Homestudy Status

Got an email from CCAI yesterday - they have reviewed our homestudy report. Also heard back from SW - homestudy report will be notarized and mailed to us for our dossier next week and we should have it by next Friday. It will be sent to immigration at the same time.

Meanwhile, I need to get the rest of our documents ready to be notarized - there is very specific wording that must be used for those items we will be notarizing as copies.

Homestudy Draft

We got an email from our SW today with our draft homestudy report to review - exactly when she said we would get it! We had to clarify and correct a couple of things and send it back. SW says that it is on its way to her supervisor to review and should be sent to immigration the week after Christmas. Meanwhile she is also going to send the report to CCAI for review to be sure everything required to be included by China is there for our dossier. It looks like Santa has given me my top wish - for our homestudy report to go to immigration by the end of the year! Now for my second wish - a super speedy processing and approval by immigration - I hear they are running slow, so I'll have to wish really really hard...Dear Santa...

Authentication #2 Complete

I received my authenticated birth certificate today - that's 2 Consulates down, one to go. Our paperchase is in the end phase. We expect to receive our homestudy report before Christmas to send to immigration. Meanwhile we will notarize the remainder of our documents and take them to the Secretary of State and Chinese Consulate for authetication either right before or right after the holidays. After that we wait for the I-171 (immigration approval) - we've seen reports of this taking up to 4 months out of the Chicago office. Only after we receive and authenticate the I-171 can our dossier be sent to China.

Rockettes Are Rockin'

We went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular show on Saturday. It was a great show - lots of fun - live animals for the nativity and snow inside the theater. I can't wait until we can take Hana and watch the excitement on her face! As I decorate and get ready for the holidays I'm constantly thinking of how we can make this a magical time of year for her - it's going to be so much fun...

Shaoey and Dot

I ventured to Target a couple of weeks ago with a friend. As we were hunting for gel pens the office supply section I came upon a small stand with several adoption related books (strange place to put it, don't ya think?). This one immediately caught my eye - Shaoey and Dot - the illustrations are very good. As I flipped through it I realized that it is specific to China adoption and it'll be a great story to read to Hana and to help all of us talk about her own adoption story. Even though I promised myself that I wouldn't buy anything for her until after our paperwork is in China, I just couldn't pass it up - it's too perfect.

BC Boomerang

I got my birth certificate back from the Secretary of State's office and it should be on it's way to the NY Consulate for authentication tomorrow or Tuesday - as soon as I can get an express mail label from the USPS. Next I'll be finalizing our financial statement and adoption petition and getting the rest of our documents ready to be notarized. I'm seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the paperchase tunnel!

Final Homestudy Visit

We had our final homestudy visit today. This time our social worker asked us questions related to our marriage, discipline, etc. She also took a quick tour and did our individual interviews. She really enjoyed the veggies, too! All went well and it was a very pleasant visit. As soon as she gets our reference letters she will begin working on our draft report. We've asked our references to email their letters since we don't know how long our former homestudy agency will take to send our file. We also need to give her a copy of the financial statement that we are preparing for our dossier...better get to work on that!

Veggie Tales

Location: self checkout at Jewel
Time: 3:00 PM
The cell phone rings. It's the social worker saying she's going to be early for our 3:30 homestudy visit. There we are with armloads of raw, unwashed, uncut veggies frantically scanning, sweet talking the self checkout monitor into scanning her discount card for us, and imploring the machine to stop the "unexpected item in bagging area" speech. We race home (at the posted speed limit of course), discussing our strategy on the way. Jacek will wash and cut the veggies as I transfer the pumpkin loaf and cheese block to serving plates. I will pour the blue cheese dressing into the dipping cup and then will shake the excess water from the sliced veggies and arrange prettily on the plate. We were done in 10 minutes flat. I think that's a record. And this was no cheesy veggie tray - we had carrots, celery, mushrooms, red pepper, broccoli and orange cauliflower - all needed slicing except the carrots. 10 minutes. We rock!

