Hooray!!!!!!

I just received the call from our homestudy agency that our 171H was received by them this am.Yippee!! Now that will need to be certified which they are taking care of and our 171H and our homestudy will join the rest of our dossier and be forwarded to HAS.We are now officially done waiting, wondering and worrying about our documents.The next step is DTC. Today is a good day!

Patience...Patience...Patience

I know it's a virtue and I'm not feeling virtuous today. We are still waiting on our I171H it has been two weeks. I know that they received it because they certainly cashed our check in a timely manner. Having been down this road before I know I have reached that end of the road feeling regarding the paperwork. All the other documents are with the preparer and our homestudy will be ready to go this week. I have confidence that the preparer and the homestudy aency are doing everything they can to move this along. I don't have the same confidence in USCIS. I just have to trust that all is well and that it is just the bureaucratic wheels turning. I suppose this is where my need to control comes in. Working on that.
We are preparing for Easter and Olivia's upcoming First Holy Communion, so April is a busy month. We are having a three family communion party as my niece Siobhan and Olivia are in the same class at school and will make their communion together. Olivia's dress is beautiful. The one she wanted was a lacy tiered halter number,so not appropriate ever, we had some compromising to do.She looks like a little angel in her outfit. Hoping everyone enjoys the beginning of Spring Stay tuned I can't wait to post DTC... All the best Kate.

Priceless

Two faxes.... three phone calls......two personal visits to Dr's office.... finally receiving Steve's doctor's letter.....priceless.....
Yes it only LOL took thirteen days to obtain a three sentence letter but at last we have gotten it and it is on it's way to join our dossier as we speak. We are just waiting for our USCIS clearance and we will be good to go. It feels wonderful to have this totally out of my hands. We are full steam ahead at our house finishing up brand new pantry and starting redo Matthew's room. His room now is a beautiful pink with a great alphabet pink border. It is now to be made over into a boy loving lizard and gecko room with green ( a nice green, not lizard green) walls. My sister Maureen will be helping me do the painting the week before Easter as she is off school and our children have the following week off. Thanks Moe!!!!.I will post pictures as the room comes together.

To Our Beautiful Boy

My prayer each and every day is that God keeps him safe until we can get there. I also pray that he will soon know of us and know how much we love him--- All the Best Kate

Dossier Movin On

I found out that the doctors note does not need authentication so the dossier is on it's way to the preparer to receive certification. We still will have to deal with the doctor's office but at least it is not holding anything back. Steve is now dealing with his doctor and Ia am trying to back off. Not so easy with my need to control personality.I'm trying.
We now will have authentication happening while waiting for our USCIS country change. Then we should be good to go. Happy St Patrick's Day to everyone. This picture is of Steve and Olivia before her Irish Dance recital. I love to see my little Asian girl out there with all the redheads dancing her heart out.All the Best--- Kate.

Here He Is and Pre-Approval

We received the first of many wonderful calls today from HAS telling us we have been preapproved by the Chinese Government to adopt Matthew. Now we are sure it is real and that is why I am now comfortable posting his picture. We are a little biased but we think he is the cutest boy in the world. I was saying to Olivia the other day that so many people here love him already and he doesn't know it yet. Now that we have preapproval we can send him a photo album with our pictures and the nannies at the orphanage will start to show him the pictures.Of course Olivia thinks most of the pictures should be of her but we will be sure to include at least a couple of Steve and I LOL.
We have received our birth certificates and are waiting on a doctor's note to move to authentication. Our homestudy update has been approved by HAS and has been forwarded to USCIS for our country change.Thant should take about two weeks. We are hoping our dossier will be on it's way to the preparer early next week. The doctor's office is being less than cooperative and yesterday no one in the entire office could verify if they had even received my fax so annoying!!! Steve went to the office this am on his way to work spoke with someone got her name and said we should have it by Monday. I know no one will ever be moving fast enough for me in this process but really 1 week to get a one paragraph letter Kinda crazy. Best case scenario our dossier processing will be complete right around the time our USCIS clearence comes and we can be DTC(Dossier to China).I pray everyday that God keeps him safe until we can get there. I will update with more news and Happy St Patrick's Day to all-- Kate

Birth Certificates Continued

Well in the middle of the snowstorm on Monday I was on the phone to NYC Dept of Health,convinced no one would be there but trying anyway. Low and behold someone very helpful answered the phone took some info and credit card info and said I will have certificates within about a week. I am cautiously optimistic. Our homestudy draft is at the agency and I will be faxing some information from work tomorrow for the homestudy review to begin. Assuming the birth certificates arrive early next week our dossier will be off for authentication by next week. I am so ready to move this all from my hands.
We obviously managed through the storm I don't usually work Mondays Olivia had a snow day and Steve was able to work from home so all was well. Olivia played outside with our neighbors for 2 hours in the freezing weather I had to drag her in the house. She is back to normal and fully recovered from the strep throat although still on antibiotics.
Today Steve and I went to the daycare center at his job to meet with the director and view the facility. It was very nice and run very efficiently. My concern is putting Matthew back in a group setting so soon after coming home. I will be taking off the 12 weeks allotted by FMLA. They were reassuring about ways to ease him into the transition but I am worried. See he is not here yet and I am already worried. I hope the right decision will come to Steve and I. All the Best Kate

Birthday Party, Strep Throat and Birth Certificates

We celebrated my Dad's 81st birthday here with a spaghetti dinner four fourteen. My Dad is so full of life and truly amazing he still works seasonally and keep himself very busy. We are blessed to have him in our life and he is so loved by his 8 soon to be nine grandchildren.
Olivia is getting over strep throat she started with a fever Wednesday during the night and was off to the doctor on Thursday.Amazingly two doses of antibiotic and no more fever and feeling much better. She would have been back to school tomorrow however they are forecasting 8-12 inches of snow here so school is doubtful.Another day home will do her good before going back into the germ pool.
We sent to NYC Dept o health for our copies of our birth certificates 3 weeks ago. I received word back yesterday that I did not sent them the correct identifying information. It took them THREE weeks to determine they did not have what they needed so frustrating. I am calling tomorrow to check to see the quickest way possible to obtain these documents. I don't think I can get the copies that we need in the same day. This is the last document that we were waiting for. Once we received this we could have moved on to certification. Now we will at least be held up by another three weeks.Oh soooo very frustrating.
I ave also done something to my blog I can no longer add anything to the blog other then posting. This is an improvement I initially lost everything including the archived postings. will continue to work on that. All the Best Kate