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!