Whew! Two autobiographies finished!

Today Troy and I cranked out the rest of our autobiographies. His was 6 pages and mine was 8 -- all single spaced. I doubt it comes as a surprise to any of you that mine was longer -- Miss Chatty!

Anyway, they're finished and we'll mail them off to our SW on Monday. Hopefully, we'll be able to start our interviews with her soon. Homestudy completion, here we come!

1st round of fingerprints....

Yesterday Troy and I went to Identix and had our electronic fingerprints done for the State Criminal Record clearances. It took awhile, but the gal said the prints looked good and we should have them back in 5-7 days. Not bad! We have to do another set of fingerprints for the FBI clearance later on.

I'm still about 3 pages away from being finished with my autobiography and Troy hasn't started his yet. He has to finish it next week though, because we have to forward it to our SW. So far, the autobiographies have been the biggest pains in the process. I haven't enjoyed it and I like to write!

Plodding ahead, though, because each piece of paper, appointment and little "hoop" we jump through is bringing us closer to our daughter. :)

Busy with the details...

Troy and I...Let me rephrase that, *I* have been (with lots of hugs from Troy) crazy busy with all of the various writing, gathering and appointment-making for our homestudy. Here are a few things I've been doing:


*Sent off for Child Abuse/Neglect Clearance reports for Mom, Dad, Myself & Troy

*Scheduled Criminal Record Clearance/Fingerprints appointments for Troy & I

*Scheduled our brief physcials + lab work with our doctor for the physcian reference forms

*Ordered new raised-seal copies of our children's birth certificates

*Working on writing my autobiography. Troy needs to start his this week. *hint, hint*

*Filled out employment verification request letters for Troy's work


The autobiography is hard to write! 6-12 pages, single spaced (I'm at page 4), describing your life from birth to the current time. There are so many questions I can't believe it, but I'm just following the guided outline and hoping to finish it up today. Adoption requires so much, but even in the midst of it, I'm feeling a continued sense of peace and excitement. All this stuff WILL get finished, and then the wait will be the hard part.

It arrived and the roller coaster is just cresting the hill...

The payment arrived at 12:00pm Friday to CCAI's offices. We got a confirmation email Saturday night that explained how to access the "expecting parents" portions of the website, download PDFs of our dossier packet (all 45 pages of it!!) and home study flow charts, etc. It's so overwhelming and scary. But we also feel like it's all a dream ~ a dream come true. Troy and I are already headoverheels in love with a child we've never even met. We talk with our other gifts (Lily, Colby & Landry) about her. We pray for her. We can't wait to see her sweet face!

We've decided on her first name:

~ Laney ~

It's sweet and feminine and innocent ~ and fits like it was always meant to be with our other daughters' names. (Lily, Landry & Laney). We still have bloody battles ahead of us to determine what the middle name will be, but for now, we're just going to focus on each piece of paper and appointment we need to complete and make in order to bring her home!!

Edited to add: For now, the winner of "middle name contest" is Rose. ~ Laney Rose ~

We have sent in the...

first payment to CCAI. We both had a little "gulp" in our throats as we wrote out that big check, but we know this is the right thing and so it was a little bit of nerves, mixed with a lot of excitment and joy. We paid extra for overnight delivery and written delivery confirmation. When they receive our check, we'll get our passcodes for the CCAI site...as well as full PDFs of the dossier workbook to go through with Nancy.

We're really doing this! :)

We have a social worker! Drum roll please....

Her name is Nancy Bean. Reminds me of Mr. Bean, but I hope she is more with-it than that. Actually, she's been referred with great marks by three different families so we have high hopes. She seems great..you know, from all that subtext and human emotion that grabs you through emails. LOL! No, but she seems nice enough. And she will play a critical role in our adoption. She is the person we needed to hire to conduct our home study. This is the cornerstone for our dossier.

A home study, for those of you like us who are new to the world of adoption, is a "study" that is written up like a report. It features US (the parents), our kids, our finances, our criminal/sordid or not-so-sordid backgrounds, health physicals, letter references from friends, the house, etc. Bascially, you spill your ENTIRE life into this gal's lap and then she evaluates it and tells you whether or not she thinks you'll make good parents. Lovely, eh? And you get to pay her $1300 for the pleasure!

She's supposed to send us the packet and paper work in a week. Yippee! :)

Nancy Bean...Gotta get used to that name....

About ready to write the first big...

check. Ahhh, the money part of the adoption journey. Everyone keeps asking me, "Why in the heck does it cost so much?" I'm a little offended, because we're already "emotionally" there and the thought of putting any price on our future daughter seems almost inconceivable. On the other hand, there certainly is a reality to the cost involved in adoption -- particularly, International Adoption.

However, we're happily pressing forward in a journey of love, excitement, faith and dollars. :) We have to re-read our final fee agreements, and then sign them in front of a notary public. Thankfully, the secretary at Troy's fire station is a notary so she'll be helping us a lot!

We hope to have the first big check written and mailed off by next Monday.

We've been approved!!

Tonight we received our application approval letter from CCAI!! YAY!! We have an orientation packet to look through, first fee to send in (praying about the $$ already!) and we're down the road motors! Troy and I are equally thrilled and nervous. :)

Here is the email:

September 9th, 2006

Hi Troy & Becky,

Thank you for choosing CCAI. Your application has been approved. Please open and print your Orientation Packet which I have attached. You will find a cover letter with detailed instructions.


