What's Next?

Now, we wait.  We are waiting for China to issue our LOA, which is our Letter of Acceptance.  This means that China has reviewed all of our paperwork and we are officially approved to adopt that specific child.  Right now, the average wait is around 60 days, with some people receiving it in as few as 30 days.  While we wait for that, here's what we're up to:

1. Jacinda's Readoption paperwork - I still have not submitted the last few documents to our local circuit court.  Once we get her readoption done, we will be able to get an English birth certificate for her.  Theoretically, this should make it easier to enroll Jacinda in things that require a birth certificate.
2. Photo Albums - I'm a little behind on organizing our pictures and putting them in albums.  Like, about 7 years behind.  Oops.
3. Figuring out bedrooms - Jacinda and Kenzi will be sharing a room.  So we need to figure out what kind of beds they need and getting that set up.  Their room is VERY small, so we need to figure out how to maximize the space.
4. Tax Refund - We STILL don't have our tax refund.  We should hear something any day now.
5. Travel Plans - We're trying to figure out who is going to go to China to get Kenzi.  At this point, it's looking like it might be Aaron and my brother, John.  There are a few reasons I may not go, namely that we have no one to take care of both kids while we're gone.  Plus, I'm not a good traveler.  But we're still working all of that out.
6. Yard Sale - We're having another yard sale on July 16th.  Our wonderful friends are hosting it for us!  We made about $400 at the last one.
7. Stuff for Kenzi - We can send her a small photo album.  Aaron has a friend at work who will translate the captions for the photos into Chinese for us.  We can also put in a few sheets of stickers and pictures colored by Luke and Jacinda.  The last thing we can include is a CD of lullaby songs her caretakers will play for her.  We're hoping they will be able to play the CD for her and then we can play it at home and it will be familiar to her.
8. Medical Questions - We can submit 5 questions to Kenzi's orphanage.  Her medical report we have already received was just done in May, so that is fairly recent.  We're waiting to hear back from our cleft team to see if they have any questions/requests.  We will also ask if she uses special bottles since her lip is still unrepaired.  There are special cleft bottles that you can squeeze because cleft kids can't suck out of a regular bottle.

So as you can see, we have plenty to keep us busy!!!

We have big news!!!! Or, How Disney World really is a magical place!

Well, we have some pretty big news to share.  A few days ago, we were spending the day at Animal Kingdom at Disney World in Orlando.  The Director of the China Program at our adoption agency called and said, "You didn't think you could go on vacation and not get a call from us, did you?"  She was calling to give us the details about our next little girl!  Her first name will be Kenzi and we haven't yet decided on a middle name.

She just turned 1 year old and she has an unrepaired cleft lip and palate.  This is the same condition that Jacinda had, but Jacinda's lip was repaired while she was still in China.  We are unsure if Kenzi will have her lip repaired before she comes home or not.  That is something we will be discussing with our agency and the staff in China.

The news is still sinking in for us ..... we were totally shocked to receive a referral this week.  It's been a whirlwind these past few days ......... shopping, going to Disney World, seeing family, consulting with doctors, doing adoption paperwork!!!  We're just absolutely over the moon!

Travel ...... our agency is saying that we should travel 4-8 months from now.  We are really hoping to go by the end of this year. 

Updates ......

Well, there's nothing too exciting to update.  But I'll tell you what's going on these days.

1.  Referral - We are still waiting to be matched with a child.  It could be at any time.  Our agency does expect us to be matched this summer, most likely.
2.  Yard Sale - This coming Saturday, we are having a yard sale to help raise money.  We are not pricing anything, we'll just be asking for donations.  Hopefully, we'll raise a lot of money!  But also, we're clearing out a lot of stuff from our house!!!!!!  It's been great because a lot of our friends have stepped up to donate stuff to sell, or to help out with the actual sale.
3.  Money - I think I mentioned previously that we are being audited by the IRS because of Jacinda's adoption tax credit.  We still do not have our tax refund yet, and we don't expect it until August or later.  It's a very frustrating situation, but at least we'll get some interest on our refund!  It won't be much, but every little bit helps!
4. Donation - You'll notice on the right side of our blog, that we've added a Donate button.  That is a way that people can donate directly to us through Paypal.  I believe that if you use a credit card, you don't have to have a Paypal account.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that!
5. Jacinda's Speech - Jacinda finished up the school year going to speech therapy 3 times a week.  She qualifies for "summer school" for speech, but it's only for a few weeks, twice a week I believe.  We do have some things to work on with her this summer at home.  When the next school year starts, she will go to speech therapy 4 times a week.  Luke will be in Kindergarten at the same school, so I'm hoping I can coordinate her times with dropping Luke off and picking him up.  The school is close to our house, but I still don't want to be back and forth 4 times a day!!!!!  Jacinda's teacher in her class at church tells us that each week, she can understand more and more of what Jacinda says.  That is awesome!!!!
6. Summer - We have lots of fun things planned for this summer.  Luke wants to learn how to read, so we're working on that.  We are tagging along on a vacation to Florida with Aaron's family.  They have a timeshare in Orlando, and they have graciously invited us to stay with them!  If it wasn't for them, we probably would not be able to go on a vacation this summer, so we're looking forward to that.

