Where have we been?

I know it's been a while since I updated this, so I figured I'd put a quick post in just to bring this up to date.

China's list slowed WAY down, so we started looking for other avenues. We looked into a Korean adoption, and adopted a little boy in 2008. His name is Andrew, and today is his 4th birthday! He's been home for a little over 3 years now, and he's doing great.

It's been a blast watching him grow and learn, the things a 4 year old can remember (gotta remember to watch out).

This summer we took a trip to the Sand Dunes in Southern Colorado, and just a couple days ago, he was recounting things we did and places we stayed during that trip, in DETAIL. He has also described things that happened over a year ago, to the point that my wife and I look at each other wondering what he's talking about because we don't remember them. Then he'll tell us something we DO remember and we're floored at what he remembers.

The process in Korea was nothing like China. First, we dealt with an agency in Korea, not the Korean government. We also had the option of NOT traveling to Korea, which, we thought was not in our, or Andrew's best interest, so we traveled to Seoul to bring him home. Also, adoptions from Korea are not finalized in Korea, but instead in the US, about 6 months after bringing the child home. That was a great day!

More later, but I thought this would bring things up to date a little

James

Status update...

Not much going on in the adoption right now. We've started taking Mandarin classes. These aren't classes to become fluent, but classes offered by the adoption agency to help adoptive parents learn enough to get through while in China. Our goal is to use these classes to learn SOME Mandarin, then learn more through more in depth classes later.
As far as the adoption is going, they (China) are still matching a week or less per month, so the wait is doing nothing but getting longer. Right now, it's estimated that the wait will be 21 to 23 months. We still have a long way, but still have confidence that it's going to happen.

Some GOOD news...

I know what that probably sounds like. It sounds like we got a match. Well, that's not quite right. They are still running about 20 months right now, still expected to go to as much as 24 months. However, we did get some news that we won't have to pay again for our immigration documents. Our current I-171H will expire before we get a match. That was a catch/22 because in order to get approved, we needed the I-171H which is only valid for a certain amount of time, but the wait is LONGER than that time. After we got our I-171H, the USCIS raised their fees for this document. We thought we were going to have to pay this new fee for the document, but with the new developments, we won't have to pay for the second filing.
Now, the bad news, still not going to get a match THIS year.

More classes...

We finished yet another class this weekend, this one on "assisting your child's development starting in China". The class was located at CCAI, but basically presented by a clinic at the Children's Hospital. The instructors were a physical therapist and child psychologist. Basically, the class was about what to expect at certain times of development and when to be concerned if the child is not progressing at the "correct" pace. There were some very interesting facts in this class, such as information about life in the orphanage and what to expect when we get our child. One example the PT gave was she saw a girl, from China, who was 15 months old and able to walk. She seemed like she was on target until they put her on her belly. She couldn't roll over, couldn't crawl, or get up on her own. The problem? In the orphanage, she spent many hours a day in a walker and never had an opportunity to master using those core muscle groups (stomach muscles, back muscles) so she didn't know how to use them.
So for now, not much going on other than this class. We don't have another right away, when we do we'll update again.

Adoption classes

A couple of weeks ago we took more of our adoption classes. We had one on multicultural families as well as one on Chinese culture. I know what you're thinking, why do we need multicultural classes? Aren't we going to raise our child American? Yes. Absolutely. However, we cannot be ignorant to the fact that even though she will be raised American, she is in fact, Chinese and will look very different than we will. Most of the class was focused on dealing with OTHER people (people can be so cruel, even if it's unintentional). For example, the agency had one family who walked up to the family eating at a restaurant and asked, "Are these your exchange students?" And others have been asked questions like "How much did she cost?" (note: SHE didn't cost anything. the ADOPTION had fees for services).
One of the most interesting things from the class was at the end of the class, two of CCAI's employees talked. Both were adopted from Korea. They talked about their experiences being raised in the US.
The other class was equally as interesting. It was about China, some of the history, culture and language, as seen by both someone from China as well as an American. It was interesting and educational. One of the families had their son with them, probably 11 or 12 years old. This kid was smart; almost TOO smart. Not only did he know that Russia was the largest country (China 3rd largest), but also knew a fair amount about Chinese geography and landmarks.
We have another class tomorrow, on assisting our child's development starting in China. I'm sure this will be equally as informative as the previous classes have been.

