I’ll keep this update as short as I can. I get lots of questions from friends and family about our adoption and what part of the process we are currently into. Adoption is a lot of waiting and that’s the stage we are in at the moment.
We’ve finished all our dossier paperwork. For those unfamiliar, the dossier is the packet of paperwork all about Dave and myself that gets sent to China so they know who they are giving one of their children to. After we put together all the documents, most of them needed notarized. After that they were sent to the state of Indiana for certification. They basically affix another letter to each document, along with a sticker seal. The letter just says that the notary on that document is legitimate. After that, we drove those same documents to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. They have to be walked into the line by a human, no mailing option. We could’ve hired a courier if we wanted to, but we love visiting Chicago. So we made a night of it and took them up there ourselves. They kept them for three days and we went back to pick them up again. This is called the authentication process and really just entails a sticker that the Chinese consulate attached to the document that says the state of Indiana is legit. We sent off alllllll those pages to our adoption agency out West, and they looked through it all for errors and corrections. Good news, we are told it’s ready to go to China.
The only catch is that it’s missing one form. It’s missing what is called the I-800A form. And that’s what we are waiting for currently. The I-800A form is something we sent to the USA government. It’s an immigration form, asking permission for Dave and I to bring an immigrant into the USA. It’s actually much more than just a form that we sent them. It was a stack of documents very similar to the dossier. Everything and anything you could want to know about us. We mailed all that off in September. A few weeks after mailing it, we received a letter in the mail with an appointment on it to be fingerprinted. We had to drive to Michigan City for that process. It’s been 3-4 weeks since we did that, and now we are waiting on that approval letter to arrive. They allow us to call and check up on the file anytime we want, but every time I call, they remind me that the average time from fingerprinting to approval is 71 days. Weirdly specific that 71 days, isn’t it? Anyway, our file hasn’t even been assigned a case officer yet is what they told me last week. So we keep waiting.
After I get that form back approved, it will need to get certified by Indiana, and then go to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, just like everything else. Then finally to our adoption agency and they can add it to our dossier to send to China. A few weeks after it reaches China, we will be in the system and can expect a match at any time.
Last thing to update you all on is the little girl I referenced in the glamping blog post. While we felt she was a good match for us, so did another family. Because they are a few months ahead of us in this process, she will be adopted by them, instead of us. Just wanted to update you all on that because a few of you asked if we were getting her or not. When we are actually matched with a child, the file will just be sent to us and only us, so it won’t be the same situation. The reason that little girl’s file was sent to multiple families was because she was a “spotlight” child. Meaning she needed to be adopted ASAP for a medical condition and they put out a plea for one of the families in the adoption process to please adopt her. We are really glad for her that she gets to go to her forever home sooner, rather than later.
We keep praying for the little girl that will be ours. We pray that she is safe. Well fed. Warm. That she has caretakers around her who she can bond to and who genuinely show her love. We pray that she will be open and receptive to us as her new parents. That the transition to a whole new country will not be too hard for her and that the 15+ hour flight will not be too hard on us. 🙂
Thanks everyone for your inquiries and for keeping us and our little lady in your prayers and thoughts.
Much love,
Stac, Dave & Little Miss Miller