Thursday, April 3, 2008

One piece of paper closer

Our home study arrived in the mail yesterday! Yay! Now we await a fingerprinting appointment with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the final piece of paper for our dossier, the I-171H, which gives us clearance from USCIS to adopt internationally. It feels like itty bitty baby steps, but it is forward progress nonetheless!
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2 comments:

The Callender Family said...

Hi Amy
Yeah! One step closer to your little one!... Great to see that you have created a blog! I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Anne

April 6, 2008 at 5:07 PM
Thatcher Family said...

Hi Amy,
I am Gene Thatcher, from Ava Le Bei's Blog. Congrats on getting your finger print appointment. Sorry you have to drive 5 hours away. We got lucky to be stationed in Albuquerque where they have a finger print processing facility. I know it seems like such a long process, but we waited over 2 1/2 years for Ava and now that we have her, it was all worth the wait!

We are so busy and slowly getting settled in at home and I apologize for not writing back sooner! We have been home one week now and things are going great in our opinion. You had asked me to comment about taking your older children with your to China. I believe it depends on your children and their personality, behavior, and flexibility during travel and stressful times. Emma, our 5-year old, is amazing! She is so adaptable to most any environment and is a rule follower! We also had 2 adult family members to help out when we needed it. China is very crowded and it was nice to have an extra pair of eyes and hands to make sure Emma didn't get lost in the crowd! I feel like Emma wouldn't understand this adoption as well if she didn't get to go with us. She is old enough to understand where her sister came from, she witnessed every step of Ava's homecoming and for us that is priceless. Our trip was 3 weeks long and Emma was still able to tolerate the plane, hotel, food, sights, sounds, smells, people etc, with no problem. Again, I think it depends on the child. I couldn't have made it 3 weeks without my Emma--NO WAY!! It also depends on the set up you have back home or if you have some other adults that will travel with you. If you have someone to watch your kids and feel comfortable with that, then again it's a personal choice. All this being said, if you can afford the regular suite at the White Swan--the extra cost is so worth it! It was so nice to have the extra room and also to be able to close the door to the bedroom while Ava napped.

I don't know if you have visited the Rumor Queen, but I have seen plenty of discussions about taking older children to China, which room to get, what Airlines to fly, you name it, folks discuss it! It was a great source of info during our wait. There is a Special Needs forum also which should give you a wealth of knowledge from folks who have done this before.

Best Wishes to you and your family!!! What a great thing you are doing!

Sincerely,
Gene, Emma and Ava's Mom, and Anne's Friend!!!

April 16, 2008 at 9:22 AM

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Why Adoption? Why China?

I'm sure that many of you, when you learned that Tom and I were pursuing adoption of a little girl from China, wondered "why?!" We may have taken some of you by surprise, and we thought it might be nice to share some of our thinking about this journey we are undertaking.

Adoption is something that, even from the earliest years of our marriage, we talked about as "maybe someday." The idea of adoption is appealing to us for many reasons. As Christians, we are adopted by God as his children through faith in Jesus. Adoption allows us to provide a child with the needed love, warmth, and financial resources we have been blessed with as a family. Finally, adoption allows us to add to our family at a time when our biological children are old enough to be more self-sufficient, and we are in a position financially to be able to welcome a child into our family in this way. What we hope to gain is an additional family member to love and learn from, and an opportunity to share the joy and love of our family.

We recognize that an adoption will bring unique parenting challenges to our family--especially since we are considering a child with special needs--and it is likely to put unique stresses on our family in a variety of ways. We are grateful for Tom's medical knowledge and for the great medical coverage we get through Tom's Air Force career, and we look forward to providing a forever family for a child whose medical needs might make it more difficult for another family to take on.

Finally, why China? My love for China, the Chinese language, and the Chinese people made China the natural choice. It was never really even a consideration whether to go with a domestic adoption or international; China was simply the natural choice that we immediately pursued, especially since there are so many children in China that need a forever family.

Chinese Word of the Day

The Time in China

When Love Takes You In

Our Adoption Timeline

  • Travel Dates--11-26 March
  • Swearing In Ceremony at Consulate--25 March (Lilly's 3rd Birthday!)
  • Consulate Appointment (CA)--24 March
  • Travel Approval (TA)--19 February 2009
  • Received Letter of Approval (LOA)--22 January 2009
  • Received Pre-Approval (PA)--25 November
  • Submitted Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt An Xiao Xue, soon to be named Lillian Joy Xiao Xue, 1 November (logged in at CCAA 21 November)
  • Referral Call from CCAI asking us to consider An Xiao Xue's profile--31 October
  • Dossier Log-in-Date (LID) 3 July 2008
  • Dossier to China (DTC)--June 27 2008
  • Dossier Submitted to CCAI--June 2008
  • Fingerprinted at USCIS Jacksonville--April 2008
  • Application Approval ("We're Pregnant!") January 2008
  • Submitted Adoption Application and 3 References--December 2007
  • Requested Application from Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI) --November 2007
  • Decided to Investigate Agencies--October 2007