Updated Pictures!!!!

We got a pleasant surprise this evening via email.  2 new pictures of Jacinda!  We also got some updated stats:  22lbs, 29.5 inches tall.  We think she might not be as tiny as we originally thought!

Without further ado ............ (Click on the pictures to make them a little bigger)

Another Question ........ and a sort of answer

When are you traveling to pick up Jacinda and why does it take so long?

To be honest, we don't have a great answer to this question.  Our agency is saying we will travel sometime between August and November.  We're holding out hope it could be earlier than that, though.  It takes so long for a couple of reasons.

First, China has more paperwork requirements we have to complete.  Second, US Immigration has new rules and it's sort of a guessing game at this point what those rules are.  We believe that the overall goal of changing the rules to make international adoption more regulated is good.  We just wish we weren't caught in the uncertainty of the rule-changing.

Right now, we are preparing a package of documents to send to our agency … they include the contract that we agree to accept Jacinda, several documents that get sent to China, the biggest check we've ever written (gulp!), and a travel release form.  Once the Chinese government approves all our documents, we'll get a travel approval.  This will probably take several months.

In the meantime, we're getting ready to travel.  We've gotten some shots, and have more to go.  We're figuring out bedrooms and furniture for both Luke and Jacinda.  We're getting our house ready for 2 toddlers!!!!  Sherry is finishing up the school year.  We're getting ready for our Disney vacation with Sherry's family in June.  We're definitely keeping ourselves busy while we wait!

Questions .... and Answers

There are several questions we've been asked lately and we thought we'd share the answers in case you were wondering, but haven't asked!  We'll make this a series of posts so it doesn't get too long.

How much does it cost?

Of course every adoption is different, but we think ours will end up costing somewhere around $20,000.  That's a LOT of money.  We truly believe that we are supposed to be pursuing this particular adoption and that Jacinda is supposed to be in our family.  So for that reason, we are confident the money will be provided.

One thing we've done is that Sherry went back to work full-time last August.  This has been a really difficult year, but it was a necessary sacrifice for us and we've been able to put away a little in our savings account.  We've also refinanced our house and taken out some equity.

We just found out that China has raised the country fee, so things will end up costing several thousand dollars more than we were expecting.  Also, we still have plane tickets to China to buy and we can only estimate those prices right now.  Once we have definite approval from China to travel, we'll begin ticket-shopping.

There's also an adoption tax credit that we can take advantage of once the adoption is complete.  So we'll claim that next year.

All of that to say that adoption is definitely expensive, but we are certain that we are doing exactly what God has called us to do, so we are confident that it will all work out.

More questions and answers coming soon!!!!  If you have questions, please ask!  Maybe you'll see your question in a future post ....

A Big Announcement

Yes, you read that right.  Luke is a big brother.

We got a phone call last Thursday night with a referral for a special needs little girl.  She is currently 15 months old and has a cleft lip and palate.  Her lip has been repaired, but the palate has not.  We have some of the top doctors with Operation Smile based here in Norfolk, and they assure us that the cleft lip and palate are fixable.  Our pediatrician, who specializes in international adoptions, says that her development appears to be right on track!

Our agency tells us we will travel to China in 5-7 months to pick her up.  We have named her Jacinda.  We have not decided on a middle name.  I think we are still in shock at getting a referral only 6 weeks after our paperwork was logged in with China.

Now we start raising money!  We will need to pay our agency very shortly, and then travel expenses in a  few months.

Without further ado ......  This picture was taken last October, when she was 9 months old.



We will be updating the blog hopefully more often now!!!!

Aaron, Sherry, Luke, and Jacinda

Finally! An awesome update!!!!!!

So our dossier arrived to our agency last Wednesday.  Last night, we were debating how long we should wait before we called to find out the status.  We decided we'd call this Wednesday if we hadn't heard anything.

Well, tonight as I was frying up some ground beef for dinner, the phone rang.  I checked caller ID, saw it was the agency, and quickly turned off the stove so I could answer!

They said our dossier was "perfect" and it is getting shipped to China this Friday!!!!  We're ecstatic.  Not only did we do all the paperwork correctly, but we're making it with time to spare in terms of the documents expiring.

Also, they said they would start immediately trying to match us with special needs children.  Depending on the special need, the timeframe for referral is 2-12 months.  But it could still be longer.  I'm still liking that better than the current 3 year wait for healthy children, and definitely better than the rumored 5-6 year wait.

