First day of the first month of 2016! Wow

*First day of the last month of 2015* - when I started writing this :) I have been so busy. My apologies.
Wow time flies. I can't believe it's the end of the a whole new year already.

I just re-read my previous post and I must have edited something out by mistake.
I wrote that "we had to meet one more time per my placing agency's rules. After a few tweaks here and there it is finally off for review. Then it goes to our agency for final approval." What that meant was that we had to meet one more time with our social worker in order to fulfill the demands of our placing agency - which is different from our home study agency. Then the home study report would be reviewed by us and then finally the placing agency. Well, that got done. But I wanted to make a small change to broaden our parameters just in case.  ;)

Well, after so many little bumps... we finally received the final draft of our home study report and got that sent to our officer as soon as we could after we filed i8ooa. The I8ooA was sent to USC1S (Un1ted St@tes Citizensh1p and Immigr@tion Serv1ces) on October 16. This form is an “Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country”. So it's a petition to the US for them to allow us - if we're eligible - to adopt a child from a country which is part of the Hague treaty. In order for them to approve us, one of the requirements is that we have to have official flngerprints done for FBI complete background check. Once they receive our petition, they sent us a F0rm l-797C which was a bi0metric (flngerprint) appolntment for November 13, 2015 at 12 pm. 

We received and Yay! Right? Nooooooooooooooooooo............. the appointment was set for a local US office. In Mi@mi. I live in Dub@i! Another bump. :( 

But ok, let's hurry hurry and sort all that out. Amazingly, these USC1S officers are brilliant! They were so kind. We were able to get an app0intment for the following Monday the 16th in the C0nsulate in Du.ba.i. The 0fficer there was extremely kind and generous. We got two sets of prints done for each (just in case) at no extra charge. I sent the prints via Fe.d.ex as a priority over.night something or other service - the fastest one to them. And all was well in the world. You know, until it was time to solve another issue. Yup - it's a lot of "hurry up and wait" in the adoption process. They received the documents, but now I had to wait until the officer approved it. I was nervous about this step. Well, because, g0vernment. They could have questioned anything in our paperwork and asked to provide proof of something. Whatever it may be. This is called Request For Evidence. It delays the process but only by a bit - in most cases. In our case, it potentially could have delayed a lot more. It is very much a pain to obtain documents especially while you're living outside of the country. So, we were waiting and waiting for approval. Until I couldn't be patient one more day and emailed our 0fficer. :) She replied saying she had just approved us the previous afternoon. And finally, I was excited. I was so happy. Freely happy and not hesitant. For the first time in this whole process. I did the dance, I smiled, I hugged people, I announced it in our agency's family fb group. I did it all.
So now, while our agency waited to receive the hardcopy of the approval, they continued getting all our docs authenticated. I sent them 10 thousand pictures of our family instead of what 6? that they asked for. :) :) And they finally received the approval and sent it for authentication. The agency office has been closed on an off for holidays and there are families needing much more dire assistance at the moment so I've refrained from harassing emailing them for updates. At this point, I'm hoping we are DTC. sometime this coming week. That means that all of the documents we gathered for the past thousand months year and a half - including the h0me study rep0rt will be sent to Chlna - (Dossier to China)
After this we will have LID or L0g ln Date. At this point, we will start receiving files for us to review as potential matches. It's a rather difficult task, but I am just having tremendous faith that we will "recognize" our child when we see her. Lots to look forward to in 2016.

A very kind adoptive mama offered to do a fundraiser for us. It's for 0rigami 0wl. I have loved these lockets for ages and feel that my friends will like them too. Please please do not feel that you HAVE to purchase anything. But if you like anything you see on our fundraisers and would like to purchase something, some of the earnings will go towards our adoption trip. I will post links and also info on each fundraiser in more details as they come about. Like I said before, what's more important to us at this very emotional time in our lives is your moral support.

P.S. I'm sorry if my writing is a little crazy on this post. I wanted to change some characters in order to avoid being linked if someone did a search with the very common and specific language to lmmigration. I hope I didn't confuse the heck out of you. 

An overdue update

So sorry dear friends. It's been too long. We have made some much needed and wanted progress on the adoption front and wanted to share it with you. We are officially signed with a placing agency. All dossier documents (and our first big fee) have been sent to them. ALL except the photos. I hear it's actually common that families leave this step for last. It's something of a phenomenon if you ask me. I mean... why??? Is it some kind of pressure to have the perfect pictures that depict your family? Which ones do you choose? (I figure if one of us were a photographer, we'd have great shots to send. I can't - for the life of me - get good angles of the girls' room.) Anyway, we had to meet one more time per my placing agency's rules. After a few tweaks here and there it is finally off for review. Then it goes to our agency for final approval.  Once we get the ok, we will send in another fee for them to get our dossier docs authenticated and prepared to be sent to Ch!na!!!! Before it is sent, however, we need to send in our i800A application to USCIS. This is an application to Homeland Security requesting approval to adopt one or two non-specific children from a Hague Convention country.Getting i800a approval is usually between 35-75 days (45-50 is average). This is when we have to go in for the fingerprinting appointment (in our case, in the embassy in Abu Dhab! or Duba!.  Once we get approval and all that happens, we will be officially DTC which means Dossier to Ch!na.  Once it arrives there, the dossier will get reviewed, translated, then probably reviewed again. Finally, we will have an official LID (Log In Date). This is the route we're taking, choosing to be LID first before having files offered to us for review. For a few reasons. One being that I know it would be too hard for me to be pre-matched with a child and then having to take all these steps (and extra months) before getting to said child. It is torture for me enough to wait the 4-6 months after being matched to travel. We'll see what happens. But, just wanted for everyone to know that this ball is rolling! We're happy, excited, relieved, anxious. All of it. The crib is in the room already. I've been collecting little things for mei-mei (little sister in Ch!nese). I saved many of Mila's things. It's hard to know what to keep since we are not matched yet and don't know age, sizes, etc... 

Ciao for now. I'll update as soon as anything happens. 

xoxo


If you want to understand all of this better, check this out:

http://waitingchildinfo.com/acronyms-steps-and-timeline/

Love

This is what love does…

Remember my little love Tommy?

Because of love, I advocated for him.
Because of love, we connected.
Because of love, he was chosen.
Because of love, we are friends.
Because of love, we will be…

…Always in each other’s lives.

This is my boy’s mommy. Isn’t she beautiful?

And his sisters? Oh my! Adorable. He has four of them.
The baby is from Chin@ also and happens to look a lot like him.
Daddy is so handsome. What a beautiful family our little boy has.
His family gave him the name Samuel. It suits him, don’t you think?
And his family is working so hard to bring him home to the States.

This is their blog.
May Blessings Flow

Go ahead and click on it. Check it out.
Please consider participating in their giveaway for a chance to win an iPad or a Galaxy Tablet.

Because of love
We can help bring Samuel home.