Pre-Approval Received

We received a fabulous email today that our Pre-approval has been received! Okay, I guess I should let everyone know what that means. We sent our pre-approval request last month to China letting them know that we want to adopt SiEn. They have received that letter and have pre-approved us for the adoption. Now we have to send them our dossier so that they can officially match us with SiEn. We would have even better news if we could say that our dossier is ready to go, but unfortunately it is not.

The dossier consists of a letter of intent (a letter promising that we will provide for SiEn and not abuse or abandon him), certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license, a financial statement, letters from our physician stating we are in good health, letters from our employers saying that we really do work and get paid, letters from our local police department stating we have no criminal record (I know that is pretty humorous), pictures of us and our home, our home study, and approval from our government to bring an orphan into the country. Piece of cake, right? We are now on first name basis with our doctor's nurse (Debbie) and have every shot we could imagine asking for (some more than once). Dr. Lilly got our forms filled out (one for each of us for the home study agency and then another for China) and I had them in my hand on Monday, but then I had to point out that we needed a letter too (for each of us) because we have had the pleasure of having surgeries in our lifetimes. So now we are waiting for the doctor to give us a letter that says that missing tonsils, one missing appendix, and a crooked finger will not hinder us from parenting. That is the last form that we have control of, once we get that completed we are only waiting on our home study to be completed before the next step.

Our home study consists of four visits with our case worker Marilyn. Marilyn is a sweet lady who we have completed 3 visits with at her office. Tuesday 11/20 is when our final home study visit is scheduled for. Marilyn will be coming to our home for that visit. She then will compile her report to send to our adoption agency to review and make any revision recommendations. Once our adoption agency gives the home study their blessing it gets finalized. When we recieve the finalized home study we can apply with the government to get pre-approval to bring an orphan into the country. That process can take anywhere from 5-8 weeks and includes a trip to Kansas City to get fingerprinted. Once we recieve that approval our dossier is complete and can go to China!!!! We are hoping to get this completed before the end of January, but we are depending on things to go smoothly and swiftly.

We have been watching the time frame that other adoptions are running with our agency. For the past year it seems that from the time the dossier goes to China (DTC in adoption lingo) until travel occurs is running approximately 4 months. So if we can get our DTC the end of January or beginning of February we could be traveling in May. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that we can make this happen.

We both appreciate all the support we have received from family and friends. It is amazing that everyone seems as excited as we are. We are currently working on names. The first name has been decided, but we are still negoiating a middle name. Carter King will be our newest addition's name.