Finally doing the Happy Dance!!!

I finally got our corrected I171H in the mail today! I am so happy. I emailed the US*IS yesterday and they said they had mailed it on the 17th and that if I did not have it yesterday they would mail another one. Well we didn't get it yesterday so I emailed them AGAIN. They emailed me this morning and said they would mail it to me today. Well there it was in the mail today. I looked at the postmark thinking it would say 3/17 nope it said 3/23! And they paid extra to get it in one day. My guess is they forgot again to mail it so they did it yesterday. I am so glad to have it done! This was the last thing we needed before our referral.
I called our agency to let them know we had it and would be mailing it to them. Of course I also asked when we should get our referral expecting to hear "we are not sure but it should be in the next few months". But no, I was told that they were expecting referrals next week and that we should be in the batch after that! That would mean we should see her face at the end of April or the first of May!!! I figure it will be the first of May because Rusty will be out of town and I will be alone when I see our daughter's face!!! Here is keeping our fingers crossed for next month!!!

Still no Happy Dance here!!!

Ok I know like two post ago I was singing the praises of the Co*umbus Us*is office. Well not anymore!!! I have still not gotten my corrected I171H! I emailed them last Monday and was told it was done and they had forgotten to mail it!?! It was being put in the mail that day. Well still no I171H!!! I just emailed them again and asked if it had been sent. I also asked if I needed to make an appointment to come pick it up. I guess I will get my response on Monday. This is CRAZY!!! I just want to be able to relaxe and enjoy the last weeks before my referral!

China adoption refresher!

Ok since we are getting so CLOSE to our referral I have decided to refresh everyone on how the adoption works. And because I get tired of hearing how so and so adopted from Ch*na and they did not wait this long. So here is a run down of how Ch*nese adoption works and how it doesn't work. I am just giving a very short version of the process so people will understand.
In the beginning we had to get our paperwork together, this is our dossier, it included all kinda good stuff about us. The dossier went to Ch*na and was given a log in date or LID. Our LID is 3/15/2006. EVERYONE is given an LID. Ch*na gives referrals based on your LID. In other words a person with a 5/2/2007 LID IS NOT given a referral before a person with a 3/15/2006 LID. Now the exception to this rule is if the person who is LID 5/2/2007 decides that they are going to adopt from the Special Needs list. If they decide that they want to adopt a child with a special need their adoption is faster and they can "butt" in line. There are children on a list that they can decide is the child for them. We are in the Non-special needs line. We have asked for a healthy infant so we are in a long line. (Please no one get offended that I said SN families get to butt in line, just explaining how it works!)
Now when it comes our time to be matched with Jaden, someone in Ch*na will take the files that are LID 3/15/2006 and blow three years worth of dust off of them and begin matching us with our babies. They will find the perfect baby for each family and put them together. (the babies also have their own dossiers) Then the big brown stork will fly these files to our agency where they will be translated and we will be called with the info they have on our baby. They will also email us a picture and overnight us the information.
Then we will fly to Ch*na 4-8 weeks later to meet Jaden. We will spend two weeks in Ch*na getting to know our daughter and of course doing lots of paperwork. Then we will come home!
So there it is VERY simplified.
Now here are some other facts about Ch*nese adoption.
-The babies will be at least 6 months at referral. It is required that all babies be at least 6 months at referral because they have to show that they tried to find their birth parents for 6 months or the baby would not be available for international adoption. On the rare occasion there will be a 5 1/2 month old but they will be 6 months by the time the adoption is completed.
-At least one parent MUST travel to Ch*na to pick up the baby. The babies can't be escorted to the USA! Ch*na does not allow for the babies to be escorted. You may be thinking of Korea but with Ch*na, it is not happening!
-Celebrities and millionaires can get their baby faster is another one. Nope that does not happen. Everyone is in the same line. Even a certain celebrity who did adopt from Ch*na had to wait in the same line as the rest of us.
So there you go those are the three things that I hear over and over that I needed to clear up.
So there is your refresher course in our adoption in a nutshell. Believe me things are alot more complicated then I posted but I don't want to give you an overload of info.
Who knows maybe right now that special worker could be blowing off the dust on our file!!!

And now it has been 36 months!

Well today marks three years that we have been LID with Ch*na. I can't believe that we have been waiting this long. Who would have ever thought the 6 months we were told would turn into 12, then 24 and now 36 months! But now we are so close. It is hard to sleep at night because I think about the fact that half way around the world our daughter is waiting for us. I also think about the workers at CC*A who may be at this very moment looking at our passport pictures and looking for a baby that matches our family! Our file could be sitting on someones desk right beside Jaden's file. They could be making our family complete!
Last night we decided to go out and celebrate for two reasons. Of course we were celebrating our three year LID! This is our last year to celebrate and it feels great! We had a wonderful time, and it was even better knowing that the next thing we will celebrate will be the referral of Jaden!!! I cant wait!

Almost doing the Happy Dance!!!

Well as most of you who are "in the know" about adoption know due to the LOOOOONG wait for China we have had to update our immigration papers now for the third time! And of course our fingerprints also. Who knew they changed? So a few of you also know that we had a couple of snafus with our homestudy.(Dont get me started) So I finally got my application of for our third, final and FREE renewal last Thursday. So today I went to the mail and shock of all shocks there it was the coveted letter from USCIS! After only one week, what??? When we started this process we lived in Nashville and had to go through the Memphis office and it took them 3 months the first time and 2 1/2 the second time(I want go into the fact that this caused us to have an LID 2 1/2 months later then we had hoped and also added about 2 years to our wait!) But the Columbus office got the same thing done in one week!!!
So was I shocked or what when I got it in the mail. But I had this nagging feeling it was too good to be true. And guess what? My feeling was right! I emailed the Columbus office for them to please let me know if this was my extension or just a copy of the old one correcting my address. Well it was the second option. But I am happy to say they see their error and I will have a correct extended copy of our approval next week! So you know what Columbus office still ROCKS! Another office I know needs to take some notes!

From 294 down to 9!

So what does that heading mean? Well when we finally got logged in to China on 3/15/2006 Ch*na was on the log in date of 5/26/2005! So if you had a lot of time on your hand and you counted the LID's between that day(included) and our LID you would get 294 days. Whoo that is alot of days I have been marking off calendars for 3 years. Well I am happy to say that we are FINALLY in single digits!!! There are only 9 days left to refer, that is including our LID of 3/15/2006!!! Whoo hooo! Today people are getting their referrals for the LID of 3/3/2006-3/06/06! Congrats to all those new families! So now we wait for Ch*na to refer babies to those of us who are LID in the next 9 days(well as my good friend in NC says only 7 days cause there are two weekend days in there!) There are two BIG days before our date, 7th and 14th so I have no guess as to when we will get our referral except that surely June would be the latest!(but I would love April or May) We are finally so close!

Now I have to keep myself busy so I dont stress and check the RQ every five minutes. Last week was a busy week because we had a very sick puppy! Poor Kayleigh was sick all week. She is only 5 pounds so her losing weight is not a good thing. But she finally turned the corner this weekend with alot of TLC. She even had me handfeeding her! Boy these dogs are fixin to have their world rocked!!!
I will try to keep yall more up to date now that we are closer!