Feliz cumpleanos a ME!

For those of you who don't read southern Spanish... It's my birthday!!!

A lot is happening (for once!) though not all of it good... The waiting child that we applied for with our evil agency has been "preliminarily placed" with another family. I guess that's EA's way of saying we're out of luck... or so we thought! Since we were basically kept in the dark about virtually everything related to this waiting child from EA I decided to investigate other agencies (this was a couple of weeks ago). I joined the yahoo group for Children's House International. I had heard good things about their waiting child program. So I joined the group and was able to review the list of all the beautiful children who are waiting for forever families. One little girl stole my heart right away. She's not quite 2 1/2 years old. She has clubfoot in her right foot. Clyde and I reviewed her medical information and today I called CHI and asked them how we go about applying for this particular little girl. What I found out is that since several families are interested in her CHI will do a "petition" for her. That means that each families writes a letter explaining why they think this particular child is meant for their family. The petition will be over on Tuesday May 3rd. At least we know the end date and it gives each family a chance.. it's not like "first come first served " like at EA.... I was really encouraged though because the lady I spoke with at CHI said we had a really good chance with this child. IF we get approved for her we will have to file a "Letter of Intent" or LOI. It's a letter that's sent to China to let them know we want to adopt this specific child. If everything looks good to China they will send a PA or Pre Approval in 6 weeks or so.

I'm trying not to get too attached or get my hopes up in case this doesn't work out. This is the third time we've attempted to be approved for a child... At least we'll know something Tuesday!!

All's done except the Homestudy!

Today I mailed all of our documents that had been certified by our Sec of State to the Chinese Consulate in Houston for Authentication. They say it takes 7-10 days. Hopefully it won't take too long!

Fingerprinting Day!!

This morning we had our BCIS fingerprints done in Atlanta. Since our appointment was for 8:00 am we stayed the night at mom's house. The paperwork you get for your fingerprint appointment says under absolutely no circumstances should you appear before your scheduled time or you will be tarred, feathered and hung on P'tree Street as an example for the world to see. It might have said you will be escorted from the building, but the paper isn't with me so you'll just have to take my word for it...

Anyway, our appt was for 8:00 so we get to the office at about 7:40 intending to wait in the car lest we ruin our clothes with tar. When we pulled in though the line was already wrapped around the building! So we rushed over to the line to make sure we got a good spot to stand for 30 minutes. There was a couple in front of us who were there for the same reason: adoption. They had one adopted son already and were going for another. They were going to Guatemala though, not China. We talked to them while we waited, so the time went by pretty quickly. Their son was with them, and boy was he ever cute!

After the line finally started moving, it took us about an hour. We had to wait in 3 different lines where the looked at our ID's, our paperwork and our hands. It was pretty much your typical bureaucrat process. Stand here, sit here, don't move, MOVE to the next line, show me your papers, show me your ID, don't talk, don't breathe on the attendant.

Thank you and we sincerely hope you enjoyed your visit to the Atlanta BCIS.