I-600A About to Expire!

I'm typically more up on things like this but in my defense, we kind of have a lot going on right now!

I just realized yesterday that our fingerprints expire 5/7/08 (only 1 month away) and our I-600A expires at the beginning of August. That is required in order to bring Baby K home. I guess in the past when you were adopting internationally, the adoption was finalized, in most cases anyways, before these documents expired. The last group of referrals that come through experienced a 26 month wait. Our could easily turn in 36 months. We pray that it won't for many reasons but if it does, that means we will have to file for an extension AGAIN! And it won't be free.

If we file for an extension before our current one expires, then 1. It's free (about at $750 savings) and 2. We are "grandfathered" in and don't fall under the Hague Convention Treaty laws (I don't even know what that specifically would mean for us but I would imagine it means more paperwork which I'd LOVE to avoid).

So silly me thinks that just means filing a new form. Then I start to think about it and remember that it will require a homestudy update. Then I think about it some more and remember that the homestudy required a lot of papers too! UGH! I guess it'll be a distraction from our pending move (but I thought the pending move was distracting me from fretting over our continued wait for Baby K?!?)

Thank the Lord that our Homestudy Social Work is a GEM! Honest to God she is the BEST! She is very quick and thorough and just an all around wonderful person. So I emailed her tonight and within 30 minutes I have two emails back from her with directions on what we need to do step by step and an attachment with all of the necessary forms that need to be completed.

Well, guess I'll be busy this upcoming week. It's a good thing the girls have a break from many of their normal activities due to the Easter holiday.

Possible Names

Well I don't post here much because there is nothing happening. LOTS of rumors around. I read the Rumor Queen also know as China Adopt Talk None of the rumors have any basis - lots of speculation. But I still read it to feel connected. Our referral is so FAR off. We've only been waiting 8 months. The last batch of referrals (China only sends referrals once per month) experienced a 25 month wait. Still growing. Some agencies say people are dropping out of the program like crazy because they can't deal with the wait. China says, Just wait until 2009 and things will have improved! 2009! That's a year away! I know it's all in God's Timing. This year would not be a good year after-all for us to travel for her.

Most days I don't even think about it. I know Baby K will be matched to us when it's time. But for some reason, today she has been on my mind a LOT. Maybe it is because someone asked Pete yesterday if I could get pregnant. Well, with God's intervention, I could. But in all likelihood, I shouldn't be able to. Now that made me sad. I was never sure I was done having babies but I was sure I didn't want to be pregnant again : )

Pete and I decided on a name before we even sent in our application to Great Wall. It just came to me (I know it was God talking to me) one day. I was pulling into the drive through of a McDonald's when it was put into my head. I called Pete immediately and said I have her name and it's "baby K" and he said, Yes that is it. I was being hung up on a name before I would send in the application to GWCA. Weird I know but it is how things were working for me. It was hard coming up with yet another girl name that started with K that we both like. We tried finding a Chinese name but there were like 3 to choose from! I won't tell anyone her name until after it's official. I don't know why either. It was like that for the other 3 girls and just seems to be the way it will be her. So we call her Baby K. We know her name will start with K because the other girls do.

So as a distraction, we talked about names for her just for fun. Pete suggested Ki'an. I think that is actually a pretty name. But I still like our first one. I think I 'm stuck on it. I'll still consider others but no other ones sound right. Now when we see her, we could totally change our minds like we did with K#1 but who knows. I think God named her and it will stick. She is probably not even born yet - possibly not even conceived yet!

God's Timing

First a quick referral time frame update - referrals that came in this month were once again just for the first week of December 2005 - they incurred a 23 month wait! So hard for them as when they started, they thought they had less than one year and it ended up being almost two! Please pray for peace of mind for these families. If it remains static, which it most likely won't, it will most likely continue to lengthen, we will receive our referral in March 2009 as opposed to our original thought of April 2008!

I'm starting to see God's Plan a little more though. I have a bit of a sense of peace with this long wait right now. Pete had wanted to wait until his promotion in December 2006 / January 2007 to start the process but I felt a sense of urgency to get it started immediately in October 2006. Since I was doing all of the work, Pete agreed to go ahead and start the paper chasing. It turns out it was God pushing me because had we waited, we would have missed the May cut off for the new regulations which we would not have qualified for!

Now the wait lengthens. Originally we thought we would travel in April 2008 to bring Baby K home to us. Now it lengthens even more. Well had our time frame remained April 2008, I don't think I would have been open to listening to God about the move to NYC. Moving to NYC is supposed to start to happen in Spring 2008 - about the same time we thought we were traveling to China! Now China is on hold which allowed us to listen to God and become part of the church planting core team to move to NYC. What an awesome place to raise not only our 3 biological daughters but also our daughter from China! The culture will be wonderful for them.

So bit by bit, as I try to practice listening prayer, I see what God's Plan is for our family.

Current Wait Time

The June batch of referrals came in late last week. I"m not sure if I said this before or not, but China only sends out referrals once per month, generally around the beginning of the month. The batch of referrals that just came in had a wait time of 19 months. That is the wait time from your LID date which for us was April 11. For the past few months, a month of wait has been added on. That is because for quite awhile now they have only been doing one week of each month, each month. I hope that makes sense. So it looks like it will take 3 more months just to get through the last 3 weeks of November 2005. Once they get to 2006, we are praying that the time will speed up or at least remain static because 2006 had fewer dossiers logged in in 2006 than 2005. However, we are also guessing that it will then lengthen because of the rush in 2007 to get in before the requirements changing effective May 1, 2007. Only time will tell. Those are our best guesses.

In Translation

Well it was a quite Mother's Day around here. Nothing special occured. I did however get an update from our agency today. Our dossier is currently in translation. That means the Chinese government are translating all of our documents before they can move into the Review Room which is where they review all of our documents to make sure we have everything needed and that it is all in order. It is also where they sometimes ask questions. We could stay in that room for months.

Log In Date (LID)

We are officially LID April 11, 2007! Yippee! That means the CCAA has officially logged our dossier into their system. It only took them 2.5 weeks. We beat the May 1 deadline by just 2.5 weeks as well. That was just a bit too close for comfort for me. Now we just wait and wait and wait : ) The last batch of referrals that came in this month took 17 months. It is only getting longer each month.

Dossier To China (DTC)

Today we are officially DTC!! We now move into the waiting stage which is currently 16 months. That would put us at meeting our new daughter in July 2008 (right before the Olympics start) if the current wait time frame does not change. However, for the past few months, it has only been getting longer. Please keep our family in your prayers that that does not continue. It took us just over 4 months to get our dossier completed and submitted. Many items were expedited in order to meet the May 1 change of requirements deadline. Our next step is to be logged in (LID) in China. It could be 6 weeks before we know our log in date but hopefully it will be before May 1.