In the Review Room!

Based on recent portal updates on the CCAA website they have now reviewed dossiers logged in through April 2009. Since our dossier was logged in May 2009, this means that they are reviewing ours as we write this. This is the step in the process where CCAA reviews all of our paperwork and approves, rejects, or asks questions concerning our dossier. While getting approved through the review room does not get us any closer to a referral it is an important step in the overall process. So far, we have not been informed of any questions they might have so cross your fingers! In this situation no news is good news. Once they announce that dossiers have been reviewed through the end of May 2009 (or later) we'll know that we're through!



On another note, The Washington Post recently published an interesting article on special needs adoption from China. This is something we can very much relate to and if you're interested you can click here.



Finally, we'll save the wait update for our next post but I wanted to mention that Congress did extend the Adoption Tax Credit (see our last post) for another year. It was included in the recent health care legislation. It doesn't go as far as making the credit permament as we would have liked to see but does keep it going for the time being. Rest assured, next year when it's up for renewal again we'll have another post on the issue.

Nothing new on the wait, will update the stats with the next post.

We got our LID!

Today we were informed by our agency that our login date (LID) is May 13, 2009! What this means is that our dossier has been officially "logged in" at CCAA and is now in the queue for review. Not much has changed since our last post as they have reviewed dossiers logged in through April 2007 and referred through March 8, 2008. At the moment, with the current wait of 38+ months we would get our referral sometime in July 2012.

Although we are excited to finally get a LID, it is a little frustrating that it took so long as our dossier was sent to China on April 21. However, we have expected to expect the unexpected in this process so it is what it is. Hopefully, the wait will get shorter but whatever it is will be worth it in the end.

Our thoughts are currently with all those families who are so close to a referral but whose wait has been extended due to the swine flu scare. The most recent expected batch of referrals seem to have been delayed until the swine flu scare settles down. We hope this won't happen to us!

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!

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. :)

Dossier Submitted!

Yesterday was quite a day! Exciting, nerve racking, and long. After we dropped the boys off at Bet Yeladim and took my car in for an oil change it was off to Bethany Christian Services (our adoption agency-will explain that in another post some other time) to submit our dossier. We were excited but nervous that everything would be in proper order.

We got to Bethany which is in Crofton, MD and sat there as our social worker painstakingly went through all of our documents. There were a couple of nervous moments as she questioned a few documents, most importantly the DC seal on my employment letter. Apparently, she wasn't sure it was the right seal and was concerned that the "authenticator" there had crossed out the word "chief" in the title but after a phone call she was assured everything was ok and that the Chinese consulate had been ok with this crossout on other documents. Finally she got through all the documents and got INS to fax over the approval so we were good to go! We had gotten a verbal aproval earlier in the week but had not received (and still have not) the actual paper saying we were approved. (BTW- our social worker was awesome! Highly recomend her and Bethany for anyone interested in adoption)

Now that our paperwork was in good order it was time to head down to Annapolis to get few more notarized documents authenticated and a bunch of authenticated documents state sealed. However, just as we're about to leave for Annapolis we get a call from Bet Yeladim. We're thinking "oh crap" one of the boys is sick and we need to go get them. As it turns out, Eli's class was having a birthday party and he was eyeing the cake. They just wanted to know if he could have a slice and we said yes and left for Annapolos.

After parking in Annapolis (an adventure of its own), we head over to the Anne Arundal Clerk of the Court to get the authentifications and then over to the Sec. of State's to get all the documents state sealed. That whole process only took about 20 minutes and it was back to Crofton (about a 20 min drive) to turn everything in.

Back at the Bethany office we got to see the end of a domestic adoption taking place which was exciting and even more exciting was turning in the remaining documents and our paperchase has finally ended, we hope. The next step is the dossier is sent to Bethany HQ in Michigan for review. If they don't find anything wrong (at this point they usually don't) it gets translated into Chinese and then back to DC to the Chinese Consulate for more authenticating. And then its finally off to China to be logged in at CCA!

So, now it was finally time for a little celebrating for us. Beth and I headed back to Annapolis for lunch at Carol's Creek which is a very nice restaurant on the waterfront and then we walked around the shops in town. After doing some browsing around, picking up some fancy cupcakes for a family treat that night and treating ourselves to some ice cream we headed back to Columbia to pickup the boys from school and return home.

It made for a very long but happy day! I'll keep posting updates to this blog as well as post about all that we've been though the last few months and such.