A VERY long wait

Well, we're 2 days shy of two months since having our paperwork logged in at China. I wonder how long before we hear anything?

The wait is getting harder because, while families are still being allowed to adopt after approval, thankfully, no foreigners are being allowed to visit any of the other children at the orphanage, due to swine flu concerns. :-( So we have not had any pictures or reports or even glimpses of Yan since mid-March. We think about, and pray for him and his caregivers often. Your prayers and encouragement help our long wait also :-) . Thanks!

It's interesting to speculate (and try to prepare!) for life for Yan in Montana. Someone from a coastal city warned us yesterday that Yan will very possibly get high altitude sickness when he first moves here :-O, and suffer skin-wise from our low humidity levels until he acclimates. Lots of HUGE changes in store for the little guy! PTL God has the timing already in His control! :-) And so we wait some more until we know when that is...

LID!!

We have an LID of May 25th! That won't mean anything to most of you, LOL, but that's an important date on the longggg, tedious, international adoption journey simply meaning that is the date that China officially logged our Dossier into their system and started the translation and review process. We still have little idea how long it will take to get LOA (letter of approval to come adopt him), but the next time we hear from China SHOULD be for that. Little steps forward! We have been told that the time from LID to LOA will be anywhere from 2-6 months in length. Hard to plan ahead, but we're trusting in God for the RIGHT timing.

Thanks for any and all continued prayers!

The Longgggg Wait has begun

The Long Wait for LOA (letter of approval to adopt from China) has begun. I have learned that DTC (Date to China) is actually the date our Dossier flew to China, which was 5-8-09. We're still waiting to hear that our Dossier was successfully logged in (LID). So many new terms! ;-D

So we're at day 14 in our countdown to LOA. It's hard to be enthusiastic right now since our agency says it'll be 3-6 MONTHS before we get LOA. Wow. I've seen some couples get LOA in less than 50 days, but they already had translated Dossiers sitting in China before they were matched with a child. We're doing this backwards... which is pretty typical for our family ;-D.

Our photo album for Yan flew to China 5-15-09. Please help pray it gets to him soon, and that he likes what he sees? How scarey for any little child to comprehend (or can they even?) alllll of the huge changes about to take place in their lives! And for them to have no control or say so in what's about to happen. We need to totally rely on God that this will be the best Plan for Yan, and of course for the timing of going to bring him home. :-) We're all five anxious to meet this little guy who has already captured all our hearts!

We FINALLY (we hope!) have jumped through all of the hoops, and rushed alllll of the paperwork to have a finished Dossier sitting at our agency, waiting for a final review and approval before flying off to China. Until it actually reaches China and is logged in (aka DTC), nothing can proceed in this adoption. We continue to pray for God’s Perfect Timing in all this, but it’s very hard to plow along at such a slowww rate when we’re ready to bring Yan home yesterday!



We often wonder how Yan is feeling about the speed of this adoption (and if he even fully comprehends it yet, let alone wants to be adopted by us). We get to send Yan a photo album of our family now. It turned out to be HARD to pick “just the right” photos to present ourselves as a family he might want to go live with… when our cultures are so vastly different. Even the fact that he lives in a very large factory city in the subtropics, and quite possibly has never seen the countryside, contrasts so sharply with our 10 acre farm in the mountains of southwest Montana!

The Dossier will have to go to a translation department in China, and be totally translated into Mandarin Chinese, before it can go up for review. If we are approved, we will receive a LOA (Letter of Approval), which will start more paperwork here in the US as we line up visas, final approvals, make embassy appointments in China, and make travel arrangements. I am still amazed at how many couples stick with the process! :-)

Two big steps forward :-)

Our I797C (permission to immigrate Yan to the US) came in today's mail! It's amazing how innocuous that one piece of paper looks, and yet how critical it is to the whole process. Since it's Saturday afternoon, we'll have to wait until Monday before we can notarize, certify, authenticate, etc.

Meanwhile, all of our other key Dossier documents made it through the authentication process and made it back here on 4/15. It took us aback a bit to see Hillary Rodham Clinton's signature on each document (she's the Secretary of State). It took 96 zeroxes and over an hour to collate everything, but the originals and a complete set of zeroxes are now at our adoption agency for a checkover. When the authenticated I797C catches up with them, and all are approved, the Dossier gets to go to China for review!

Slowww but great progress :-).

New Info and Pictures from China!!

Yesterday we received some new information and 5 new photos of Yan. :-) How precious! The information (brief but wonderful to receive) says that Yan is now 39" tall, weighs 33#, can now run and jump, is curious about everything, loves playing with blocks and action figures, likes games, and likes to go outside to play. They mentioned liking to play outside twice, which is great since we live on a small farm in hiking/skiing/biking country in Montana :-).



There was no new medical information. Yan has a high risk of glaucoma in his Port Wine Stain covered eye, and a few other complications, but judging by his smiles in the photos, he's doing okay right now, which is just wonderful to see. Please keep his physical and emotional health in prayer? Thanks!

Starts and Stops in Paperwork

The incredible levels of paperwork and hoops needed for an international adoption continue to astound me. It’s amazing so many international adoptions are ever completed! ;-D We have completed three domestic adoptions. No comparison!!

Now that the Immigration paperwork (called an I800A) is off (just received acknowledgement on day 15), we are hard at work compiling the Dossier. When 3 of 11 documents sent to our state’s capital were rejected, we got a crash course in how notaries are supposed to notarize documents. :-} The corrected documents were sent again, and arrived a few days later. I then zeroxed, compiled, and sent 12 documents to the US Dept of State in Washington, DC for authentication on 3/25/09. Then they’ll (hopefully) be forwarded over to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC for authentication by them. Then back to us, so we can send them to our adoption agency and be certain they’re ready and in compliance for travel to China. They can’t actually travel to China UNTIL we get the proper piece of paper from Immigration (and then notarize it, certify it and doubly authenticate it also!). And we can’t get that proper piece of paper until we get fingerprinted in our state’s capital. And we can’t go get fingerprinted until Immigration makes an appointment for us. More hoops!

I estimate we have now filled out some 165 pages, and zeroxed another 263 pages! The postman at our local post office now knows me by sight :-}, and is rooting for the adoption too ;-D (he commented I was in there an awful lots these days!). We have lots more pages to go yet.

And so we persist as rapidly and accurately as we can… PTL we have an adoption agency that helps us so much!