Monday, December 10, 2007

Good News!

I just heard from our agency coordinator--they have received a couple of referrals and we've moved up in line! We're now #11 in line for a baby boy! Hooray!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Where We Are Now

China Adoption
We began this process in September of 2006 by doing lots of research on different programs and agencies and attending an information session. After the session, we couldn't wait to get started. We immediately sent our application to Chinese Children Adoption Internation (CCAI), one of the largest and most respected China adoption agencies. We were approved in less than three weeks (more about the requirements later--quite amazing). We decided to adopt a baby girl under 12 months of age at referral.

During November, December, and January, and February we did the home study, immigration application, and lots of paperwork (again, more details on that later). In March we sent our dossier (collection of documents about us) to CCAI who translated it and sent it to the China Center for Adoption Affairs in Beijing. We were officially logged-in there on March 29, 2007. Now we can "officially" wait (although it feels like we've already waited forever).

Unfortunately, the wait time for a referral (assignment of baby) has gone up dramatically. It was approximately 18 months from log-in date when we signed up, but will reach at least three years by the time we are matched....maybe even five or six years (more about why this is happening will come later). When we realized this, we decided we really wanted to do another adoption that would happen sooner....Eddie is 39, after all...and Lisa is 16! We want her to actually get to be around her little brother and sister!


Vietnam Adoption
We began the Vietnam adoption process in June of 2007. We (of course) had to do lots more paperwork, switch our immigration application from China to Vietnam, and get a home study update. Just before Thanksgiving, we mailed our dossier to our agency. It is now in Vietnam, and is probably through being translated. If it's not already, it will soon be logged-in to the Department of International Adoption in Vietnam. We are currently number 12 in line for a boy with our agency, and are hoping for a referral in January or February. We should be able to travel 3 to 4 months after that to pick up our boy! There is some instability in the Vietnam program right now, so we are feeling somewhat nervous about this adoption and hope that it will work out (again, more on this later). We hope to be home with our baby in May or June!

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog. We are in the process of adopting two children--one from China, one from Vietnam.

We began our China adoption (baby girl) in September of 2006. After months of paperwork, we learned that China adoptions are now taking years to complete...so we decided to do a Vietnam adoption (baby boy) while we wait.

We'll be posting more information, a timeline, and pictures soon!