Three beautiful letters...DTC.

Dossier-crossing it off my list!

Precious documents are on the way to California! Our dossier is finally complete! When the Fed Ex guy asked me if I wanted to declare a value on the package, I was speechless for a few moments. How can you put a value on the 3 months of blood, sweat and tears that went into that dossier? Not to mention the amount of time and money spent collecting the documents, getting notaries, getting the I800A, state apostilles and Chinese authentications (did I mention I had my car towed last week when I went to the embassy?). The value of that package is immeasurable as it represents a lifeline straight to McKenna. As the Fed Ex guy explains to me that I can only declare the value of the paper it's printed on, I started rambling on about how important it is for the package to arrive safely. He took a real interest in our story and by the time I was done paying, he says our package will be going into the special pile. I have no clue if there really is a "special" pile, but it made me feel better none the less. By this time tomorrow, our dossier will hopefully be safe in the hands of our agency representative! By Friday, we should be DTC. I'm so happy to be through this part. It puts us one step closer to McKenna!

1 step closer to dossier completion!

It's official! Our dossier documents have the State of Texas apostille on them and are ready for the Chinese Embassy tomorrow. It was worth the 6 hours of driving back and forth to our state capital so we could get things done quickly! Ava told everyone she could find that we were there to get stuff done so we could bring her little sister home. She was just as excited as I was!

Completing this step is such a relief.

I-797 arrived on Saturday!

It's so nice to be pleasantly surprised in ANY part of this journey! I didn't even check the Saturday mail until today and to my disbelief, I see a letter from the USCIS. Sure enough...it's our I-797 approval letter. Way to go, Officer Jones...I knew I liked that lady! We found a notary today and finished up our dossier. Tomorrow morning, I am on my way to Austin for the apostille and then on Wednesday, it's off to the Chinese Embassy. By Friday, our dossier will be on its way to China. I really didn't think we could get this done so quickly (even though at times it felt like an eternity!), so we are very happy to get past this part of the journey.

We got a little update on McKenna and she seems to be doing really well with her foster family. She weighs 26 pounds and is already potty trained (was trained by 18 months!). I actually went shopping for her today with Ava in tow. Ava picked out two of everything! One for her and one for McKenna. The whole shopping experience made me feel a little closer to McKenna. I could actually picture her in the little outfits I bought. I have to say, it was a lot of fun!

After the dossier is sent (DTC), we will wait for our log in date (LID).

I think in the mean time, I will spend more time shopping....:)

Finger prints are done.

I never thought I would be so excited to say that I was finger printed! I was actually NERVOUS when they were taking them today, praying that all of the prints were "good" and "readable". (Yes, it happens that some people do not have readable prints and have to get them done again). Apparently, my fingers are very dry and the lady kept having to apply Corn Husker's lotion! So much for all of that moisturizing I have been obsessing about the last 10 days. Ha ha!

Now, on to getting our I800A approval. Then it's off to get the dossier apostilled and authenticated.

Love crossing things off my list!

Whoo Hooo! Look what came in the mail today!!!

I800A Update.

Well, it pays to check up on your paper work. It's been quite the roller coaster ride with this I800A process. What should have taken a week or so to get our I800A receipt ended up taking over 3 weeks (others were getting their receipts within a few days!). I realize that the extra weeks sound like a very small amount of time, but when you are waiting on a child, every day feels like an eternity. Plus, though Fed Ex could prove our application was delivered, no one could locate ours for nearly 4 full weeks! It took that long to get our application from the lock box in Lewisville, TX to the Hague Unit in Lee Summit, MO. The entire 4 weeks, I was told to keep calling back to check on the application and that this was very unusual. (GREAT! Love being unusual). Nearly each phone call resulted in more frustration and fear that our application was lost in the shuffle. Apparently, there was a change in procedures during this time, which resulted in a big, old-fashion back log. So, we accepted this fact and breathed a sigh of relief when our application made it to MO. We were thinking that it would be smooth sailing from here! (What were we thinking?) We were given a finger printing appointment (Jan. 13th) and were told that the paper work we needed to take with us for finger printing was on the way. A week later, mine shows up in the mail, but there was no mention of John. I thought that maybe this was normal since I was first on the application, but I called anyway just to double check. Yes, I am one of THOSE types and thank goodness for that! Sure enough, John needs his own set of papers. So, back to stalking the postman again! Yesterday, after finding my mailbox empty of anything from the USCIS, I call back the hotline....by now, I'm sure they are all fighting to see who has to take my call.....and I find that our case has been assigned to an Officer! Whoo Hoo! Good news! My new BFF, Officer Jones, says that she will have my application reviewed by Thursday. (small celebration...love Officer Jones) All we need is the finger prints done. Hmmmm. How to do this without the paper work....beg??? Sounded good to me, so I pleaded my case. She agreed that the paper work was somehow lost (starting to see a pattern here?) and that it was sent out over a week ago. She says to give it another day or so. Well, as of today, no paper work. You guessed it...I called back. The officer that took my call (probably drew the short straw) said that she would mail out another one. Let's see...appt. in 4 business days and trusting the mail to get it to me before Tuesday? No thanks! If we miss that appt. we will have to get in line again for one. It could push us back weeks. We are trying to meet our deadline given by the CCAA (China) of January 27th (dossier to China). We have a great chance of meeting this deadline if we can get finger printed next week! So, I sound off my case to the poor gal and she finally agrees to put a note on Officer Jones' desk, asking for a scanned copy to be emailed. No answer yet as to how this issue will be handled, so cross your fingers and toes that we get to our appt. next week.

So, what's after this??? (many have asked and I do my best to not bore people to tears with this complicated process)

After the I800A approval comes through, we will drive our 13 document dossier to Austin for the Texas apostille seal (on every document) and then it's on to the Chinese Embassy for authentication. From there, we will overnight the dossier to our agency in California and they will, in turn, overnight it to China for translation. This is called dossier to China (DTC). It takes some time to get translated (around a month or so) and then you get your log in date. (LID) After the log in date is given, we wait for our letter of acceptance (LOA). I have seen these coming out within about 2 months after LID. After LOA, I'm a little fuzzy about what is next. I think we apply for the 1800 (pretty sure) and then wait for our article 5. From there, we wait for travel approval (TA) and then it's off to China. All around, we expect the rest of this process to take another 5 or so months. With Chinese New Year in the middle of all of this, it could take longer, we'll see.

No one ever said this would be easy and of course, I knew this when we embarked upon this journey. However; until you walk in these shoes, you just don't realize how hard it is to go through this process. God is trying to teach me some patience, I'm sure of it. (I can see my Dad smiling when he reads this). In so many instances through out my life, my determination to get things done fast and efficiently served up a lot of success. Those sorts of things are in your control. This journey requires that you put a lot of control in other people's hands...you are not on YOUR time schedule anymore, you are on THEIRS! I know patience would serve me well during this part of the journey. (But, I would like to point out that my determined little self DID catch several issues in this I800A process!) Looking towards the light at the end of the tunnel, I see that this too shall pass. Lately, I have been reminding myself of those exact words.