An update...

Sorry it's been so long since the last update, life always seems to get in the way of things like this. We've had some excitement since the last posting. First, we're now officially on the waiting list. This happened December 31, 2006. It came at just the right time, because things started changing January 1, 2007. On January first, there was a fee increase, so we JUST squeaked by on that one.
China has also changed their rules. The new rules went into effect May 1. The new rules are here. Fortunately for us, this won't affect us.
As always with good news, there's some bad as well. When we started this process, the average wait time after being approved was just 12 months. Today it's about 20 months. That means people getting matched now, have waited 20 months for their child. We expect this to possibly even go up by the time we get our match, but we're hoping the new rules will speed things up.
We've taken one of our adoption classes, on grief. You wouldn't think grief would be a part of adoption, but it is. The child is leaving everything they know, so they will be grieving for caregivers and others left behind in China.
We're taking our next class tomorrow night, so I'll write more about the classes later. That pretty much brings everything up to date, but I'll try to do better to keep this up to date.

The latest news...

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, between work and life, things have been a bit busy.
A lot has happened for the adoption since the last post as well. CCAI got our home study beginning of October. Once that was completed, we had to go to immigration and get fingerprinted. There's only 2 offices in the state, Aurora and Grand Junction. As any who knows me could tell you, my choice would have been to drive the 4+ hours each way to go to Grand Junction rather than the 30 minutes into Aurora, but we went to Aurora. The trick with immigration seems to be go in the middle of the week, We've known other people who have gone in the middle of the week and got right in and out, as did we. We were only there about 15 minutes or so. However, you can tell that on the weekends they must get pretty busy, because they have about 50 chairs for waiting. If it's 15 minutes for 2 people, that's 8 per hour, 50 would be an all day event!
After getting our fingerprints, we had to get our adoption petition ready for the final push. This is the document that says why you want to adopt from China, and what you're looking for. Of course, there are restrictions about what you can or cannot put on this petition, but I won't get into that here.
A couple of weeks ago, we took a day off work to get paperwork notarized. What a process THIS is. First, we had to go to CCAI to have everything notarized.
Unfortunately, THAT's not good enough. After we got them notarized, we had to take all the documents including CERTIFIED birth certificates and an official copy of our marriage license to the secretary of State to have them authenticated. This is where the Sec of State says "yes, Joe Blow is a notary in the state of Colorado." Because a couple of the documents, my birth certificate and our marriage license, were from county clerks, we had to take those to a separate department in the Secretary of State's office to have them authenticated. This wasn't too painful, but we did have to go downtown to have this done. (Side note for all you "bimmerheads" out there, Saw a nice 2002-2003 M5 while we were downtown ;-) ).
We spent about 2 hours downtown getting this done, but even THIS isn't enough. Next, we had to copy documents so we could send the notarized, authenticated originals to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to have the documents authenticated yet again (after all, can we REALLY be sure there weren't any shenanegains with the Secretary of State's authentication)!
So we got the documents to Chicago the same day (must have been about 11/13/2006). Just before going on vacation for Thanksgiving, we get the documents back from Chicago, well, actually, they get to the post office, I neglected to go pick up the certified letter before leaving for Thanksgiving. We had a mail hold so I suppose we could have screwed something up with that if I had actually gone to pick up the letter, you know how USPS can be ;-)
This week, Shari picked up the documents along with the rest of our mail and ran them to CCAI where they will be proofed again, translated to Chinese and sent to China for final approval. After that approval, we start the waiting game. Currently, the wait is expected to be between 12 and 18 months, with an estimate of 15 to 17 months after approval. So for now, there's not much to do but wait.

