Still Waiting...

Just wanted to update the blog since it's been awhile...ok, 4 months to be exact! There really is not much new going on, just waiting which is something we will be doing for quite some time! They have placed children with their 'forever families' (just LOVE that name) from March 1st to March 24th, 2006 just in this year alone, so as you can see not much progress. It's almost the end of August so to recap, in 8 months they have ONLY done 24 log in days and our log in date is March 5, 2009, so still another 3 years to get through and that does not mean 3 years of waiting but much longer! We are at peace though and know that waiting is what we are meant to be doing right now. Someone said it perfectly in a message board for adoption and it was something like ' As parents we will do just about ANYTHING for our kids and right now, this daughter of ours in China needs us to wait for her, so that is what we will do'!! Just love that!!

It was a year ago today, that God really started speaking to us about adopting our daughter...it started at a bible study the evening of August 21st, 2008, and then again He spoke to me through a daily devotional that was emailed to me that Friday morning of August 22nd and here we are today a year later! We have a LID (log in date) and are waiting for our daughter! God is so good and we know He will bring us the perfect daughter in His time!!

Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support!
We love you all!
~Melissa and Jaime (Abby and Avery too-the big sisters)

We've got a Log In Date!!

Well, we sent our dossier to China back at the end of February and received word that it made it to China on Monday, March 2nd but we still hadn't heard when our exact LID (log in date) was. That was over 6 weeks ago and they said it may take anywhere from 4-6 weeks until we heard something....so, since we hadn't I decided to email the adoption agency and ask if they knew anything. Kim, who is the referral person we are working with now, emailed me back and apologized because she said she had actually sent that to us back on March 23rd! That's right, over 3 weeks ago we could have known our log in date but for some reason it never made it to our email so needless to say I'm so glad I emailed her....and our Log In Date is March 5, 2009!!

Again, just to give you an idea of the time frame of the wait we are looking at is that they are just now placing children with their 'Forever Families' that have Log In Dates of March '06. So we have 3 years to go to even get to ours and that's if they complete one year of log ins every year. So far they are in a back log and are only getting through a few months of LID's every year. Our prayer is for that process to pick up so we won't be waiting much longer than 3 years but we know ultimately God's timing will be perfect and are prepared to wait however long to have our 3rd daughter!

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support and prayers! We love ya'll!

Dossier to China

Well, it's offical...our dossier (all required adoption paperwork) is on it's way to China as I type this post! If you read our last post, we went to Austin last week on Tuesday, February 17th to have our I797-C form (US Government approval) certified by the State, then sent everything to Houston to the Chinese Consulate (on Wednesday the 18th) to have them authenticate everything. They received our papers on Thursday and sent them back to us on Friday, in which we got them from UPS on Monday of this past week. We put everything together (ok, really Jaime did) and sent it off to our adoption agency in Austin for them to look over it all. They called on Thursday and said everything looked 'perfect' and was in the China box and they sent it off yesterday, Friday. They said we will receive our 'Log in' Date sometime next week but may not hear back from them as to what the exact date is for another 4 to 6 weeks, but not to worry.

Anyway, this is such a good feeling to have this 'paper chase' part over with and now the real waiting begins! Please just continue praying for us during this process as this will be a long wait but we know in the end our daughter will be more than worth this wait!

I'll post again when we have our official 'log in' date!
Thanks again for all your support and prayers! Ya'll are the best!
~Melissa and Jaime

Day trip to Austin

On Tuesday, we took a road trip to Austin to get our I797-C (US adoption approval form) "certified" by the Texas Secretary of State. We saved ourselves about 7-10 days vs. FedEx-ing and them taking 7 business days to process. So now... all of our paperwork is with the Chinese Consulate in Houston getting "authenticated". We hope to have that back Monday or Tuesday, and then we'll overnight all of our dossier stuff to our agency (Great Wall) in Austin... and maybe... just maybe... our dossier will be headed to China Friday, Feb 27th!!!! Once our dossier is in China, our referral wait time begins... currently 38 months!!! As far as the wait... it will probably get a little longer as China processes the backlog and then hopefully it will speed up... So who knows for sure... It's in God's hands so we won't worry about that.

