Progress and Process

Each day we are getting closer to bringing our newest daughter home!  Our home study update was completed and our initial form was sent to USCIS (immigration) by our placing agency yesterday.   Now we wait.  USCIS will send a receipt and a fingerprinting appointment.  We will go for fingerprints which are done electronically at the local USCIS office.  An officer is assigned who will approve our application which is basically stating that we are eligible per the USA guidelines to bring an orphan into the country.  This process will go a little quicker for us since our current approval does not expire until 9/4. 

Once this approval is received our updates and previous dossier will be sent to China. We then wait some more!  This process is a "hurry up and wait" game!  China will send us a notice of Letter Seeking Confirmation which is the official approval stating we can adopt our daughter.  We currently have pending approval.  We file an additional form with USCIS with our daughter's specific information.  Once approval is received back from USCIS  that is sent to China.  Travel approval comes next.  A consulate appointment must be secured and at that point travel arrangements made.  Unfortunately many of these steps take not only weeks but months.  Our agency is estimating travel in March or April.  Our new daughter's birthday is the beginning of March and I am believing God that she will be joined with our family so we can celebrate her birthday with us! 

Backing up some now for those not familiar with the process, I will share the paperwork that we have already completed.  Each person in our household required new medicals.  We had to provide six new reference letters.  A letter was required from my husband's employer. We have awesome friends/familyco-workers who have now taken the time twice to submit letters on our behalf.  For those people I am so grateful.  We had to go to our local police department and be fingerprinted and ran through the state system and FBI.  A child abuse/neglect clearance for each of us had to be obtained from the state government. We had to obtain a letter from our local police department saying we had no current cases pending.  We had to obtain a letter from our bank showing all of our deposits for the past year.  Copies of our last two years of income tax returns were needed.  Detailed financial forms were required. We had four social work visits  For our placing agency it was required to complete what ended up being an 18 page parenting plan among various other forms.  This process is NOT for the weary but such a major blessing in the end! 

Please keep us in your prayers and thoughts!