Pictures are here...everything is ready....

just waiting on that I-171H. :)

Hoping...

I would love to get our I-171H back from Chicago today. I ordered all of our family life pictures from Snapfish last week and they should be here today or tomorrow. I want to get this dossier mailed in!! Everything else is ready....just waiting on the ole' mail man.

Just realized...

the Consulate-General's Embassy office in Chicago is closed this week (Mon-Wed) for the Chinese New Year. Our I-171H and G1 form is sitting there, but hopefully they will get to it tomorrow and we'll have it back by Saturday or Monday.

Troy's Birth Certificate is back...

from the Embassy in Washington, D.C. It arrived Express Mail this morning, on President's Day no less. I was very excited. The post guy said they always delivery Express Mail even on holidays. Who knew?

So, now, we're just waiting for the I-171H to come back from Chicago and we'll be ready to mail it all in!! YAY!!!!!!

The GOLDEN TICKET!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure I can even convey how excited we were this afternoon, but when I opened the mail out fell an envelope from USCIS and inside was our coveted I-171H!

We have been "Favorably Approved" to adopt and our application has been fowarded to Guangzhou, China! Wahoo!

This is a HUGE step in the adoption process and we're thrilled. We're hoping we can still be DTC by March. I literally cried when I opened the letter. Just ask my friend Jessica. I called her and she said, "Are you crying?" Yes I am!! LOL! :)

One more step toward Laney!

Guess what??????

I'm going to CHINA! I can't believe it. No, we don't have our referral yet (and won't for probably another 18-20 months, but I'll be going to China this July (July 22-Aug 2). I'm going with a team from Lakeland, to visit the area where our school will be built...and to help reach more of the unreached people.

I'm totally excited! The trip will be part tourist-fun (Great Wall, Forbidden City, etc) and part rigorous missions stuff (hiking up and over mountains, sleeping on floors in dirt huts, etc). I'm thrilled to see and experience any/all of it!

It will be so good to just be in my next baby's homeland. I'm going to miss Troy & the kids like crazy, but he is being so sweet in letting me go. I know he wants to go too. I'm going to take tons of pictures and try to remember everything I see so I can tell him all about it.

And then, of course, we'll be headed back TOGETHER in 2008 -- to get our baby! :)

Powerful...compelling song...

Esther by Sara Groves

Yes! One more piece of paper chased down and redirected...

Troy's birth certificate came back from the US State Dept in D.C. today. I spent half an hour frantically filling out another G-1 form, coping my passport photo page again, making photocopies of all the pages attached to his birth certificate so far, and then headed to the post office. I bought an USPS Express mail envelope and had it prepaid and addressed back to me, added in my $25 money order made out to the Consulate of the P.R. China and then...(whew!) took it all to the UPS Store and sent it BACK to Washington D.C. via Next Day service. Hopefully the Embassy in D.C. will move as quickly as the Embassy in Chicago and I'll have it back next week sometime.

Now, just gotta wait at the finish line for that I-171H.......

I was bopping around...

amongst my laptop sticky notes, and I ran across my "baby name brainstorm" list. (Sidenote on the aforementioned stickies: Troy makes fun of me because I have about 39 different sticky notes that are scattered ALL over my desktop. They are jumbled. They are disorganized. They make me smile. I love them and I know where everything is at all times.)

Anyway, I thought I'd jot that list in here, since this blog is becoming the first few chapters of Laney's baby book. And I have "baby name ideas" listed in all of my other children's baby books.

SO, the final list of names we liked and considered were:

Tessa
Violet
Stella
Sophie
Lucie

But we fell IN LOVE with Laney! Laney Kate is our girl ~ and we love her already. :)

So, where are we at?

Our agency, CCAI (have I mentioned how much I love these people!!), estimate the average family will take 5 months to complete their dossier.

I feel like we're months behind schedule, but I need to take a step back and really evaluate where we're at. We sent our 1st check to CCAI and downloaded the Dossier Manual PDF on 9/11/06. We completed our homestudy in 4 visits and were finished by Thanksgiving.

Today is February 7th and I'm chasing 2 last pieces of paper and we'll be ready to send in our paperwork. The downside? The last 2 papers I need are in people's hands I have no control over making move any faster! USCIS (have I mentioned how NOT rushable the USCIS is? These people will not be hurried), and the US State Dept in D.C.

So, the reality is, even though I feel like we're soo far behind schedule, I really have 4 more official days until we even make the 5 month average dossier timeline date. And then, if it takes me one extra month, that will only be 6 months and that really isn't so bad.

I'm still stressed. :) I still want to see our referral TOMORROW. :) But I feel better. :)

We need to start the campaign -- "Laney Kate in 2008!!"