plan to send XinHua a photo album of our family and our home so she will have some idea what to expect. I think her experiences with non-Asian people will have been very limited at best, so we might seem scary to her at first. However, I want to wait to send her the album until we have the USCIS approval, so I will have a better idea of when we will travel and also just to quell that niggling doubt that in fact we will be approved to be her parents.
Again, the yahoo lists have been helpful to me in suggesting items to send along with the photo album. I probably will include some type of small gift for all the children and some disposable cameras so they can take some pictures of XinHua and her friends, as well as the orphanage workers. They are all XinHua has known as her family for her entire life and I hope to at least preserve a small souvenir for her, as well as help us understand what she has been used to.

Authentications

2005-07-27T21:59:00.000-04:00

While I'm waiting to have our homestudy be completed, I've been sending off documents for authentication to the various states involved. Both our birth certificates and our marriage certificate are from there, so all three were sent off to Sacramento to have the certification authenticated by the CA secretary of state. I got those three back today. The authentication makes it look so official, with a cover sheet attached with a big gold seal. I've already gotten my employment letter back from the New Jersey Secretary of State, since it was notarized in New Jersey. All our other dossier documents originate in PA, so once I have the USCIS approval letter, I will probably hand-carry them to Harrisburg to have those authentications done. It's only a 2 hour drive so it's completely doable and then I'll have them done the same day.

Spreading the Word

2005-07-25T10:05:00.000-04:00

One reason I was happy to create this blog is because it gives me an outlet to tell everyone, even if no one else besides me reads this, if that makes sense. Other than a few people who I asked to write reference letters for me, I haven't told anyone at work or our neighbors about our impending adoption. I have this great fear that something will happen and we won't be able to adopt XinHua, for whatever reason. I was briefly pregnant in late 2002 (blighted ovum, discovered at 9 weeks) and I was so happy that I didn't have to "un-tell" everyone. (Well, I found out after the fact that D had already told his mother, but I digress....)
I think when we get the USCIS approval I will finally feel comfortable enough to share the news. Besides, at that point, I will have somewhat of a timeline that I can give my boss about when I will be off work. At this point, I'm not sure I can take off more than my three weeks of vacation, but I'm really hoping for a financial windfall that will let me stay at home longer (hey, I can dream can't I?).
I was planning to be DTC (Dossier to China) by the end of August, but since the USCIS doesn't even have our homestudy at this point, it's probably an unrealistic plan. I've heard the Philly USCIS is running 4-6 weeks for approvals, but what I'm not sure about is if that is from the point they have the homestudy, or what exactly. They already have our application, and our fingerprint check should be back by now, so I'm really hoping that will make everything pretty quick once they get that homestudy.

Fingerprinted!

2005-07-10T03:56:00.000-04:00

We went down to Center City Philadelphia today to get fingerprinted at the USCIS. Of course we had to park in a way-overpriced lot, no meters on the street anywhere nearby. We walked in and the waiting room was packed. My heart sank. I told D. we should have taken time off during the week when (presumably) it would have been less crowded. We had number 141 and right when we sat down, they called '52' . Oh well, we were already there and since we had an hour drive each way, we might as well stick it out.
But surprisingly, the line did move very quickly. After about one hour, we were finished and on our way home. Hopefully our fingerprints will be accepted, they were all taken digitally and reviewed by a 2nd person before we left. I've heard that in some instances they aren't clear enough and have to be redone.

A good mail day

2005-07-07T21:43:00.000-04:00

Ok, after my kvetching from yesterday, I picked up today's mail and there was the policy certificate that we were waiting for concerning D's life insurance policy. Gee, it's a lousy printout that I could have printed on my own, except for the Chase Insurance logo at one corner. Oh well, at least we have it now.
Also, D went down and picked up his form from his doctor's office. It will be ok for the homestudy, but I think I will get a new copy of the form, fill it out with the doctor's finding and have D's doctor re-sign it. Even though D stressed that it had to be "very legible" I was hard pressed to make out a couple of words. We've got time now while we're waiting for the USCIS approval (I can never remember the name/number of that form they issue the approvals with) so I might as well make sure there won't be an issue when it comes to the translation due to incomprehensible writing. So, this are the last two documents the homestudy agency was waiting for so they can finish our homestudy draft. Oh happy day! Now we'll see how fast they can get that done. They've been essentially waiting on us for the last two months, and now of course I want them to have their part done yesterday.
;-)

Document Purgatory

2005-07-06T19:42:00.000-04:00

No, we are still not done getting all our documents for the homestudy to be complete. Can you hear the frustration in my voice? The list didn't seem that bad to begin with!
I downloaded an Excel spreadsheet template for the China paperchase and updated it with our relevant info. Thanks to whoever created that, it really helped to have a visual representation of our paperchase status. We have made progress, just those last few things that need to happen don't seem to be moving too fast.