That's about it from here.  We're just trucking along, scrimping and saving every penny we can.  We have become the coupon king and queen!  We rarely go out to eat any more, but when we do, we use coupons!!!

Our Dossier is in China!

Our Dossier (all of our paperwork) on May 13, 2011.  Our agency told us that China has been taking 4-6 weeks to let them know what our Log-In Date (LID) is.  That LID is important because once our agency knows that, they will start looking for a child for us.  Well, our agency found out our LID 5 days later.  Yes, that's 5 days later .... not 4-6 weeks!!!!!!!  Our LID is 5/18/2011.

So we could be matched at any time!  It's very exciting and nervewracking at the same time!  The way it works is that our agency calls us, then we have about 48 hours to make a decision whether to accept the referral or not.  During that 48 hours, we have to consult a doctor to have her evaluate the medical information.  We also do a lot of praying and research about the special need in order to make a decision.  So that's a lot to do within 48 hours.  If we decide to accept the referral, we submit a Letter of Intent to adopt the child and then China gives us (hopefully) a PreApproval a few days later.

We will definitely keep you all posted!

We are a Hip Mom Jewelry Featured Family!

For the month of May, we are one of the Featured Families for Hip Mom Jewelry.  For this month only, if you purchase adoption jewelry from THIS page, please put our last name (Wolfe) in the appropriate field and we will receive 30% of the purchase.  It can only be products from that specific page, although all of their products are very nice!

Thank you for your consideration!!!

Fundraising Status

Here's an update on the financial side of things right now.  We still need around $10,000 for travel expenses and if #2 below doesn't come soon, we'll need some to make up for that.

1.  Grants - We have applied for 2 different grants.  We have no idea if we have a chance to get them or not and we have no idea when we will hear about them.  So we're not counting on them, but it will be a nice surprise if we get one or both.
2.  Tax Refund - We're expecting a pretty good tax refund because of the adoption tax credit from Jacinda's adoption.  However, the IRS is auditing quite a few people that claimed the adoption tax credit.  So we have no idea when we will get the refund.  It could be May, it could be a few months after that.  If there's a government shutdown, our refund will be delayed even more.

How you can help us:

1.  Direct Donation - You can send a check directly to us, or use Paypal (Personal Payment) - wolfeadoption@gmail.com
2.  Buy a T-shirt - http://adoptionbug.com/wolfeadoption/index.htm
3.  Buy Coffee - http://www.JustLoveCoffee.com/TheWolfes  You can buy any of the coffee in their store.  Just click on the link to get to our store.  Then, you can use the links on the left side of the page to see what else they have.
4.  Quilt - See post HERE

Thanks to everyone for your help getting our little girl home!!!!

US Immigration Approval!!!!

We heard today that our I-800A Application has been approved!  This approves us to adopt a child from China.  Once we get matched with a child, we'll use the I-800 form to apply to adopt that specific child.  Now, we wait for the official Approval notice to arrive in the mail.

Once we get that, it will have to be Notarized.  Then, I will take all of our Virginia documents to Richmond to have them Authenticated at the state level.  Then, all of those documents go to the Chinese Embassy and State Department in DC to be Authenticated at the Chinese Embassy level.  Then, we add a few pictures to our pile of documents and send everything to our Agency for review.  They will review our Dossier, and if everything looks OK, they will send it on to China.

At that point, we can be matched with a child!  It may take 2 weeks, or it may take a few months.  We are definitely getting closer!!!!!