So we can breathe a huge sigh of relief at this point.  And now we keep praying that our daughter that's out there is able to come home as soon as possible!!!!

Aaron and Sherry

My Drama-Filled Paperwork Day

I (Sherry) got a ton of paperwork done today, but it was not without a fair amount of drama.  About a week ago, we finally got our approval from Immigration that we'd been waiting on.  We first applied to Immigration in July, we were fingerprinted in September, and we've been waiting ever since.  The week of Thanksgiving, they requested more information, so our social worker reworded the information she'd already sent and we sent the new document to Immigration.  A few days later, we got the Approval.

We're under a time crunch because our documents have to be less than a year old when they reach China.  That means our documents start expiring March 3.  If we have to do documents over again, we're basically going to have to start from scratch.  We still have a few steps to go in the process, so we've been tapping our feet waiting for that Immigration document.

Today, I drove to Richmond (about a 2 hour drive) to get 12 documents authenticated at the state level.  Basically, this means that the Secretary of VA is certifying that the document is notarized properly.  Parking was my first issue.  The website had listed 3 garages where I could park.  One of them didn't exist.  One of them was about 10 blocks away, and since the wind chill today was in the teens, I went to the third one.  Well, it was only for Library patrons, which I discovered when I was already IN the garage.  The poor parking attendant saw how upset I was and let me park there, and then told me to walk out the back entrance rather than riding the elevator so that the security guard didn't give me a hard time.  She also helped me figure out exactly where I needed to go!

I get to the Secretary's office and by this time, I had walked about 4 blocks and I can barely feel various parts of my body because of the cold.  They said they would authenticate the documents while I waited!  Well, 4 of them were not notarized properly.  More drama.  Thankfully, they figured out a way we could take care of that by re-notarizing them.  Meanwhile, I'm praying it's OK for them to re-notarize the documents in question.  Those notaries will also be receiving reprimand letters!  I paid my fee and went back out into the cold with my documents.  When I left the parking garage, the nice attendant didn't even charge me for parking!!!

I stopped for lunch on the way home and called the lady at the adoption agency to ask her about the not-properly-notarized documents and she said the way we took care of it is fine.  So then I was all ready to express mail everything to the Chinese Embassy in DC.  But then she mentioned sending them to the State Department.  Turns out, I completely missed a step .... thank goodness those documents were wrong, because otherwise, I never would have called her and I would have sent everything merrily on its way to the Chinese Embassy.  They would have been returned to us and we would have lost several critical weeks.  But she did tell me that the State Dept. would send everything directly to the Chinese Embassy for me.

I drove back to Virginia Beach and headed home to make some copies of my newly authenticated documents and get a letter ready for the State Department.  I get to the UPS Store, and the line is almost out the door.  I don't care if it's 3 days before Christmas, I have adoption documents to mail, people!!!!  The very nice guy at the counter helped me figure out how to send my documents via Next Day Air, and how to do prepaid envelopes for Next Day Air from the State Dept. to the Embassy, then back to me.  He folded the envelopes inside each other and packed everything up for me.  He didn't even charge me for the 2 legal-size copies I asked him to make.

Thank you to all the very nice people that helped a very frustrated adoption-document lady today!!!!  I truly appreciate your help.

So that's our latest update.  Supposedly, it's about a 3 week turnaround for the documents to get back to us.  However, I'm not sure how much the holidays will effect that.  Once we get them back, they go to our adoption agency in OR.  If they approve everything, they'll send it all to China and the wait really begins!

Still Waiting on Immigration Paperwork ........

We're praying we get the 171-H form from Immigration by this coming Thursday.  If we get it, we can go to Richmond on Friday morning to get all our VA documents authenticated in person.  This will save us a couple of weeks because we won't have to mail paperwork back and forth to Richmond.  Plus, it makes me nervous to send 12 documents in the mail that we've worked hard (and spent a lot of money) to get our hands on.

The reason we need the form by Thursday is that Aaron and I are leaving first thing Friday morning for a weekend together without the little guy.  We'll miss him, but we're looking forward to some time alone.  We're driving right through Richmond, so it would be perfect timing!

So please pray that our mailman brings us that precious piece of mail by Thursday!!!!!