Flights & Fingerprints

We were to have our second homestudy visit on Friday morning but Jacek's flight was cancelled and he couldn't get in until after lunch. So we resceduled for next Saturday. We did get our State fingerprints done. Since we opted to not get our foster care license we had to have them done and sent to our homestudy agency. DCFS won't share. So that was our fourth fingerprinting - only one more to go for immigration - too funny! :)

In Illinois, when adopting internationally you are required to get a foster care license unless both parents are traveling. Many families get it anyway just in case at the last minute only one parent can travel. Well, our new SW put it this way - if something happens to one of us that is serious enough to keep us from traveling to China, the other would not want to go anyway. In the unlikely event that did happened we could delay travel, therefore we decided not to get the license.

Reset

Wow! The difference was like night and day! Our new case worker from our new homestudy agency came over on Saturday and she's already spent more time with us than our former social worker did in all 4 of our required meetings - and already knows more about us - and has already given us 3 times the information than we got before. And you know what? The 3 hours flew by! Our new SW is great! We are so happy we changed agencies. Now the HS is positive and informative, as we think it should be. Our next meeting is Friday morning. I'll be working this week on getting documentation together for our file. It feels great to finally relax and know we are on the road again.

BOO!

Tuesday loves Halloween! And she did a fantastic job as official kid gauge:

Tail wag = Kids are next door!
Tail-butt combo wag = Kids are on the front walk!!
Full body swing wag with feet lifting off the ground = There here!!! Just to see ME!!!

She adores kids and didn't even get weirded out by the neighbor boy's freaky head to toe hairy scary mask. Stay tuned for Count Dogula next year - Buahahahahahaha! With her white face, a vampire is perfect - but apparently a lot of people with medium/big dogs think the same thing because this is the second year in a row her size was sold out early.

H-2

Many of you know we decided to change home study agencies. We have chosen Glenkirk after receiving several outstanding recommendations. They seem to be very open, friendly and down to earth like we are and we are so excited to get started with them. Our first meeting is this coming Saturday at our place, so I'll be frantically cleaning this week, I'm sure! The good news is, we should get through the home study fairly quickly since we've already had the classes and fingerprints. It feels great to be back on track!

Government Efficiency

Yes, you read that right. While typically an oxymoron, in this case it's true! We received our FBI reports yesterday - just 3.5 weeks after they received the request! Their website estimates a 6-8 week turn around time, so this was amazingly fast! What a nice surprise!

Birth Cert Blues

My birth certificate came back from PA today - with a letter saying I need to resubmit it with proper payment. No, I didn't forget payment, I wrote a check for the wrong amount. Their website says certification of documents is $15 "per signature". There are 2 signatures on the document, so I paid $30. Apparently it's $15 per document, regardless of the number of signatures. Feeling just a little silly right now! :)

Steel Doggie

I wish, I wish, I wish that the Steelers beat the Bengals today!
Oh, and I wish really really hard that they make it to the Super Bowl this year!

Update: Tuesday's first wish came true! Here's hoping Wish #2 comes true, too! Go Steelers!

Just the Facts

It's Thursday. 8:45 PM. Mary is upstairs reading. Jacek is conquering lands in Rome Total War. Tuesday is taking advantage of being unsupervised and is stretched out on the couch. The cats are sitting silently, plotting their revenge on the dog for her existence. The house is quiet. Suddenly, the phone rings. Jacek answers. It's Joe Friday from the FBI, he says (ok, so it's not really Joe, but it is really the FBI). He says he has an application form from Jacek missing a birth date. Jacek says "thanks so much for calling, I can give it to you right now." Joe says "OK". Jacek stated his birth date. Joe takes a closer look at the form in front of him. He says "Oh! I see this is for an adoption, so I don't have to ask you about a deadline - this is an extra special quick delivery"! Jacek told Joe that he "really really appreciated it".

We weren't expecting this report back until the end of November - hopefully this means we'll get it a little sooner! Fingers crossed! By the way, strange hours at the FBI records office, huh? It would have been 9:45PM West Virginia time.

Mahalo to the LA Consulate!

