"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance.The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." -Chinese proverb

Thursday, November 24, 2016

LID

Happy Thanksgiving! We have had a great week! Yesterday, I found out that we have a LID (login date) for our dossier of 11/22.  This is great because this means that we are officially in our LOA (Letter of Approval) wait.  The LOA is basically China saying that yes, they agree that we are a good family for this child.  Our LOA wait for Liana was insanely long.  We had to wait a whopping 106 days so we are really hoping for a short wait this time around.  Apparently it has gotten a lot quicker since our last adoption.  Average back then was probably around 70 days.  The average wait now is around 45-50 days.  Fingers crossed and prayers said that we have a short wait this time!

Last night, we got to video chat with Charlotte again!  Ethan and Liana got to do it with us this time and it was a lot of fun!  She mostly just stared at us again but the director of the foster home did get her giggling at one point.  She has the cutest giggle ever!  She also had her pointing to us on the screen when she would ask her which one of us was her mama, baba (dad), gege (big brother), or jie jie (big sister) and she would get it right!  I think she's a smarty!  We also learned that sucks her fingers.  I love thumb suckers!  They're so cute!  The director said that we can video chat every week that we can so that Charlotte can get to know us!! I can't even believe how lucky we are!  She is the sweetest lady ever and Charlotte clearly loves her!

Here are some screen shots from our chat:





Friday, November 18, 2016

DTC!!!

The paper chase is officially over! We are DOSSIER TO CHINA!!! I got an email from Holt this evening to let us know that our dossier was sent to China today and it is such a relief! I am always nervous that there will be a problem with a document but it's official, our dossier is DONE! I'm feeling pretty proud too because we got it all done in four months, which is two months faster than last time! It's a lot easier the second time around since you know what you're doing and it's not nearly as overwhelming. We celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese. Just kidding, we only went there because the kids' school was having a fundraiser.  I would definitely have chosen a different way to celebrate. 😜

So this list is on Liana's part of the blog but that was ages ago so here is the list of documents in the dossier:

Family Information Form
Application Letter
Birth Certificate- husband
Birth Certificate- wife
Marriage Certificate
Employment Letter- husband
Employment Letter- wife (or homemaker letter for me)
Certificate of Financial Status
Certificate of General Physical Examination- husband
Certificate of General Physical Examination- wife
Police Clearance- husband
Police Clearance- wife
Adoption Study (aka home study)
3 Letters of Reference
Passport Page- husband
Passport Page- wife
I-797
Various photographs of our home and our family

And most of these had to be notarized, certified at the secretary of state, and authenticated at the Chinese consulate.  Sooo glad it's done!

Here's a picture of our copy of the dossier

And here is the cutie that makes it all worth it

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Road trip with myself

Things are cruising right along.  On Monday, our dossier, minus the I-797 (the I-800A approval), which we were still waiting on, was delivered to Holt.  Happily, we also received our I-797 in the mail so I quickly got it notarized.  Then on Tuesday, I took a road trip down to the Secretary of State in Austin to get it certified.  This little trip saved us some time because if I had sent it in the mail, I would have gotten it back in about a week.  I have never been to Austin before so it was kind of fun to go.  I also hadn't been on any kind of a long drive by myself probably since before having kids! It was nice to be in the car by myself, for the first few hours, then it got old really quick!  It only took about 5 minutes to get the document certified and the Secretary of State building was right across from the State Capitol so I took a little walk around it on my way back to the car.  It was really pretty and I was so excited to be almost done!  On my way back to Fort Worth, I found a FedEx and made some copies and then sent our freshly certified I-797 off to our courier in Houston to be taken to the Chinese consulate to be authenticated.  It is being dropped off today and we paid to have it expedited so it should back in the mail tomorrow and back in our hands on Saturday.  Then we'll get it to Holt by Monday morning, as long as all of this goes as planned.  This is the last part of the dossier!!!  I can't believe we're almost done with our dossier!  I feel like once I know that our dossier has been sent to China I will be able to relax. But...then there's waiting for a log-in date, and then waiting for our LOA, and then our I-800 and then...well, you get the point.  But it's such a HUGE step, and it is the bulk of our part being done! I can't wait!
Last cerification, done!

Texas State Capitol



 Had to stop at Buc-ee's! 
If you're from Texas, you know about Buc-ee's

Had to bring home gifts ;-)

Got a lovely surprise that night and received one of the cutest pictures I've ever seen!
Charlotte is 4th from the bottom

On the way home from school, Ethan found a ladybug! 
Ladybugs are a symbol of good luck in China adoptions