Showing posts with label Adoption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adoption. Show all posts

Monday, February 9, 2015

Adoption timeline

For those wondering where we are in the adoption process, here is your post! This will also provide some guidance for those looking to adopt from China and curious how long the process may take. For those adopting from other programs, your timeline will look very different.
We are adopting a little girl from China with special needs. We are unsure of the special needs she will have at this point until we are matched. This type of adoption, on average takes 18 months. We started October 2014 so we are 4 months in. There is a ton of paperwork and Jake and I have started to call it a labor of love!

10/6/14 application faxed to CCAI and medical checklist completed
10/10/14 initial application approved
10/11/14 home study application sent
10/15/14 notarized and mailed fee/ service agreement
10/20/14 dossier and home study packets sent
11/8/14 first social worker visit
11/30/14 home visit in our home
12/23/14 Home study approved
01/14/15 USCIS (1800A) application sent in
02/14/15 FBI Fingerprinting appointment
 
And there we are! We are waiting for our USCIS approval. Once this is complete, it has to be notarized/ certified and then we compile our dossier documents. The last step before our dossier is sent to China, is a trip to the Chinese Embassy in Houston TX. Documents have to be hand delivered there and hand picked up in Houston...so a road trip is in our future! It would be close to a miracle to have her home by the end of this year so we are looking at early 2016.
 
 Here are some wonderful gifts we received at Christmas
 Paperwork upon paperwork
 See how excited Jake is?!
 Claire helping in the process!
 Waiting on police reports, its a team effort
And the USCIS documents mailed

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Chinese New Year!

So, it's recommended in the adoption world to celebrate the culture you are adopting your child from. I love this idea and I find the Chinese culture fascinating even though I don't know much about it. We decided to start with the Chinese New Year and although we don't have our daughter yet, this was a wonderful time to immerse ourselves in a little bit of Chinese culture and join in this celebration!
 
The Chinese New Year marks the turn of the Chinese calendar (Lunar) and is also known as the Spring Festival. Customs and traditions circling this holiday include festivals, food, gift exchanges/ red envelopes, fireworks, music and the Dragon Dance! The dragon is a symbol in China that represents good luck.
 
So tonight we ordered Chinese (I plan to master Chinese food but tonight I needed easy), made dragon masks, crafted homemade fortune cookies, practiced using chopsticks, watched Dragon Dance videos and listened to Jake tell us about his trip to China in 2010. It was a wonderful evening, we all really enjoyed learning about the culture and talking about the country our daughter is born in.


 


 
Fortune cookie craft