A few weeks back we got a referral for a little girl. She was a beautiful 4 year old girl that was just precious. We were so close to saying yes to bringing her home. After talking to a doctor about her and reviewing her file several times, I just had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. She just wasn't our girl. Part of it was, we had an unusually short amount of time to review her file (we are talking hours) and part of it was just that something didn't feel right. We couldn't come up with a yes, so we had to say no. It was so hard to say no. After calling the agency with our answer, I just dissolved into tears. It's an extremely difficult thing to do, to look at a child's video, see her picture, know she needs a family and have to admit to yourself that you just aren't the right family for her. Heartbreaking!
So, we moved on, praying that God would bring that precious girl her family very soon.
In the meantime, we got nearly all of our paperwork for our dossier done.(paperwork that goes to China with our application to adopt). Every piece of paper (there are a total of 13) has to go through several processes. First, you have to notarize it, then you send it to the secretary of state for them to say the notary is legit. Then, you have to send it to a Chinese consulate for them to put a stamp of approval that the document is a real and legitimate document. It has taken months for us to gather 11 of these documents and send them all through the process. So, this picture produced an awesome feeling. 11 out of 13 documents notarized, certified and authenticated. Yay!
So, what we are waiting on now, is our home study to be finalized and approved. Arizona has the lovely additional step of having to go through the juvenile courts for approval. So, we have to wait for that now. We had some delays at getting to this point. So, we are praying that this will go quickly. We would love your prayers that this approval will take closer to 30 days and not the 60 days they are allowed to take.
After (or possibly while we are waiting) local court approval, our international placing agency, CCAI, has to look over the home study and make sure everything is just right. When they approve it, we can send it to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Here they will, hopefully, approve us to bring a child into the United States. This time frame can be huge. Depending on if they decide they need clarification on something or proof of something we have in our home study. Please pray this will not happen and things will get approved quickly (quick is like 35 days for this process). :o) Since, the home study is taking so much longer to get finished then expected, we could really use a break on this step.
After those two things are done, we have to send those through the same process as the other 11 documents. Then, we send them all to CCAI for them to look over with a fine tooth comb. (Hopefully everything will be perfect.) After they look it over, they will bind it up, make it look professional and pretty and send it off to China. And then the waiting begins...
I'm gonna have to double blog this one. Because, before I explain the rest of the process, I would like to let you know of another event that happened this past couple of weeks.
Stay tuned...
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