A Mei Mei for Cackie and a daughter for Michael and I! We are soo happy to let everyone know that we have officially started the paperchase for our 2nd daughter from China.
China is making some changes to their rules and beginning May 1 will give preference to couples between the ages of 30 and 50. There are quite a few other rule changes, but this is the big one that really hits home for us. So, we decided to dive right in and get our dossier to China before they change the rules.
We started working with our social worker on December 19 and reapplied with our adoption agency, CCAI. We've had 3 visits with our social worker (she even came by the house on New Year's Day to meet with us!) and will hopefully have our 4th and final visit early next week to review our homestudy. Once our homestudy is complete we can have our FBI fingerprints done and then we wait on the I-171H from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services. This is basically our U.S. Government clearance to adopt an unidentified foreign born child. We can't submit our paperwork to China until we recieve this document, it is sooo very important. While we wait for our I-171H we'll be working on all the other documents that we need to include in our dossier to China.
This adoption will take a lot longer than when we adopted Cackie. There are families who should be receiving referrals this week who have been waiting 15 to 16 months since their paperwork was received in China. That wait will most likely get longer. Right now we have to concentrate on getting our paperwork completed and submitted to China, after that we have plenty of time to stress about the wait.
Happy New Year everyone!
~Deanna, Michael & Cackie
