Homestudy Completed, now what?

I danced a happy jig yesterday when I got the call from our caseworker that our homestudy was complete. We had a minor set-back with it last week so this made the news even better. After all that waiting you would think it was a novel, but instead just a few pages all about us. It is weird to read about yourself in the third person.

So now what? We are headed to Kansas City to the United States Citizenship & Immigration office to turn in more paperwork and fingerprints. Then we are back to waiting. Hopefully we will only have to wait approximately 4 weeks to receive pre-approval from our government to bring Carter home, but it could take longer. When the approval is received we then can complete the authenication process, then finally we can send our dossier to our agency to send to China. Which will bring another round of waiting (can you pick up a pattern?).

There are two steps to authenicating our documents. First our Secretary of State office must verify that all the notaries that signed our document are in fact notaries. Then we must send everything to the Chinese Embassy to authenicate the documents so that they can be sent on to China. I have already made one trip to the Secretary of State office and have most of our documents authenicated. We'll wait to get our approval from the USCIS then make another trip before sending everything to Chicago.

New Pictures!

It is a small world....

Through an Internet group for those who have adopted or are adopting a child from the Hangzhou Children's Welfare Institute I have meet a family very similar to ours. Adriana and Craig Hutchings have a five year old biological son and are adopting a 2 year old son from Hangzhou. They are much farther in the process than we are, in fact they are currently in China. While in Hangzhou they were able to go to the Welfare Institute where Carter currently attends pre-school and meet him. She will be sending some pictures that she took once they make it back to the states. This is exciting news to hear, yet another update that sounds very promising that Carter is doing well and being cared for. Here is what Adriana had to say about her meeting with Carter:

I was at the orphanage the other day and saw Si En. I got a couple of pics, but won't be able to send them until I get home. He was at pre-school at the orphanage in a room with about 10-12 other kids and two nannys. I got 2-3 pics of him and he is soooo cute! You will just die when you meet him in person! So round faced and rosy-cheeked. He was very shy and obviously very attached to one of the nannys (I got a pic of them together). She kept setting him down and telling him to get his pic taken, and he would try to obey, but was so shy (not scared though). He would turn to her and she would pick him up and cuddle him. He looked happy and well-fed, and well cared for. He was dressed in ski-type clothes even though it was about 60 degrees. He looked like the little brother in the movie "A Christmas Story". Anyway, I told the adults (orphanage administrator and nannys that he was going to be named Carter. They asked when you were coming for him and I said a couple of months. They told him this, but I don't know what he understands as he is so young. He looks very smart and curious and developmentally on target as far as I could tell.

Thank you so much Adriana, and congratulations to the Hutchings family! Hopefully some day soon we will be able to return the favor to another family waiting anxiously.

As far as how the process is going for us, frustratingly slow. The rough draft of our home study has been completed. Now we have to wait on the final draft to be approved by our adoption agency and the home study agency officials to sign off on it. Once we get our home study we can apply with our government to bring an orphan to the country. That process will take approximately 4-8 weeks. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we can meet Carter for ourselves soon.