Home Study Interviews are Complete!

Sorry it's been so long, but here's a quick recap of what's been going on in the process. As you know, we had to get physicals, which we did a few weeks ago. I had to get a new letter from one of my doctors because they put a thyroid condition on the letter the agency didn't want on there. So, we got the new letter just a couple days after it was requested.
Next, we started our home study. This was broken into 4 visits, 1 together, 2 individual interviews and 1 more together. Fortunately, our social worker has a sense of humor, so they really were quite fun. I was expecting some dry, very serious meetings where laughing and joking isn't allowed, but I was wrong. We had a good time in the interviews.
We did the interviews in about a 4 week period. The first 3 in 2 weeks (the two individual interviews the same time) and the final interview this last weekend.
Some other things have happened as well. We now have our employment verification letters, adoption petition and financial statement written as well. And thanks to my mother-in-law, who took a trip to the "big" city of Lansing Michigan we have my wife's birth certificate as well (a bunch of copies) already certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. Had it not been for her and her friend's big adventure, we would have had to wait for about 4 weeks to get this document, so we'd probably have 2 more weeks to wait!
We've also already received our fingerprint invitation from immigration, so we can go get our fingerprints done. We won't do that YET, because they're only good for a certain length of time so we'll wait until we're closer to having the dossier completed.
Hopefully things will start moving faster for a bit, then it'll be hurry up and wait, but in the end, it will all be worth it.

Orientation...

Last Saturday (sorry this is late, I've been busy) was orientation. We spent 4 hours at CCAI with 32 other couples. 9 of those couples were going back for a second or even third child. The whole think started out like I've always pictured AA meetings starting. The person who started it, said her name, and that she was an adoptive parent (and she works there as well). It was almost like "I'm Sally (not real name), and I'm an adoptive parent." Then, introductions for all 33 couples. This went much like the lady starting the orientation, "We're the Smiths, and this is our first adoptive child," or "We're the Jones, and this is our second adoptive child." I just wanted to say "Hi Jones," or "His Smiths" after each intro.
After this, Lily, the co-founder of CCAI, got up and yep, "I'm Lily, and I'm an adoptive parent." She went into the history of the agency, the charities they run, and a little bit about the cultural center.
Next, it was on to the part we all expected, what it takes to get through this slow and painful process. We found out we needed certified copies of pretty much every document we've ever seen, including marriage license, birth certificates and even a financial statement that we put together. This information has to go though a wild process. First they have to be notarized (birth certificates excluded) then sent to the Secretary of State in the state they were issued or notarized (all documents). The Sec. of State then "Certifies" the notary or certification of the document. Then the documents need to come back to us, so we can send them to the Chinese consulate to be "Authenticated" which is basically the consulate certifying the Secretary of States certification of the notary's certification of the document.
We needed to get background checks, which we did through the CBI. The good news is, they came back clean (no arrests). The bad news, now they have to be notarized, certified and authenticated.
We still need to fill out the I600 form for immigration, and do our home study.
We were hoping to hear from the social worker at orientation, but no luck. However, we had a message on our phone before we got home from her! So tomorrow, we have our first of 4 home study visits.
After all these documents are completed, we'll need to send our dossier to China for Chinese approval, then wait.
Oh, there's one more thing. The I600 is filled out to get approval to adopt, which is an I-171 form. This form is only good for 18 months, but the whole process could take longer than that. If it does, we'll have to have the home study done again, as well as complete more forms and redo fingerprinting (a total of about $1500). I guess that's just part of the game if we want to adopt. I'll write more about the first home study visit tomorrow or Monday.

It's official...

We got word back Monday (sorry it's taken so long to post this) that we've been officially approved through the adoption agency. We have orientation on August 12 at which time we'll learn more about the process and hopefully get paired up with a social worker for our home study.

That was quick!