I can't believe it! Jacek called me at work today to tell me that our authenticated marriage certificate is back from the China Consulate in LA! That was lightning fast! They just received it a week ago!

Passable Passport

I received my amended passport today - that was fast! I didn't know this, but when you change to your married name on your passport they do not create a new passport, they simply stamp the ammended information onto the inside back cover. That would explain why the application form didn't have a checkbox for "change my terrible picture, please!"

Currently waiting for:
Birth Certificate (at PA Secretary of State for state certification)
Marriage Certificate (at LA China Consulate for authentication)
FBI Report for Home Study (at WV Records Division)

Jacek Visits CCAI

Jacek was in Denver for work this week, so I had him pack the camera just in case he had a free minute to do a drive by photo shoot of CCAI's office. Well, despite the snow storm, he made it there today! I figured he would take photos of the sign outside, and he did - then he went inside. He introduced himself and said the staff could not have been more welcoming. They gave him a tour of their offices and he even met Josh and Lily, the founders - there they are in the photo! He didn't know who they were until I saw the picture and told him. He got some really great shots for our scrapbook and surprised me with one of the Love Bears from the website - they are even cuter live!!! OK, gotta go now, Tuesday (our dog) is stalking the love bear!

LA Consulate

Our marriage certificate is on its way to the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China, LA office for Authentication. This is the last step for the document before adding it to our dossier. I'm not sure how long it takes to process, but we have some time. We still have our other documents to send to the New York and Chicago consulates.

FCC Chicago & China Cares

We joined our local Families with Children from China chapter and I went to the first monthly Waiting Families meeting today. The topic was China Cares - a new group that is forming at Northwestern University. Their mission is to raise money to fund things like surgeries and foster care for China's orphans. They are also planning to start regular play groups for children adopted from China that will include fun activities that will teach the children about their Chinese heritage. When the children reach 9, they can then move into the mentoring program. It sounds very promising and the students are very enthusiastic. It will provide a great service to adopted Chinese children!

Core Conditioning

Yeah, OK, Hey! Uh, hello! Back Off! AhahahahahahahHAHAHA!

That was me working out this morning. I've known for years that Cleo and Odette are yoga fanatics - they can't resist helping me with the poses. Now this morning I find out that my new pilates partner is Tuesday. She pushed me to do my best by making the movements more challenging - leg lift? Ah, but can YOU do a successful leg lift with an unexpected dog neck block? Can YOU stay focused in your floorwork with sniffing in your ear and sloppy kisses all over your head? How about with the Cuz toy poking into your sides or tickling the bottom of your foot? HA!

To put this in perspective - Cleo and Odette are 6 and 11 pounds cats respectively. Tuesday is a solid STRONG 54 pound pit bull mix - not as easy to gently coax out of the way - especially when she thinks pilates is so neat! Love her!!!!!

2nd Day Air x 2

Today my passport went to South Carolina to be changed to my married name and my birth certificate went to Pennsylvania for a state certification. I have no idea how long it will take to get these back. I figured out that I can print and pay for UPS shipping online and we have the envelopes at home and the drop box is right outside my office building door - that makes it easy!
I also recieved our certified and state certified marriage certificate yesterday.

Next steps:
Marriage certificate to Chinese Consulate in LA for authentication.
Upon return from PA, birth certificate to Chinese Consulate in NY for authentication.
Finish Adoption Petition & Financial Statement.

Oops!

So we got our fingerprints taken at the police outpost at a mall, I wrote a wonderful records request letter and on Friday afternoon we popped it into a UPS envelope and sent it on its way to the FBI. I woke up yesterday morning with nice sense of accomplishment - this surprise hurdle was cleared and now we simply wait. As I was happily checking in on fellow adoption bloggers I glanced down at my desk and see the copy of my very eloquent letter to be filed...suddenly two little words struck my eyes like a white hot poker - "MONEY ORDER"! A rush of panic overtook my entire being as I realized our fingerprints were on our way to the FBI without payment!

