Dossier to China!

Our adoption agency called yesterday to let us know that our dossier was back from the Chinese Consulate and will be sent on to China! What this means is that it passed authentication at the Consulate with no problems (phew!) and was returned to Bethany's HQ in Michigan. The next step is that it is sent off to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in China to be logged in and translated into Chinese. Once logged in the real wait begins. At last report they have referred children to families with login in dates (LID) as of 3/8/06 so the wait continues to increase.

We'll get another phone call from Bethany once we have a login date. Hopefully, we'll have a login date sometime next week but may not be informed of it for a few weeks. The reason we won't have a LID before next week is because Bethany is holding our dossier until they have a few to send (to cut back on costs) but more so until Eli turns a year old (on Friday!). Yes, although the wait is 3+ years CCAA requires that your youngest child is 1 before your dossier can be logged in.

Next, there is one more "review" that our dossier goes through. This is the review by CCAA to officially approve you for adoption (on the China end). At some point our dossier will pass through CCAA's review room where it will be closely scrutinized. They might question a few things (not likely as Bethany is very thorough) and then approve it for adoption. Then, you wait until can be matched with a child. Right now, they have reviewed dossiers with LIDs through March 2007 expected to speed up soon.

We'll post again once we have our LID!

Blog Description

I have nothing to update today as our dossier is still at the Chinese Consulate being authenticated. However, I wanted to explain some of the links I have setup on the lefthand side of the blog.

Currently, I have posted links to 2 other blogs in the "adoption links" section. The Rumor Queen blog is authored by this woman known as "The Rumor Queen" who adopted from China a ways back. She setup this website to track the wait for a referral based on several factors when she was waiting for her own referral. She has proven to be fairly accurate and decided to keep the site going after bringing her daughter home from China. This is our main source of information when we post updates on the wait. According to her site, they just referred babies to families who had LID (login dates) of March 7-8, 2006. Hence, that is why I am saying the current wait is 36 months. If you can't wait for our update check out her site. The site also has lots of good information for adoptive parents (from China) as well as forums on China adoption.

The Bethany China Blog is our adoption agency's blog on China Adoption. The blog also has updates on referrals but is mainly concentrated on adoptions related to Bethany families. It also has been a good source of information for us.

Our intention with this blog is to not only keep everyone updated on our situation but also go back and recant our experiences going through the paperwork as well as our reasonings for many of the adoption related decisions we made. We are planning posts on such topics as why we are adopting, why we choose China, why we choose Bethany and so forth. We'll try to post something at least once a month but that is sure to increase as we get closer! If there is any question you might have please feel free to ask us. We also welcome comments!

Dossier off to the Consulate!

We were informed today that Bethany's HQ in Michigan has deemed our dossier "perfect" and sent it off to the Chinese Consulate in DC. And no, this is not an April fool's joke :) as we are perfect.

Now it goes for more authenticating via the Consulate (2-4 weeks) then back to Grand Rapids. Bethany's home office will then send it off to China to be logged in and translated into Chinese. However, it is my understanding that this won't happen before April 24 as per China's rules our youngest child has to be a year old before our dossier can be logged in. We expect a login date (LID) sometime in late April/early May and then the real wait can begin. Right now, the wait is approaching 37 months but expected to pick up soon. We shall see.

So, you might be wondering how the boys feel about this whole adoption thing. Well, obviously Eli has no idea as he is not even 1 yet. By the time he can understand we'll be close to bringing her home, we hope. Benjamin is another story. He understands that he's getting a baby sister from China (apparently he's been bragging about it at school as one of his classmates asked his mother if they could go to China to get him a baby sister too!) and is very excited. Of course, he was very excited about Eli's birth until after he was born. He has a little different perspective on Eli now, as this conversation I had with him on Friday morning illustrates:

Benjamin: "Daddy. you don't have work today?"
Me: "No, I'm off today."
Benjamin: "Am I still going to school?"
Me: "Yes, Mommy and Daddy have to go to an appointment to submit all our paperwork for your baby sister from China."
Benjamin (with excitement): "Is she going to be here when I get home?"
Me: "No, we first have to submit all this paperwork and then wait and eventually go to China to get her"
Benjamin: "Are you going to China today?"
Me: "No, it's going to be a few years before we can go to China."
Benjamin (after a few moments of thought): "Daddy, when you bring my baby sister home from China are we going to take Eli back to the hospital?"

You see what I mean? Not the first time Benjamin has made such a suggestion. Much to his disapointment, we are not taking Eli back to the hospital just in case you were wondering. :)