Slipping December

Slipping December .........

It is almost July and I am obsessed with December! I had this sick hope that we would have our finished home study in our hands today. But no such luck! Next week is the 4th and so I have little hope that we will get our I600a to the INS before the middle of July! The longer it takes to get the documents to the INS the more my dream of December slips away. I know it was maybe a tad foolish to hope to have Evie by December by I did honestly believe it was possible!

We are still on take 3 for our medical reports for the dossier. We are going to try to get our correct financial document and our local police clearance done next week. We will finish getting these documents together and then when we have everything but the 171H we are going to send them off to the State of VA to get authenticated. We will also have to get the 171H authenticated at the sate level but we are hoping to maybe walk that through instead of waiting. We are not sure that is possible but we hope so.

Getting Closer

Today our social worker is meeting with one of our references in person. She now has all of our papers but because of an error we have to send a new financial sheet. Long Long story with the messed up financial document. GRRR We think we have it fixed now. We do have to re do the one for our dossier but after that we should be back on track. We have the BEST agency and dossier consultant EVER! She has helped us so much. We had some serious problems with our criminal background check from MN and she handled it all for us.

We are very close to having our home study done. The social worker said it will be done in the next week or so and then we can send it of to the INS!!!

We got our PA!

The PA is the "Pre-Approval". This means that China has approved us for Eva based on the LOI (Letter of Intent) that we sent. Now we just have to get *all* our documents in... we still are waiting for some papers to come in for our home study, and after that all the documents get sent to the INS (whatever it's called now), different states for validation, state department, Chinese consulate, etc. We've still got a while before all the documents are ready...

Last Home Study Interview!

We had our last meeting with the social worker today! Everything went well and so now we wait for all of our documents to get to her so she can write up the home study! We are still missing a few documents. I know they are still waiting on our VA background checks, CPA(Child Protective Services report) N's employment letter( more on this in a second), and our medical records.

So far so good! I am still hoping that the home study will be finalized by mid July so that we will be able to apply for our I 600A from the INS. They are taking about 2 months to processes this form at our local office. So if we have our home study done by mid July then we can hope to have our 171H by mid September and be DTC (documents to China) by mid October. We really wanted her home by Christmas but there is little hope of that due to the long INS wait.

Ok we are on take 2 for the employment letter that goes to our home study agency lol. It was perfect....Except the notary did not fill in when their commission expires. So back it goes.

One good thing is the employment letter that goes in our dossier to China was good so we will not need to have that redone.

Our background checks from Ma came back and we may or may not be able to use them.....This is what our dossier consultant said. I included a note with the correct notary language and the person who notarized the forms did not use it ....So it goes back to Ma to be authenticated and fingers crossed it will pass.

Paperwork!

Ok this is not going to be a terribly nice post ...................So you have been warned.

OK N and I have been trying to finish the homestudy and gather documents needs for the dossier. The documents that go to China have very, very , very specific requirements. They must be filled out exactly like the paper states. Well we have tried very very hard to make it easier for these people who must fill out these documnets. Yesterday we got N's employment verification in the mail. ....................

But you can't guess what happened...... The person did not fill it out as needed and..............He just completely ignored the fact that it HAS to be notarized. So back it goes and the person will have to redo it!


I mean I realize that it is an inconvenience to the HR person to fill this form out. It is his job after all...

This has been one of the hardest things about the adoption for us..........Asking people to do things that are time consuming. I hate to ask people for favors and yet it is impossible to adopt a child without favors from people.

I am anticipating a real fight with the medical forms...........Even though I provided copies of the dossier guide and gave it to them with the forms.................Sigh............I guess N and I just really want Tong home.

Home Study visit yesterday

Only one more social worker visit to go for the home study. The home visit was yesterday, and went fine. And our last meeting is scheduled for Sunday. Of course, it will still be a while after that before the home study is *done* - the agency will need to wait for documentation to come back from the police, CPS, our doctor, etc. and write up the home study. But at least *our* part will be done.

LOI arrived, and Thomas' New Look

Our LOI document arrived in China Friday. It usually takes 6-8 weeks for them to reply, and then they're ready for the rest of your documents. Hopefully we'll have more ready for them by then. I've heard the USCIS (formerly INS) is taking about 2 months to validate I-600A form that is needed. So we're hoping to be DTC by October.

Thomas was also taken to be groomed Friday. He isn't too happy with his new look, and our other cat, Devil, hisses when he tries to get too close. We're not sure if this is because he looks different, because he smells different, or because she is afraid of the same thing happening to her. For your viewing pleasure, here are two pictures of Thomas' new look -