Today was not a good day, adoption-wise.
Though the day started out promising (in and out of the Secretary of State’s office in less than 30 minutes with the final two documents certified), the Consulate was a completely different story. Continue reading
Today just might be a landmark day. I’m starting out this morning at the secretary of state’s office for hopefully the last time. Then off to the Chinese Consulate to drop off all our important papers to be authenticated. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, and stay tuned for updates later today.
This is a post for all the ladies out there.
Nesting. Wow, even though it’s the subject of many a jokes (and websites!), it’s a scary, scary, fact. There’s a strange maternal nesting instinct that kicks in at some point that screams to fill your chest freezer, knit baby booties, and make sweeping, unrealistic long-term plans.
I present Exhibit A (aka Last Sunday’s decision to make “a little extra for dinner”)
Must. Fill. Freezer. Must. Bake. Stuffed Shells.
I’m sure all you ladies out there who have experienced pregnancy before or who are pregnant now know the cruel, cruel power of nesting. One day, you’re sitting peacefully and enjoying life. The next day, you feel a burning urge to start baking and freezing, canning and freeze-drying rations like you’re Carolyn Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Your husband just stares at you cluelessly, and offers only the input, “Well, if you’re gonna make muffins, can you put chocolate chips in them?”
Though I don’t think it’s a horrible thing to experience, I didn’t expect it to impact me as much as it has as an adoptive mom-to-be. The big negative here? Since we still don’t have a firm date of when we’ll be bringing our child home, I spend a good chunk of my nesting energy telling Brian “I feel antsy!” This is Kathleen-speak for “I know I should be doing something to ensure that my child will never run out of frozen dinners, but I don’t know enough details to make a reasonable estimate!” Still, I’ve managed to put several meals into the freezer, which will at the very least provide for some easy go-to meals during the holiday season.
Moms (and dads) of all ages and folks who know exactly what I’m talking about, please spill your nesting stories. You KNOW you have them. Just how many quarts of vegetable soup did you freeze??? And this would also be a great time to pass along your best freeze-and-go recipes. On your mark, get set….. Share!
Today was a banner day! First, Brian picked up my amended surgical history letter– and it was signed and notarized properly (yay!) Secondly, we had a big, fat packet from USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security. On very official-looking paper, Our Government certified us as acceptable adoptive parents to one child or twins living in a country operating under the Hague Convention (of which China is one). This document is the final missing piece we’ve been waiting for.
Our next step is to get those final two documents certified, then all the documents head to the Consulate. At the rate we’re going, we should have our dossier to our agency and on its way to China by early November!!!
One reason for keeping this adoption journey blog is to be able to update friends and family when we experience successes and setbacks. Today, I have the pleasure of sharing happy news!
Even though we had our biometrics appointment with the USCIS on Friday, I decided to give a call to Our Government at lunchtime today to see if our prints were received and if we were assigned an immigration officer. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, the usual time frame for getting the official Federal Government Two Thumbs Up ™ takes between 60-90 days in total, with the approval coming in about at least a month or so after the appointment.
When I inquired today, a very friendly employee over at USCIS happily informed me that not only had we been assigned an immigration officer, but that they had approved our application for adoption the day we had our fingerprints taken! This is an approval time of less than 24 hours!
So now, we just wait for the official clearance document to submit with our dossier. This is the final little bit of dossier that we need to gather, and then it all gets sealed by the Chinese Consulate.
When the preparation and documentation process is this involved, you have to celebrate every victory. Today is a great day indeed!
I should have known it was going to be one of those days when I looked around at my train station to see everyone carrying umbrellas, and me wearing my rain-unfriendly shoes. Continue reading
Round two of exciting state certification happening this morning. It looks like rain… stay tuned!
Though we haven’t had too many big updates in the last week or so, we’ve been pulling together the last bits of our dossier. Hopefully, we’ll be receiving our authenticated Pennsylvania documents from the New York Chinese Consulate sometime this week. I head to the Secretary of State office on Wednesday morning, and we have our official “Biometrics” appointment this Friday. I’m sure that we’ll have something exciting to report as Our Government records our fingerprints for the second time. Thank goodness USCIS has a service office in Naperville, so at least we don’t have to schlep downtown for the appointment.
Once the fingerprints are done, then starts our campaign to “get things moving” at the National Benefits Center in MO. Though the official line is that they have 90 days to process our immigration approval from day of acceptance to delivery, it sounds as though a little gentle prodding can change that window to a little over 40 days.
On the home front, we’ve started dismantling what has been our office/stuff-it-all-away room in order to begin creating our child’s room. We have a long way to go in order to get things set up, but it’s a start.
Amid everything else going on in our lives, I’ve added a new hobby. I briefly mentioned it in my Portland post, but now I’m officially fascinated with the Chinese language. Brian and I would both really like to become more familiar with the Chinese language, both written and spoken– this is an incredibly overwhelming task considering neither of us knows a lick of Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese). Because we don’t know what provinces we’ll be traveling to until we accept a referral, I’m hedging my bets and starting with Mandarin. Continue reading
For those of you playing along at home, the last few days have felt like a game of Chutes and Ladders. I spent a good chunk of this week trying to get in touch with a special courier in New York that services adoptive families. As mentioned in previous posts about our dossier prep, our Pennsylvania documents have to be authenticated in New York City at the Chinese Consulate– who also happens to not take mail-in forms. This means that we needed to find a person who’d be willing to stand in line forever at the NY Consulate and hand-deliver our forms to be reviewed– then pick them up a week later and ship them back to us. Continue reading