WE MADE IT!!

We officially are approved! We passed! Everything is clear!! We are definitely going to adopt a baby girl from China!!
I turned in the last of our paperwork today and we got word from Bethany, our case manager, that we are officially approved. The next step is to go through the home study. This will consist of one home visit and and two visits in the office with a home study case worker. During this we start our immigration paperwork and dossier paperwork. The immigration paperwork is filed with USCIS (United States Center for Immigration Services - I think that's what it stands for) and just lets China and US know we are bringing a resident from China to live in the US. The dossier paperwork is kind of an advertisement about us to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The CCAA is the nationwide organization that handles all adoptions in China. The CCAA will go through our dossier then match us with a child. They will look at pictures of Lyndal and I on separate sheets of paper and try to find a baby that looks like us. (We're gonna get one with a big nose, aren't we? Ha Ha! - that's Lyndal's joke) It sounds wierd that they try to match a caucasion family with an Asian baby, but remarkably they do a very good job! I am very happy with this process in that I could NEVER look at a file folder of pictures of baby girls and pick one to be ours, I would pick them all. Or I would find one for everyone I know. The CCAA is caught up with everyones dossier to June 15, 2005! They seem to do about a weeks worth of dossiers in about 3 months!! There are a lot of people wanting to adopt baby girls from China, there aren't as many babies that are "paper ready" even though there are A LOT of children in orphanages, and domestic adoption is on the rise in China. This gives us some things to pray about.
Now that Ethan has turned a very ornery 1 year old, our baby girl can be born at any time now. The last batch of referrals that came in (babies matched with their families for Dillon, our agency) were 6-10 mos. old. My thinking is that since we haven't turned in our dossier yet and since the CCAA is running at about 11 mos., she will probably be born around December or January of 2007? I could be completely off base, especially since I'm not much of a math person! At any rate she is probably growing in her mommy's tummy right now! Despite what I think, God knows every hair on her head, her birth mommy's head, and her birth father's head, and He is going to surround her with love wherever she is. She will know she is a chosen one right from the start. I pray for her birth parents a lot and this horrible decision they are going to have to make, that they have a peace about them and just somehow know that this is the right decision.

Not just yet . . . but soon we will be approved!

We have to turn in one more piece of paper and then we will be officially approved! I have to have Conner do an updated physical (Nicci and Ethan's was within the two year time limit). I didn't think I needed to do this, I thought I just had to go in and have a current height and weight and a copy of their shot records. But that is the only thing I sorta messed up on!! Pretty good for turning in all that paperwork.
Bethany, our case manager, said she enjoyed reading our application - that was so nice to hear! She said that once we turn that in then we will be approved and get to move on to the next step which is the home study process. We meet three times with a home study case manager, once in our home and two times at Dillon's offices which are based in Tulsa. Our home study case manager is Rebecca Hackworth. She is Pastor Paul's daughter. Pastor Paul was the pastor at St. James before Pastor Gary. We do not personally know Pastor Paul, but I had one of his granddaughter's in my class at church (not Rebecca's daughter). So, that connection is kind of cool.

Cool Bible Verse!

Isaiah 43:5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.

Isn't that just awesome! Because God is AWESOME!

Bethany is currently reviewing our application. Once she's done we will know if we get to move onto the next phase which is the home study. Hopefully I'll know something by this Friday!

TELEO!!

I think that means "it is finished" in Hebrew. I learned that in college. Anyway, we turned in our App. II today!!! They say that this is the hardest part of the whole process and it's all downhill from here. I am so relieved! This has been our fourth child for several weeks now and hopefully I can get back to taking care of our house and laundry. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my family, especially my husband, for neglecting things around here because I've been so busy with this paperwork (I know ya'll still love me!).
The next step is for us to be approved. I asked our case manager what causes a family to be unapproved and she said that if there was something in the background check, some medical problem, or a concern in a reference letter then a family would be turned down. So, we should be approved next week and then we move on to the home study phase. We meet with a home study case worker three times. I think while this starts we get the first part of the paperwork for immigration.
God is so good!

STILL crunch time

Well, Monday has come and gone and we still haven't turned in our App. II and the paperwork that goes with it. We had a little delay in our taxes, but that will be remedied tomorrow and I am planning to turn everything in Thursday or Friday. We took some more pictures of our whole family this evening. I finished taking pictures of different rooms in our home yesterday. I am signing and dating things today, waiting on a couple of things from Lyndal, we got our application notarized today, and I still have to make copies of everything. We are REALLY so close now that I can almost taste it! What a relief. I'll post again when we actually turn it in.