We got our documents back from the Chinese Consulate in Chicago this past Thursday (July 6th). So, they are authenticated now and are ready to be sent to our agency. We will be sending those out this coming Monday (along with some photos etc.), to arrive by Wednesday. Then they will be sent out with the rest of the those who got their paperwork to Great Wall of China Adoptions by Wednesday to CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs). A few weeks from now we will get our DTC date (documents to China and Logged In Date) letting us know when our file was logged in.

Then the wait begins. But I’d rather be waiting than paper chasing, so I don’t mind.

Exactly one week ago today (the 23rd), we received in the mail our i171H. Again were floored by how speedy the US government was! Maybe they’re starting to get on that internet thing! But seriously I didn’t think the different agencies (in this case the FBI and the USCIS) worked that efficiently with each other. Basically that was eight business days from the time we got fingerprinted to the time we got our approval back. Needless to say when we opened that piece of mail we were all jumping around yelling “we got our approval! We got our approval!” Savannah didn’t really know exactly what that meant, but she’s just happy when she can jump around for any occasion so she thought it was great.

The following Monday (of this week now) we went to The Office of the Great Seal in Lansing (you know, it sounds very austere, but actually it’s a pretty humble little office) and all of our documents certified. Then we came home gathered everything, checked and double checked to make sure we had everything we needed and all detail requirements were fulfilled. We then went to the FedEx office and mailed out all of our documents to a service in Chicago that will take your documents to the Chinese Consulate to Authenticate. They will be picked up by the service next Wednesday and returned back to us on Thursday (July 6th). Then we will send it to our agency and they in turn will send it on to China. I’m not sure how this agency does it but with our last agency we got a group number at that point. This agency might be different. We’ll see.

We are so happy to be at this stage so quickly. I was going to be happy if we got to this stage before I left for China on the 14th, but this is just an awesome answer to prayer. Thank you God!

Well, we did our fingerprinting this past Tuesday (June, 13) and it went well (although, what could go wrong? Actually a lot when you have a three-year-old, I guess.). So now once Detroit USCIS gets our FBI clearance they will send us our i171H approval. In the mean time we have just a couple of other small documents we are wrapping up (and some photos) that will be sent with our dossier to China. Why does this process seem so long? I guess because it really is. But we are on the path…

Boy, was I stunned when I got our fingerprinting appointment paperwork in the mail today! And even more stunned that the dates for our fingerprinting are June 13-17 (any one of those). I guess they must be speeding up a little down at the old Detroit office. Yahoo!

So, once we get these done (which of course we will be doing the first available day—what else would you expect?) I think they say 8 to 12 weeks until we would get our i171H approval to adopt a foreign orphan and bring into the US as our daughter. We couldn’t be happier. Thank you God for your mercies…they are everywhere.

Well, we finally are getting our home study back from our Social Worker and all of our paperwork will go out tomorrow (along with a fat little check—well not that fat by comparison) to USCIS. This is so that they can approve us to bring an orphan into the country as our daughter. This process has taken us from the last week of March until now (although this last week and a half we’ve been waiting on getting the home study back with all of our other paperwork done).
What now? Well, we wait till we get our fingerprinting date from USCIS (to make sure we are not felons) and after that is done—which should take at least two months, if not three. After that, we should get our i171H approval from USCIS in another 10-12 weeks. From there we will put some other paperwork together with our i171H, take it all to the office of the Great Seal in Lansing and have all of our documents Certified. Then we will send them to Chicago to be Authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. THEN we will be ready to send them to China. Yay!
If this all seems too long to get paperwork done, well it is—but only because of all the hoops we have to jump through—THANKS U.S. GOV! But what can one do? Jump through the hoops.
Anyway, we think that under this time frame the earliest we would have our daughter home would be late fall of 2007. Seems like a long time to wait on a pregnancy, but I guess if it can take elephants almost two years then I guess we can wait a year and a half.