DTC today (Dossier to China)

God is awesome! Thank you for your prayers!!
It's amazing how quickly things happened once we received the I-171H. Within a matter of weeks we are now DTC! (Dossier on it's way to China). Now we wait for the official log-in date. That is the date we can use to count out 6 months (maybe 7). We did hit a couple snags last week. The consulate in China had dignitaries in for a groundbreaking ceremony. Apparently the are building a new embassy. So their express 24 hour turn-around service turned out to be 48 hours with no cost breaks. Then a glitch with Assistant Stork. They overnighted the paperwork to us and not FTIA for Friday delivery. The problem with that is FTIA sends dossiers every Friday. Our coordinator knows how long we've worked on this. She called on Friday and said if we could get it to her for Monday they would send it with another package the agency was sending. That was great since this Friday they are not sending dossiers due to a holiday in China the following week. The offices would be closed and they don't want packages just sitting outside a closed office.

FTIA confirmed our paperwork went to China today! YEA!! Thank you Kate for all your hard work! I believe the paperwork goes to our FTIA China office for translation and they hand deliver it to CCAA. Once CCAA gets it and logs it in, this is the date to go by.

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance; The red thread may stretch or tangle, but never break.” - Chinese legend

Well, our red thread has certainly stretched (took us over 9 months to complete paperwork - usually only 3-4 mnths). We have also had one tangle after another in those 9 months. But we can now say we are 'paper pregnant'!!!!! Woohoo!!!

Email sent to Family and Friends

On the this site you can follow Erich and I on our journey to adopt our daughter. We chose her first name is Maelynn. We will wait until we get her information before we choose her middle name. Once we complete the paper chase (within a matter of weeks), we wait about 6-7 months to receive the referral. The referral includes her picture, orphanage and China province where she lives, and some generic medical information. After that, we travel 6-8 weeks later for 14 days to China to get our daughter. Our current estimate is December or January travel. The adoption will be finalized over there since we are both traveling. To think our daughter is out there in the world already. What is she doing, who’s taking care of her, what is she eating, and she has no idea that we’re coming for her. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this process.

With much love and soon to be a family of 4,

Robin

Getting Closer!

We are getting so much closer! Thursday Erich and I took off work to authenticate the last (we hope) of the documents. Silly me left the I-171H at work! We had to drive to Covington and pick it up before we got started. That was about an hour delay. From there we headed to Batavia for our criminal reports and to have them and the copy of the I-171H county certified. We swung by Springboro, OH to pick up our Home Study from Cherub International. They had it all ready for us (notorized and county certified). From there we drove to Columbus. We had great directions from FTIA (new adoption agency) and mapquest. We got there about 3:35 PM. We parked on the street where it was a tow away zone starting at 4 PM. Erich thought he'd come out and move it if it got close to time. Turned out, we didn't even need to. We were done, with the 4 doc's state authenticated and still had 22 minutes left on the meter. Excellent! We were on our way home!

Friday I made copies of the doc's and faxed them to our coordinator at FTIA. She gave the OK and we overnighted them to Asst Stork. I just tracked on UPS and it's on it's way! Five doc's left to get authenticated at the China Consulate. Erich's employement verification was sent in the previous packet was not signed by the notary. That document was reviewed by our old agency, new agency, and Asst Stork and was not caught. The DC Secretary of State (or whatever they call themselves) caught it. Steve called Tuesday to let us know. We had him overnight it to MD and they overnight it back to Asst Stork. This shows you that the slightest thing can make it all go haywire!

I-171H is here!

On Thursday, we recieved our I-171H. We started this in November, were fingerprinted in December, Homestudy turned in the begininng of March, and completed on 3/31/05. Friday, we sent 9 of our documents to a courier in Virginia (we are using Assistant Stork) to take the documents through the Secretary of State in DC and the China Consulate. The other documents still need county and state certified in OH. Erich and I will do it this coming week and get the last documents to the DC courier. We're getting closer!!