I sat paralyzed, watching the mintues tick slowly by - all 40 of them - until the magic 8 o' clock hour - UPS Store opening! I raced (ok, walked) down the street, clenching my reciept like it was gold. I explained myself to the thoroughly unimpressed and slightly annoyed store manager. He had the disdainful "you're such a UPS novice" look on his face, but maintained a polite manner and ultimately saved the day - he found our letter and made a new envelope and label and with money order enclosed, it will still make it to the FBI by Wednesday. Mission (finally) accomplished.

I-600A Filing Date

We recieved our letter from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) today verfiying receipt of our I-600A form and payment. Our filing date is 9/20. The I-600A is the Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. After they recieve our home study (in 2+ months due to the new fingerprints processing time), they will send us a letter telling us to be fingerprinted (yes, again). From there it can take several MONTHS before we receive our approval letter. So the bottom line is we are likely looking at at least 6 months before our dossier can be sent to China - a little longer than I had hoped for. Hopefully we get lucky and are on the bottom end of the estimated processing times - fingers crossed!

Inka-dink A Bottle of Ink...

...can't remember the rest of the saying. Anyay, we got our fingerprints done tonight the old fashioned way - with ink! We now have to send the card to West Virginia and they will send us our FBI records - OOOooooo! We found out it is NOT a new state law as told to us by our social worker - it is a DCFS rule. We can send them out Friday, after Jacek signs the letter and then we wait 6-8 weeks. We are hoping the prints are good and will not need to be re-done - the officer didn't seem to do all of them correctly/fully. We'll see. I figure at this point I better start believing whatever delays we encounter are there to guide us down the road to the specific child who is meant for us.

PS: the officer actually asked us (in a very nice grandfatherly way) if we could have our "own" children - funny how when people know you are adopting they are less inhibited asking very personal questions. When we get further along in the paperchase I'll post about some of the funnier, strange and even rude comments we've gotten so far. We were forewarned it would happen but it still takes you by surprise a little.

Happy Anniversary!

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary last night. We started with mai tais and an ahi appetizer at Trader Vic's, then ventured to Roy's, a Hawaiian fusion restaurant, for dinner. Their service is perfect - this is the second year in a row that they honored our reservation request for a good table - they seated us at a four top by the window - and the wait staff was amazing. We enjoyed dinner, champagne and of course the molten chocolate souffle for dessert. This food of the gods is known as warm chocolate cake at the Hukilau Lanai at the Kauai Coast Resort - we had it as our wedding cake on our wedding night. It's almost too good - It's sinful and rich and warm and gooey and I could go on, but I have to wipe the drool off of my chin...anyway, they also brought us a plate with "Happy 2nd Anniversary" written in chocolate with a mini creme brulee and a candle - it was so nice. And of course we forgot the camera so no picture - but you do get a picture of the chocolate souffle...if there's a Roy's near you, run - it's worth every cent!

After dinner, we went back to our room at the Palmer House Hilton - wonderful hotel. Our friend in the hotel business upgraded us to the Executive Tower - NICE!

It was a wonderful night!

You Dropped a Bomb On Me! (80's tune)

Today our social worker did our home visit. She toured the house, asked for measurements of the bedrooms, talked breifly about basic safety, and asked us some questions for the home study that we had not yet covered. But before all of that, she "dropped the bomb"...Illinois passed a new law that a home study cannot be approved with out CIS (formerly INS) approval. Well, guess what? CIS does not issue approval without an approved homestudy. Can you say Catch 22? So what we have to do to satisfy this is to get a third set of fingerprints done. We have to go to the police station and they will fingerprint us onto an FBI card - with ink - we then send the card to the FBI, who will return our record. The record goes to our social worker for inclusion in our home study. Then the process resumes as usual - homestudy goes to CIS who then send us notice to get fingerprinted, then they send us a letter approving us to adopt internationally. So overall we will be fingerprinted 3 times - 2 of those times are from the same FBI database. Can you sense my annoyance? I'm sure there is a more efficient way to do this but our state lawmakers were apparently unable to think of it. This could add an additional 6-8 weeks to the paperchase. OK, I'm off to do some deep breathing! :)

An RTH Exclusive!