As far as the trip goes, Abby was in school. We took Avery with us and she was a "little trooper". We spent almost 10 hrs in the car! While we were in Austin we ate at Freebird's (I know there are several in DFW now). We also went to our adoption agency and met most of the staff including the director. It was nice to be able to put names with faces. Everyone was so nice. We'll post again when our dossier leaves for China... hopefully next week!

Moving right along...

Things are still moving slow in China (as far as referrals go). We can't do anything about that but it doesn't seem to be as bad as we indicated in our last post. Time will tell, and until then we'll just keep plugging along. On a brighter note, the US govt seems to be moving quicker on their end. Last summer it was taking 120 days or more for an I800-A approval. Now, the average has dropped to around 58 days! (they've had ours for about 30 days) This means, we should be able to get our dossier to China quicker!!! We went to the US immigration office last week for our fingerprinting and have sent some of our docs to the Texas Secretary of State for "certification". After certification, they go to the Chinese consulate for "authentication" and then into our dossier to be sent to China... Lot's of hoops to jump through but we're keeping busy and that's a good thing!
Thanks for checking in...

Ok, so we're a little discouraged...well, actually a lot!

Well, the reason for this post, as with our blog in general, is to keep everyone updated, right? Right! So, that's what I'm doing and the latest update with both Jaime and I is that we are very discouraged with the waiting time frame for our 3rd daughter. Recently we have joined a China adoption message board group and have become much more informed on the process. When we first looked into adopting from China, we were told the wait time as of now is about 3 years but they were seeing signs of that speeding up, so we were hopeful, but now, not so much.

Let me get you all up to speed on what we found out this week. First, to back up a little bit so you all understand what I'm talking about is everyone has to send a dossier to China...and what that entails is ALL the paperwork needed from China in order to adopt. It includes our home study report, our I800A form (immigration) along with our fingerprinting, marriage license, birth certificates, physical exams, doctor's letters, etc., etc. We are still a few months away from getting that sent to China. Once China receives the dossier and you are offically registered with China's government to adopt you get a log in date (LID) so for example ours 'might' be April 6th, 2009 (just a total made up date)and that is when the offical wait time begins. Ok now to get you up to speed on what we found out this week is this....just last year alone, in 2008, they placed kids with families with LID's (log in dates) from December 19, 2005 to February 28, 2006. So, let me re-phrase this: it took them ONE ENTIRE YEAR to go though only 2 1/2 months of LID's. If this continues and even if it gets a little better and they can do 3 months worth in one year then it will essentially take them 4 YEARS to get through just ONE YEAR worth of LID's and we are 3 years from then meaning looking at the numbers and the facts we would not have our daughter for 12 years! Yes that is right, you read that correctly 12 years!!!! Ok, sorry but I knew the wait time might be 3 even 4 or 5 years and I could 'handle' that but 12 years, there is just no way, I really don't think Jaime and I are prepared to be parents to a young child when we are almost 50!! Yikes! Not fun for us and not fair for the child.

So, what now?? First, we are trying very hard to not worry and to just give it to God, b/c we're sure it's just the devil trying to get to us and we won't let him win but facts are facts and I just don't know. Of course one thing I do know is that our God is bigger than the Chinese government and He can make miracles happen, and that's what we are praying for and I ask for your prayers too! We greatly appreciate the prayers and support we are already getting from so many of you. Next, we are staying with the program until we have more information (I emailed a lady with Great Wall yesterday and haven't heard back from her yet). Another thing we are doing is looking into the special needs program as well.

Ok, so sorry for the long entry but just wanted to update everyone on where we are and again, just ask for your prayers, this has been an extremely hard/sad/discouraging week :-( Thanks for listening or reading...