There was more about dossier requirements, website login codes, etc. But the important part is that we're in!! :)

This is our "Word Cloud." A generated image composed of the most common words on our adoption blog. Yes, the name does remind one of the infamous "brain cloud" from the classic film, Joe vs. The Volcano. But this is different. Word Clouds are cool. And you can get them printed on tote bags and mugs. I think this one is pretty nifty. :)

Helpful Paper Chase links....

One of the first things new IA parents need to do (and something we'll be doing shortly) is filing a 1-600A form with the USCIS. The 1-600A form is an "Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition." Bascially it means, we want to say *now* that when we go to China we'll be bringing back a child that will be ours.

This form, and others, can be downloaded at: http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/


Also, throughout the chase you need several copies of birth certificates, your marriage license, divorce decrees (if you've been so unlucky...or lucky, as the case may be), etc.

These can all be ordered, fresh & crisp, from http://www.vitalchek.com/?clicked=1

One more piece of our application...

Today I mailed in our Medical Checklist for CCAI's Waiting Child Program. China keeps an ever-changing, comprehensive list of children (infants to older children) who have special challenges facing them. Some are babies and children with special needs: physical handicaps, heart defects, vision problems, etc. Others are older children who are perfectly healthy, but difficult to place because of their age.

Troy and I are praying about the possibility that a baby from the Waiting Child list may be "waiting" for us. :) We don't know if this is where we'll find our daughter, but we wanted to add that form to our application so we would be notified if any babies come through CCAI that fit within the parameters we set. CCAI allows you to go through a comprehensive medical checklist and make note of special needs you feel confident and prepared to handle. Troy and I talked through each area and feel good about the addendum we mailed off today.

It's difficult to think that there are precious babies left behind for any reason, but particularly when you see how minor some of the "special needs" are from the list. Things like a birth mark or partial hearing loss may make a child so difficult to place he/she will spend an entire childhood in a SWI (Social Welfare Institute...aka "orphanage.")

We are praying we will find *just* the glorious girl who is meant to be a part of our forever family! If this means an NSN baby ~ wonderful! If it means a precious baby we discover on the waiting list ~ then that will be amazing too. :)

US Postal Service Delivery Confirmation Receipt...

Guess what? For the 1st time EVER (at least for me), a USPS delivery confirmation receipt number worked! YAY!

We tracked our application to CCAI and the website says:

Label/Receipt Number: 0306 0320 0003 9194 6101

Status: Delivered

Your item was DELIVERED at 12:14 pm on September 05, 2006 in ENGLEWOOD, CO 80112.


Yay! I'm such a sentimental dork. :) When you're adopting, every "paper" in the paperchase is precious.

Names

The journey has barely begun and we're already having baby "name" debates. I swear, we've used the only 3 names IN THE WORLD that Troy and I can agree upon with our first three children. This next precious bundle may have to go nameless! LOL! Actually, we're hoping to come up with a name by the time our dossier leaves for China. Then we won't have to go around calling her the "Chinese baby" any more. We can call her by her name! :)

Here are 7 names in the current running:

Cara
Cate
Violet
Vivienne
Stella
Mercy
Lucie

The debate continues......

Adoption Language....the world of acronyms

So Troy and my father have been teasing me about how many acronyms and "letters" I've been tossing about since we began this crazy adoption journey. I keep trying to explain to them that it's easier than saying everything the long way ~ but I realize if they don't know what the letters stand for, then perhaps it isn't. :)

Here is a brief run-down on the adoption acronyms and their meanings:

AP: Adoptive Parent
CA: Consulate Appointment
CCAA:China Centre for Adoption Affairs (in China)
CCAI: Chinese Children Adoption International (our Agency!!)
DOA: Date Of Adoption
DOB: Date Of Birth
DOR: Date Of Referral (This is the day you receive your child's picture and are "matched")
DOT: Date Of Travel (The day you're to leave to pick your baby)
DTC: Dossier To China (The day your huge pile of papers -- your dossier) is complete and sent to China.
FCC: Families with Children from China: www.fwcc.org
IA: International Adoption
I-600: Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative
I-600A: Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition
I-171H: US federal approval to adopt foreign-born child
I-797: The new I-171H
LID: Log In Date (official date recorded in CCAA logs) (This means they've receive and approved your dossier!)
LOI: Letter Of Intent (Used in special needs (SN) adoptions)
NSN: Non-Special Needs
PA: Permission to Adopt (SN adoptions)
SN: Special Needs
SW: Social Worker
TA: Travel Approval
USCIS: US Customs & Immigration Services (Dept. of Homeland Security)
WC: Waiting Child (This a child has a physical handicap or is an older child)

It's in the mail !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our application is in the mail! Troy and I are both just grinning at each other. I paid for "Delivery Confirmation" just so I could have a mail receipt to tuck into a future baby book. :)

Sweet moment

My mom shared this story with me and I just thought it was so sweet. She said she and Lily had been shopping in Costco earlier this week. While they were looking around, a young Asian mom and a little girl -- around 1 or 2 walked by. She said Lily stared at the baby, with a mixture of curiosity and new awareness, and then said (quietly and almost to herself), "Sister." Then she smiled.