The adoption agency said it typically takes 5 working days to get approval to begin the process after they receive the application. Well, that was the fastest 5 days I've ever seen! My wife mailed the application to them yesterday, and they called her today saying we're approved, pending references. They have sent the form to all our references via email and we've contacted them all to give them a heads up that it should be in their inboxes.
Our next step is orientation on August 12. There we learn more about the dossier we have to write to get approval from the Chinese government, and we also get matched up with a social worker to do our home study.
So for now, we wait for our references to come back and get ready for orientation.
We are very excited!

It's away!

With the receipt of the final letter, my wife sent the application to the adoption agency today. She took it to the post office and stood in line for 2 and a half hours. While she was in line, the lady in front of her had an unruly 2 year old who was yelling and screaming all the time, while the woman was on her cell phone talking to someone telling him (her?) that her husband could never find out about them. The person behind her kept looking down at his watch while saying "the time is near," whatever THAT means, while the clerks behind the counter kept getting more and more agitated at the new computer system just implemented.
When she finally got out of the post office, Her car was blocked in by several cop cars and the cops were searching the car next to hers for something. When she said she needed to go, they said it was a crime scene and if she wanted to leave, she could walk, but only after talking to them about what, if anything, she saw...
Now, what REALLY happened.
The application has been sent to the adoption agency, THAT much is true. She DID take it to the post office, but she said she was the only person there, and was out in less than 5 minutes. I just figured that didn't make as good of a story for turning in the application as the above did. It was uneventful.

Third letter is here!

We got our final letter today, this one from my wife's doctor. Now, all that's left is to put the package together and send it to the agency. It should be a week from the time they receive it before we know if they've approved us. It would be really neat if we got word of being accepted on July 25, that's our anniversary!!!
We figured the third letter was going to be here today because her doctor told us it was mailed yesterday, so today, we went to PF Chang's to celebrate the first step in this process being nearly completed.

A little setback...

My wife saw her doctor today, and asked if she could pick up the letter describing her surgery a few years ago. Unfortunately, it had already gone to dictation and won't be ready until probably Friday. So we'll have to wait for it to be mailed to us, meaning we'll either get it on Saturday or Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Then we'll be able to submit our application to the adoption agency. We were hoping to get that done today, but sometimes things don't work out the way we plan. :-(

Letter number two...

Just checked the mail, and we now have our SECOND letter from a doctor. That's two down, now we're only waiting on my wife's doctor to get her letter to her. She sees her doctor on Monday, so hopefully she'll get her letter at that time. Then we should have everything we need to proceed with the application!

One down...

We received the first letter from a Doctor needed for our application. This is pretty exciting! The one we got today is from my primary care physician; the one who helped me get through the colitis. Had it not been for him, I wouldn't be writing this post today, because I wouldn't be here.
Of the 3 we needed, this was probably the most important one to get back. My wife has an appointment to see her doctor in a couple of weeks, so if we don't have the letter from her doctor by then, no big deal because she can get it then. After those, we only have one more to get before we can continue on with the application process.

The journey begins...

My wife and I have just recently decided to adopt a child from China. While we could, potentially at least, have our own children, we felt that the risks were too high for health issues (I had Ulcerative Colitis and she had some high risks as well. Because of this, we figured we'd try to give a child a chance who otherwise would have no hope at all.
This blog is aimed to document this process, and share some information about the process in general, for anyone who may be interested in taking a similar path.
The agency we chose is Chinese Children International Adoption, a non-profit adoption agency specializing in China adoptions. We know others who have adopted through this agency and have been treated very well.
In the informational seminar, there were about 10 couples, and every one of them knew someone who had adopted through this agency, and each had good things to say about them.
Because of some medical issues, we needed to get some documentation from doctors explaining our conditions and stating they would not hinder our ability to raise children. We hope to hear back from our doctors soon so we can complete the application process.
The application is about 6 pages, but with it they need a lot of information, including those doctor's letters, so we're trying to get everything ready for when we get those letters.