Dossier Off to China!

Last Thursday, July 12th, our fully authenticated I-800A approval arrived at our agency, then they shipped the entire dossier to China!!! Whoo Hoo! So thankful it's finally on it's way. Looks like we won't get to see referrals until the August list, but I still have hope for July. However, I'm very thankful that the Spirit has given us faith in God's timing being perfect! We only want to see a referral when it's the right time. Our case worker informed us that the list is most often released the last Monday of each month around 6:00 pm. Please be praying for us to be filled with the Spirit to have discernment in this process. It's a tremendous blessing to know that God has ordained this child to be ours from the beginning of time and will lead us to them. Praise God for His Sovereignty and mercy in sending us the Spirit!

I'm currently reading Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray and The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis. They are both a bit overwhelming as I think about where our child is now and what she/he is experiencing each day. However, God has continued to remind me that His grace is sufficient for me and His power is made perfect in weakness.

I can only imagine how hard the wait will be once we're matched. However, yesterday I do feel the yearning started a bit. As I was walking down the hall at work, I just had this overwhelming desire to go get our child....to start loving, protecting, feeding, and rocking her/him. Once again, I'm reminded that God doesn't make mistakes. We'll wait.

I'll keep you posted on the referral!

I800A Off to DC

Well things didn't got exactly as I planned on Thursday. I ran home to get the approval to take to the county and quickly realized it had not made it to us yet. They apparently emailed our agency the approval the same day they put it in the mail to us. Yesterday I was able to take it to the capital for state certification and overnight it to AGCI!! This has been a week of running to make things at the last minute. I almost missed my flight on Monday due to me pushing my shuttle time too late and a ridiculous security line. Since I literally got through the security line at the exact time my flight was scheduled to take off, I ran, very awkwardly, (since I was in 3 in. wedge shoes while carrying my luggage that wouldn't roll) toward my gate while screaming "will you still let me on?". Thankfully they showed me grace and allowed me to board. Then yesterday, after pushing the time a little later than I should to take off from work to make it to capital. I arrived just minutes before closing and ran (once again, awkwardly, due to being in heals and a dress) up the hill to the building in the 100 degree heat. The security lady asked if I was ok and encouraged me to calm down. :) Praise the Lord He allowed me to make it!

It's HERE

We've received our approval!!! Whoo Hoo!!! Four days after our fingerprint appointment. So excited about this news! It took 6 weeks to the day (the day they received our application, that is) for us to receive our approval. Thank you Jesus for this moving along!

Fingerprinting

We just finished round 3 of fingerprinting for the adoption. You'd think they could share them among departments: FBI, USCIS, State of Georgia. Our third and hopefully last (for this adoption) fingerprint appointment was on Monday, June 18th at the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) office here in Atlanta. Time and again Nathan and I have commented that we're so blessed to live in Atlanta while going through the adoption process. Many families have to drive many, many miles to a USCIS office for this process. The office is only 30 minutes from us! The event was pretty painless but we were grew nervous about the wait time upon our arrival. I could suggest just a few hospitality tips that would make the process more pleasant but there seemed to be no takers for my suggestions. Upon arrival you walk in the door to a small "lobby"(I use lobby loosely since it's about a 6x6 square) that is blocked by a rope with a sign stating "STOP..DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THIS POINT". Apparently they only allow a certain number of folks in the building at a time. This would all be fine except that the little space gets very full, very fast. There were at least 15 folks smashed into that little area. Everyone was pleasant but I did feel sorry for the moms with little children. I'll have to admit that my anxiety was growing at this point thinking "if we can't even get into the building, how long is it going to take once we pass "The Rope". Well, to our surprise and delight the rest of the time was very fast, efficient and pleasant. Good job USCIS, minus your greeting! We're now eagerly waiting on our approval from them in order to send our dossier to China!

Whew!!

Praise the LORD we were able to send our portion of the dossier off to our agency on Monday, June 4th. Sadly, this is not a picture of our documents, but ours would look very similar plus about 10 family/ home photos, passport copies then all of it multiplied by 3 since we had to send originals plus 3 photocopies. I'm so sad that I didn't take a picture before I sent it off!! Can't believe I forgot to do that...I was just so anxious to get it to Fed Ex accurately. I must have checked and re-checked it at least 10 times. There was seriously a knot in my stomach when I dropped it in....did I remember everything? Are all of our notaries EXACTLY right? Are all of our documents filled out correctly...geese! Praise the Lord for His Sovereignty and Control in which we can put our trust. So for the sake of record-keeping, we mailed the dossier to AGCI on June 4th to be sent to Washington DC for authentication. This should take about 3 weeks. Once we receive our I800A approval from USCIS, we'll expedite it through the authentication process and send our entire Dossier to China. Our USCIS fingerprint appointment is scheduled for June 18th. I've heard most folks receive their approval about one month after their fingerprinting appointment.

I-800 A

Well, today is a huge day. We're finally mailing off our I-800 A application to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The I-800 A is an "Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country". This form has to be accompanied by our completed Home Study....this document's completion has been delayed a bit longer than I would have liked so we're SO grateful to say that process is behind us (for now). The approval of this I-800 A application allows our dossier to be complete and mailed to PRC. It's currently taking up to 90 days to receive approval but many families have received them in 60-70 days. We're really hoping for that!! Now we're concentrating on the final documents for our dossier then I'll take them all to be county certified, then state certified. Once certified, I can send them to AGCI to ship to DC for authentication. We'll then just be waiting on our I-800 A approval which we will expedite through the authentication process and mail to PRC!! Once they log our dossier into their system, we can begin to receive referrals. God really has provided much peace and patience for us. Praise, praise, praise God for His mercy! I know it's the Holy Spirit because my flesh is constantly wanting to rush, rush, rush.

Sigh

I feel like we can take a breather for a minute. We've completed all of our training, filled out our special needs list and are waiting to review our home study to be sent to immigration. This will be our first Saturday since the middle of January that we haven't worked on training or paperwork. It couldn't be a better time as we get to spend this weekend mediating on the death and resurrection of Christ. We're praising God for His huge sacrifice on our behalf and for His power over death!