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.