Here's what we do have:

both birth certificates
marriage certificate
both letters of employment, already notarized
my benefit information, including health and life insurance
financial statement
deed to house
my medical form signed by my doctor
letters of reference
both PA child abuse clearances
both PA state police clearances
copy of 2004 tax return

Here's what we don't have:

D's medical form - he had his bloodwork done last week, just waiting for the results so his doctor will sign off on the form
D's life insurance policy certificate - we couldn't find it so we had to request a new one from the insurance company. It's been 10 days and they told us 7-10 days so hopefully we'll have it by the weekend
D's name change certification. This is actually not holding us up on the homestudy since we had a copy we provided to the homestudy agency but we'll need a newly certified one for China.
Local police clearances. This is also something needed for China but not for the homestudy since we have the state police clearances for that.

So really, only two pieces of paper are keeping up from having our homestudy complete and then we can send that to the USCIS.

Fingerprint appt, wahoo!

2005-06-28T20:05:00.000-04:00

Wow, I was surprised today to receive our fingerprint appointment letter in the mail. This will be the set of fingerprints that are run by the FBI and sent back to the USCIS. Our homestudy agency hand delivered our I600A application to the Philadelphia office of the USCIS and I think that's why we got our letter so quickly. I was also surprised that there was no set day or time on the letter, just that we could come anytime during their open hours Tues-Sat. Wow, even Saturday hours. How convenient. Of course, this Saturday is the Live8 concert in Philadelphia and I have no desire to be anywhere near that mess. We'll go next Saturday.
I mentioned earlier that I was hoping to get it quickly due to my oldest child leaving the country. Well, needless to say, I didn't get the I600A application sent in time. But no worries, since he's no longer living in the home (he won't be back until 2007!), I contacted my homestudy agency to tell them that the homestudy should reflect that fact. Then I won't need to have him fingerprinted. And hey, it saves the $70 fingerprinting fee. With all our other expenses, I'm happy to save a few bucks where I can.

An Unexpected Suprise

2005-06-26T19:25:00.000-04:00

Something amazing happened today. I finally recieved the address of the orphanage where our daughter resides. It's in Li Shi city, in Shanxi province. I haven't yet been able to find anyone else who has adopted previously from this orphanage. I think they must be new to international adoption or at least new enough that there is no internet info available on it. I joined the yahoo group for adoptive parents from this province and no one there had any insight. Anyway, I had speculated that the orphanage might be near this town, because at one point, she was taken to a hospital in Li Shi City, according to her medical forms. I theorized at the time that it was unlikely she would have been taken to a far away city to see a doctor, particularly since her medical need has not yet been addressed.
But that's not the amazing part.
Now that I knew the town, I did an internet search for orphanage and Li Shi and got a hit! It seems that the China Care foundation had actually sponsored this orphanage at one time. The previous conditions there just break my heart and it's hard to think about. For example, 2 non-flushing toilets for more than 100 children plus adults, no toys, no educational materials, etc. Fortunately, this foundation has really helped the orphanage and has dramatically improved the quality of life for the children there.
So, I'm reading one of their newsletters from July 2004 and there's a picture of a little girl. The caption names her as Dong Xinghua, a little girl needing heart surgery! I just couldn't believe it. The name isn't spelled exactly the same as the spelling I have for my daughter, but it's phonetically identical. She looks like the right age as my daughter would have been at the time and the pictures are very similar. I still wasn't quite convinced until I browsed their website a little more and found additional pictures of her that are definitely the same girl. My daughter is famous! :-)
Anyway, it's such a blessing to have anything additional from her earlier life, as her momentoes from China will truly be very few. I'm also thrilled to see pictures where she looks happy and smiling, as the referral pictures I recieved mostly show her with a very somber look on her face.

PA Received!

2005-06-02T16:48:00.000-04:00

We received our PA in the mail from our agency today. This is the Pre-authorization that China sends after approving the letter of intent from the adopting family. I had gotten an email last week saying my agency rec'd it in their office but I've finally got in my hands. It's written in both Chinese and English, with a red seal in Chinese. It's all starting to become a little more real now. Wow, I feel a real sense of urgency to get moving with the paperwork. I still have no idea what time frame we will be travelling in. The big milestones we have to complete are: finish gathering all the required documents for the homestudy agency; get the completed homestudy; submit the homestudy to the USCIS and wait to get their approval; then submit my completed dossier to China.

Slogging Ahead

2005-05-20T00:29:00.000-04:00

Well, we've made some progress but not as much as we should have. D got his employment letter and had that notarized. I got back the letters from the state police saying that we have no criminal record in PA. In this state, we also have to send off for a child abuse clearance, and I had the forms about 2 months ago. I realized last night that I forgotten to send those off so they're going out tomorrow.
We did finally have our homestudy visit, it was actually a little anti-climactic. They did look in our basement, though. ugh. Fortunately I had dh at least sweep the step and get the huge dust bunnies off there. Otherwise, it's really a pit down there. When I realized he (the social worker) was going down to the basement, I started laughing and told him it was truly our black hole. Fortunately, he didn't see phased by anything he saw. The rest of the house was clean and neat, really!!
So, I'm waiting to get the first draft of the homestudy so I can correct anything that not's right. I need to get my employment letter and also get us signed up for medical visits next.
For some reason, I still haven't gotten my birth certificate from CA - I need to call and check on that one.

