THE TIMELINE

After several conversations with friends over the last couple of days, I realized I probably needed to clarify better where we are in the adoption process and what our expected timeframe is.  We began the adoption process in February and have worked diligently over the past 5 months putting together our dossier (that is adoption lingo for our official file that is sent to China).  Our dossier consists of 13 documents including our home study & immigration approval that all have to be notarized at the county level then certified at the state & federal levels & then lastly authenticated at the Chinese consulate for the state in which the document originated.  Because Bart & I were born in different states & now reside in yet another state, we had documents that had to go through 3 different systems......fun, fun!  OK not really, but it's often been said that the paperwork side of international adoption is our "labor".......definitely not as physically painful, but mentally taxing nonetheless yet also worth every minute!!

Our dossier arrived in China on August 1st.  In the next couple of weeks we will be getting our official Log-In-Date (LID) which is what every adoptive family from China anxiously awaits.  Though we could get a call at any moment with a referral (or child they would like us to prayerfully consider adopting), once we have LID the number of children available for us to adopt expands greatly.  We have requested to adopt a little girl with minor special needs around the age of 10-12 months old at time of referral.  As far as "minor special needs", our agency has a list of the conditions we would be willing to consider & as you may remember, Addison was a special needs adoption also.  She had a minor heart condition called a VSD/PFO (or small hole in her heart) that was actually surgically repaired before we got her.  It was thankfully 100% successful.

After we accept our referral, it will be another 4-7 months until we can travel to go get her so she will most likely be between the ages of 15-20 months old by the time we bring her home.  That process has changed a lot since we adopted Addison.  When we got her referral, we had only 1 month before we traveled & it was a mad dash to get visas, travel shots, & a nursery up & ready.  I can only imagine how hard it will be this go around to wait those 4-7 months to pick up our baby girl!

With all of that said, we will most likely be traveling to China in the next 6-12 months.  As we've previously learned going through the process, everything with adoption can change at any moment & the timeframes are always unknown & something you just have to have patience & faith in God's timing. Your prayers as we travel down this adoption road are much appreciated & we can not say thank you enough for walking this road with us!

Below are a couple of pics of our adoption milestones thus far:


Jodi in front of KY state capital after getting KY docs certified

Our pretty docs after being certified in Georgia

The kids had to go along with Dad to get baby sis' docs sealed.