The Timeline

Hi friends! This is Katie. International adoption is slow...just because we have not updated recently does not mean we are not moving forward but sometimes things seem to move along at an agonizingly slow pace.

We did get the approval from the USCIS to get our FBI fingerprints on April 8th! To do this we go down to the Department of Homeland Security by the airport and get our fingerprints taken.

I also went to a Holt seminar last night and the director of the China program was there to answer our questions and explain the process more completely. Here is the timeline as I see it for bringing home our precious, Melia.

April 8th fingerprints...1-7 weeks to have our fingerprints approved and receive our I-800A form...one week to gather the rest of our dossier material and have it notarized...one day to take it to Lincoln for State Authentication...send to Chinese Embassy in D.C. to get it doubly authenticated...wait 1-4 weeks to get our finalized dossier and then send to Holt to submit to China...at that point we can receive our referral, we should expect a referral in 1-6months from the Child of Promise Program...From referral acceptance to travel is 4-6months.

So, by my estimation the earliest Melia would come home is November of this year and the latest is April of 2012.

Most referrals of children are between the ages of 1 and 2 so that means our Melia is probably alive right now.

If you are reading this I would ask you to please send a prayer up to heaven for our daughter.

Our prayer requests:

~for her safety

~for healthy and enough food

~Christian caretakers to hold her, sing to her, talk to her

~Health. That she would stay free from colds and infections

~That God would prepare her heart and her eyes and her ears for her American family

~Peace in her mind and heart that surpasses understanding

~Attention from caregivers to help her learn attachment

Thank you for your prayer support of our daughter. We will keep you posted!

Homestudy - Check

OK.... We're done with the homestudy!

Next on the list is to submit our I-800A. I think my last post said I-900. I was wrong. I'm sure you can understand how I might not be able to keep all this stuff straight.

Anyway, we're moving right along. I'll let you know when something moves forward.

... or I may post a cute picture of my kids if they do something cute enough.

More Homestudies

We had part 2 of our homestudy last week. Nothing major to report. I am continually amazed as to how easy and uneventful the early stages of this adoption seem to be. Of course, this makes for one heck of a boring blog and for that I am quite sorry.

Don't worry, things will pick up once we get the referral. Of course, by then we'll be nearly done. For those that don't know, a China adoption only involves one trip, so once we get a referral and a travel date, we're practically done!

Next week, Katie and I have our last and final homestudy meeting. From there, we'll have everything we need to file the I-900. (What used to use be the I-600A when we adopted Zac) My guess is that we'll get everything back from the US gov't within 2 months and then we'll ship off our dossier to China!

From there, it's anyone's guess as to how long it will take.

Feel free to make your bold prediction now.

I'm going to say: We'll get a referral on my birthday: October 26.

More evidence of normal children:

Good class

We had a good class this weekend. There were 7 couples there. All of them adopting internationally. Naturally, Katie and I went into this class thinking that we knew everything. The biggest take away for us was gaining awareness of the fact that we are adopting a child from a different race.

Honestly, this was not something that we have pondered a whole lot. Up to this point, we simply thought "whatever.... it doesn't bother us".

But we haven't thought about what Melia may think of the whole thing. We began doing an inventory of her life. Her parents: White. Her siblings: White. Her teachers: White. Her extended family: White. Her neighbors: White. Her doctor: White. Her dentist: White. Her piano teacher: White...... White. White. White.

You get my point. Katie and I realized that after our adoption of Melia, we will no longer be a "white family". We will indeed be a mixed-race family.

I'm not even sure what this exactly means, but this class and our new awareness is a good start. I'll keep you posted as I figure things out.

PIP Class

Now we're moving along!

This coming weekend, Katie and I will be traveling to Iowa for a "How to parent your adopted child" class. This was one of the requirements from Holt (our agency). I tried to get some sort of waiver hoping that 3 years experience would count, but no-go.

I have the attention span of a 10 year old, so I'm not looking forward to sitting in a classroom for two days.

But I AM looking forward to a Road Trip vacation with my wife!

(yes, even a 3 hour road trip to the middle of Iowa counts as a Road Trip Vacation)

Homestudy Part 1

We had our homestudy today. (Part 1 of 3) It brought back fond memories of Zac's homestudy. For those that don't know, the first part of a homestudy is basically where we sit around and talk about ourselves for a couple of hours. I can't think of anything I love to do more than to sit around talk about myself. Therefore, the homestudy was quite a wonderful time!

I can't help but think how stressful and intimidating a homestudy may be for first time parents. For us.... not so much.

As I travel upon the road leading me toward 4 children, I find that fewer and fewer events cause me stress and intimidation.

Case in point, as I type this blog entry I am mostly unphased that Zac is screaming for Hallie to let him out of the dog kennel. Ho hum. Just another small moment around here.