Exclusive interview, that is! Jacek and I completed our individual interviews with our social worker - his last Thursday, mine tonight. We spilled the beans on our childhoods, upbringing, school years, accomplishments and activities. Only one more visit to go - next week in our home.

We also gained access to our dossier preparation guide from the agency - wow. The next few months (or so) will be busy getting everything together - and doing it right - very precise requirements and we are going to be dealing with 3 different states! Yikes! Luckily the guide is awesome and will help keep us organized as we labor through it.

Ladybug, Ladybug...

...stay right here! We just had our very first ladybug sighting! Ladybugs are the good luck symbol for those adopting from China. The very special thing is that this ladybug was sitting on our plumeria! For those who don't know, our plumeria is our most precious plant and my favorite flower - we brought it back from Hawaii. It's been enjoying summer outside and growing like crazy (no flower yet, though). And now it has a little ladybug friend!

Sweet Dreams for the Fashionista

We have a crib! OK, you might be saying "isn't it a little early for that?"...well, a family that Jacek's mom works for asked her if she knows anyone in need of a crib - and now it's ours! It's an oak color and is in great shape - how lucky are we?! Also, Jacek's mom gave us a big bag of baby clothes - all like new - that she bought at a garage sale - many cute things! Fun!

CCAI Approval

We heard from CCAI today - they've officially approved us! Our next step is to sign some forms and send them back then they will give us access to their dossier preparation guide and the paperchase will begin. The paperchase is the stage where we gather our official documents to send to China with our homestudy (still in progress). China is very specific on the requirements which include notarizing, certifying and authenticating - in other words it's a long process. We'll keep you posted!

CCAI Application Sent

This morning, I mailed our application to Chinese Children Adoption International. After they review it and hear back from our references they can approve us and then it’s on to the official paperchase.

School's Out!

We had our final adoption class tonight. It was a series of 5 classes covering issues related to adoption, from birthmothers to grief and loss to attachment and more. One class was a panel of couples that have adopted internationally. The classes were very informative, very interesting and gave us the opportunity to discuss specific things we were unsure of or curious about. They gave us a lot to discuss and gave us a strong foundation to prepare us for the adoption. We had a wonderful facilitator!

Hana's First Book

We got a really nice surprise today - Hana received her first book! There was a book fair at work and Sumnima, our Industrial Hygienist found a wonderful children's book set in China. The book is Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett. It is a story about a girl Mei Mei and her chicken Daisy. The illustrations are amazing and reflect life along the Li River in China - if you look very closely you will discover animals hidden in the mountains. What a wonderful gift! A huge thank you to Sumnima! We can't wait to share this story with Hana!

Learn more about the book and author by clicking here and on the title above.

Why "The Road to Hana"?

Hana (HAH-nah) is the name of our future daughter. The name comes from a beautiful little town on the island of Maui, Hawaii where we spent our honeymoon in 2003. The 52 mile road leading to Hana is narrow with many sharp bends and blind curves. It is surrounded with forest, runs along the coast and is dotted with bridges and waterfalls along the way, with the smell of fresh guava in the air. The town of Hana is small and simple. We stayed in a sea ranch cottage at the Hotel Hana-Maui overlooking the ocean. Plumeria was blooming everywhere. The "secret" red beach and Hamoa beach were something out of a dream. It was absolutely amazing and we can't wait to go back. Here's a photo we took of Hamoa beach.

We were so enchanted with the beauty and serenity of the area that we decided right then that our first daughter would be named Hana. Hana is a Japanese, Hawaiian and Hebrew name meaning flower, blossom, graceful, and merciful. It is also an Arabic name meaning happiness or bliss.

Welcome!

Hi everyone! This is the web log of our adoption journey - our own personal "Road to Hana". Visit often to view updates. We will include summaries of where we are in the process, links to interesting information and as soon as one of us can figure out how to do it, we will also include occasional photos. This will serve to keep you informed and most importantly, it will be our journal for this important step in our lives.