a longer wait, again...

It seems that the agency in China that processes all adoption applications is overwhelmed and slowing down. The last few sets of referrals they have sent out have only been for parts of a month's applications. What this potentially means is that our referral could take even longer to come. The agency's website was updated yesterday. Here's what is says:

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before September 30, 2005. (That means that those applications have been reviewed and will go to the matching room.)

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before June 6, 2005. (That means people whose stuff was logged in by June 6 will have referrals arriving sometime in the next week.)

So maybe Christmas is a better estimate for our referral???

two nursery pictures

a longer wait?

The referral time listed on Bethany's website now says 9-10 months. We've been hearing that time frame from people using other agencies as well. We're not sure how that will affect us. Another thing is that there's a huge convention in October in China which is really busy and it makes traveling more expensive. It's likely that we will not travel in October because of that. Perhaps November is a more realistic time for when we will be going to China.

dossier counter

"the brown envelope"

Today we got "the brown envelope" in the mail. It comes from the US consulate in Guangzhou, China. The DHS (Department of Homeland Security - Immigration) forwarded our adoption approval to them. This envelope contains the forms that we'll need in China to complete the adoption of our daughter as well as our case number. The papers in here isn't particularly significant but it's nice to know that our paperwork was received at the consulate in China.

LID (Log in date)!

We received an email today with our official log in date - December 5, 2005. The current best estimate for referrals is 8-9 months so we'll be looking at August/September for our referral. In the meantime, we're keeping busy with work and doing fun stuff at home like hanging pictures in the baby's room. We have lots of waiting to do yet!

Not much...

Nothing new to report... Our paperwork is in China so now we can fill our time doing some "getting ready" kinds of things. So far those things have included: getting two free car seats, buying a toy bin for the basement, buying some cool IKEA leaf canopy things to hang over the crib, and maybe something else, I just can't think of it right now. Christmastime is so busy.

Log in dates

From what I'm reading, it looks like log in dates are taking about 18-20 days from the time your dossier is sent to China. That could make our LID (log in date) fall sometime around December 6. Once we have our LID we'll have a better idea of when we might get our referral - currently expected about 7-8 months after LID. That means our referral could come in July or August of 2006.

The rumor mill...

It's not easy to ignore the mass of rumors that go around when people are getting desperate to know when things are going to happen for them. Right now there is a lot of stuff being tossed around about time frame.

One person got an email from her agency saying this about the placement agency in China (CCAA). "Currently the timeframe from LID (log in date) to referral is about 8 or 9 months. This timeframe will continue to lengthen until is has reached the 10 to 12 month mark."

So, we continue to wait, with patience, and trust.

Dossier Ticker

DTC (Dossier to China)

Yay! Today our dossier was sent to China. So that makes November 18 our "DTC" (Dossier to China) date. This used to be when you could kind of start counting down. However, things have slowed down a bit in China so we really need to wait until our dossier gets logged in in China. That process has been taking about four weeks so we're anticipating a log-in date (LID) in December. Once we have that date, we can begin to count down time a bit more. Sometimes it takes a month or two to even find out what your log in date was so it's likely going to be after Christmas before we know that. Right now the referral process is taking about 8 months so we can possibly anticipate getting a referral (name, picture, known medical history) in August of next year. But things keep changing with timing so that's just our best guess. We're really excited to have our stuff complete and on its way to China!

lots of waiting....

Today Henry brought our dossier (a.k.a. big mass of papers) to Bethany. They will be sent out tomorrow to Chicago to be authenticated. Now we have LOTS of waiting to do but the paperwork part is done. When I talked to our case worker today she said that the waiting time is going to be longer now. Two things in particular are taking much more time. When the dossier is sent to China, it is usually logged in within a week of arriving. It sounds like it is taking about 4 weeks for that now. Also, CCAA in China is overwhelmed with paperwork. Instead of the referral time being 6-7 months they are expecting it to take 8-9 months. Both of these things will push our anticipated travel time back to September/October or maybe even November of 2006. We'll keep you updated.

Lansing

Today after work we drove to Lansing and got all of our stuff state sealed. They put a letter and then a cool gold sticker with each of our documents. Tomorrow morning Henry will drop our dossier off at Bethany so they can send it to be authenticated and then send it to China. We're almost done with the paperwork - for now!

Nursery

The nursery is painted and pretty much furnished. We're still working on getting stuff to put on the walls. We're finding little things here and there to get the room ready since that's something we can actually do right now. We bought an asian cabbage patch kid which you can see sitting on the dresser. We're working on adding on to our collection of children's books - especially books about China and books about adoption.

the form came!

Today we got our I171H form in the mail from the Department of Homeland Security. This means we can get stuff ready to send to China. Monday we'll get the last paper notarized and then drive to Lansing after work to get all our papers state sealed. Then we'll bring our stuff to Bethany and they will overnight our dossier to Chicago for authentication. That could take about a week. Once that's done, our stuff will be sent to China. Then we can start keeping track of time a bit more. YAY!

list of things we did

August 3, 2005 - mailed I600A application
August 31, 2005 - fingerprinting appointment
September 16, 2005 - home study complete and mailed to DHS (Department of Homeland Security)

Now we wait for our I171H form which basically says that we're ok people and we have the government's permission to adopt a baby.

Next steps will be:
- bring all paperwork to be notarized
- bring all paperwork to Lansing to be state sealed
- send all paperwork to Chicago to be authenticated and translated
- send all paperwork to China
- wait for login date (LID)

Once we have our login date we wait for our referral (7-8 months). We'll keep you updated as things happen.