Homestudy

2005-04-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

Well, our phone interview got postponed since the social worker was ill. I rescheduled for next Wednesday but I just realized we have tickets to the PA ballet that same day. So I need to call back and change it again. But tomorrow a different person is coming to do a home inspection. I should be cleaning instead of sitting at the computer! But actually, I just need to do some picking up and last minute swiffering tomorrow morning. My house is reasonably clean... as long as he doesn't look in my daughter's closet or the basement, we are golden! haha
I also need to run to the post office tomorrow am and buy money orders for the I-600A and fingerprint fees. I should have sent that off already and I'm mentally chastising myself for procrastinating. My oldest son is leaving for a religious mission on May 31st and it's important he be fingerprinted before he leaves. The agency hand delivers the I600A apps to the Philadelphia USCIS and thus I'm hoping he'll get a fingerprint appt very soon.
I re-ordered my marriage and birth certificates, so hopefully those will come soon too. Then I need to bundle the three California docs off to have them certified and authenticated in CA.

Paperchase progress

2005-04-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

I've made some progress toward getting our dossier together. A few "oops" moments in there too. I faxed in our application to have a homestudy performed and hadn't heard anything back all week. So I called today and went over our application with the agency person on the phone. We have an appt to have a phone interview next Wednesday evening. It will probably be a two hour phone call with both me and D. I looked over the list of topics and I think we have some discussion that needs to be held. I mean, a lot of these things are somewhat expected and we deal with them fine in our marriage, I just want to make sure we're both comfortable with how we're going to verbalize it.
The "oops" moment came about when I looked at the certified copies I have for my birth certificate and our marriage certificate. I mentioned earlier I had gotten them back in 2000. The problem with that is that they need to be certified by the current person in 0ffice, and in both cases, there are new county clerks in those counties. So back to Vitalcheck to order new copies - ugh.

About XinHua

2005-03-20T16:26:00.000-05:00

I've subscribed to an international adoption agency's mailist list for years now. China periodically sends this agency a list of 8-15 children that all have some kind of special need. This bypasses the usual way of adopting from China where the families are referred a child. Adopting a waiting child is usually quicker since the child is already identified. However, every other step of the process is identical since all the same paperwork has to be completed, approvals granted, etc.
Two weeks ago, my agency posted a new list of children. One girl in particular, XinHua, caught my eye. She had such a calm look on her face and eyes that seemed to connect with mine. She's currently 4 years old, 5 in October. She has a heart condition called VSD, or ventricular septal defect. Essentially, there is a 5mm hole between the two chambers of her heart. I did quite a bit of research on this condition and it seems to be a very treatable condition. I've also been in contact with other adoptive parents of children with the same condition, and all were very positive about their experiences. So, with a deep breath we took the plunge and told the agency we would like to adopt XinHua.

Background

2005-03-17T21:19:00.000-05:00

I guess I should give some background on how this all started. I am blessed to have two biological children, an 18 y.o. boy and an 8 y.o. girl. The second birth came about via infertility treatment as I have PCOS, along with all the accompanying problems and symptoms. For quite some time, I've been thinking about adoption. However the stumbling block was always lack of funds and even more importantly, lack of spousal agreement. Well, the 2nd impediment is really a consequence of the first impediment. However, my company recently announced a new adoption benefit of $5k, which is another blessed event. That, in combination with the tax credit will almost fully pay for the adoption. Of course, we have to come up with money first, and then get reimbursed, but I have faith this will happen.
When I first started getting serious about adopting, I ordered certified copies of my birth certificate and our marriage certificate. Now that we are finally getting things in motion, I dug up those certificates. I was surprised to learn that I had ordered them over five years ago. How could so much time have passed. Incredible, but true, that it's taken us this long to get here. But no matter, I truly believe that once this child joins our family, we will understand why it took us so long to start the process. We were waiting for our child to be available to join our family.

It Begins

2005-03-12T16:20:00.000-05:00

Today I filled out the Letter of Intent to adopt XinHua. I agonized for hours on what to write. I wrote and re-wrote my sentences that promised to cherish her and provide medical treatment for her medical condition. Finally, by the end of the day, I faxed it off to the agency. Unfortunately, today is Saturday, so I'll have to stew until Monday until I hear that I wrote something acceptable. The agency recommended I be very wordy and fill up all the space available on the page, which I did and then some. I understand the current waiting time to get the Pre-Approval back from China is anywhere from 4-9 weeks. It's going to be tough to wait that long.