A match made in heaven

I don't even know where to start so I'll just blurt it WE GOT A REFERRAL!!!  I'm still in shock but we got a call from Holt this morning saying that they found a little girl for us.  I was at Ella's dance class and Erik was at work so we both rushed home and waited for them to send us the email with all of her information and pictures!  I've heard different people's reactions to seeing their child for the first time but for us, it was a case of we just knew she was ours.  Well, to be honest, we knew before we got the email.  We had already been told enough information over the phone to feel like this was it and, sure enough, it was.  OUR DAUGHTER!!!  I don't think I can share pictures of her on here until we get our pre-approval to adopt from China but I will share some of the info that we have on her.  She's 18 months old (only 3 months younger than Ethan...yikes!) and she's gorgeous, apparently she smiles easily and is smiling adorably in both of the pictures that we have of her, she's clearly well taken care of and a good eater because she's got some good chub on her!  When we saw her chubby legs, Erik said, "She's already a Tuma!"  And yes, it sounds like she's a perfect fit for the Tuma clan...or I should say, a match made in heaven!  From what we know, she's active and has a ready smile.  If you know our kids, you'll know that's a perfect description of Ella and Ethan so she'll fit in nicely!  Apparently, she's a deep sleeper and I hope she stays that way!  One of my favorite parts of the description of her was, "She is lovely and clever girl, we all likes her."  I can tell, I likes her too! :-)  Another thing that was super important to us is that she sounds very attached to her caregiver.  I've been praying that this was the case every day because it means that she knows what it is to be attached to someone and, while she will grieve the loss of that caregiver when we bring her home, it will make it much easier to get her to attach to us if she knows what it is to trust and love someone.

I just can't believe how quickly everything happened in the end!  We just got our dossier off to China 4 days ago and our login date yesterday, which was a miracle in and of itself, but then we got our referral one day later!  And actually, they found her on the shared list last night.  I love our adoption agency!  While we were sleeping/trying to sleep, our daughter had already been found for us!  It's amazing how God can work miracles when He needs to.  Nevermind what seems impossible to us, it's not impossible to Him!

Correction

Yesterday, I said that we were too late for March's shared list but I guess we're not!  Before you can be considered to be matched from the shared list, you have to have a login date (LID) from China.  You usually get a login date pretty quickly after your dossier is sent to China but I guess it can take up to 3 weeks before Holt gets that information so I thought we were out for this month because the shared list is coming out this week buuuut Erik emailed someone at Holt to ask on Friday and they got back to him today saying that they were able to get an immediate LID for us!!!  So we're praying that our daughter is on the shared list this month and that we're matched with her ASAP!  I'm going to be more attached to my phone than usual this week!

DTC!!!

Well, we did it.  As of March 16th, we are DTC, dossier to China!  A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this dossier (well, not a lot of blood but I did get a nasty paper cut!) but it's done, finally done!  This means that we can accept a referral for our daughter any day!  China comes out with a shared list of children with "special needs" about once a month.  We just missed March's shared list so we're keeping our fingers crossed and praying that our daughter is on the April list! 

So if you're wondering what goes into the dossier, here it is:

Family Information Form
Application Letter
Birth Certificate-husband
Birth Certificate-wife
Marriage Certificate
Employment Letter-husband
Employment Letter-wife (yes, I really had to write a letter stating that I am a homemaker but could get a job if something happened to Erik!)
Certificate of Financial Status
Certificate of General Physical Examination-husband
Certificate of General Physical Examination-wife
Medical Letter (if necessary- necessary for me, not for Erik *grumble*)
Police Clearance-husband
Police Clearance-wife
Adoption Study (aka. home study)
3 Letters of Reference
Passport page-husband
Passport Page-wife
I-797 (I-800A approval)
Various photographs of our home and our family

And then you have to get almost all of those things notarized, certified at whatever state the document originated in and authenticated at the Chinese consulate that has jurisdiction over the state it was certified in.  Whew!  And here it is...well, our copy.  The official one was sent to Holt in a couple of different shipments so I never had it all together at once to take a picture.  It doesn't look like a big deal but it is! 



You belong to me

Today, our pastor gave a great sermon called Belonging.  He spoke about early in his marriage when he would question his wife about why she loved him.  No answer that she gave was good enough.  One night, he asked her again and she told him, "I just do, now shut up and go to sleep."  He prayed about it and felt God's answer was, "I know why she loves you, the same reason I do.  Because you belong to me."  A couple of things hit me when I heard this story.  One, how poor Erik can probably relate to our pastor's wife.  I've asked him the same question many times.  The second thing was that this is exactly the thing that I'm so worried about getting across to our new daughter.  The thing about adopting a toddler is, more than likely, she will have attachment issues and struggle with grieving the life she's known all this time, no matter what it may be like.  I don't know who she is yet but I already feel that love for her.  The love of a mom for her child.  I've asked Erik if he thinks that it's possible to love her yet or if I'm just crazy.  He says he thinks it's possible but he may just be being kind.  But I know she's out there and I know that God knows who she is and has chosen us to be her forever family.  She belongs to us.  I think today's sermon gave me the confidence to believe that yes, I really can and do love her, just like I loved Ella and Ethan the second I knew that they were growing inside of me. 

Here's a poem that I love and have read many times on this adoption journey:

Not flesh of my flesh,
nor bone of my bone,
but still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
you didn't grow under my heart,
but in it.
-Unknown Author

Approved!

Well, it's official, the U.S. has said that we are okay to adopt a child from China!  Our I-797, which is the form they send saying that they approved our I-800a (confusing, no?), came on Saturday and apparently spent the weekend in our mailbox.  Oops!  I called USCIS on Monday to find out if we had an officer assigned to our case and lo and behold, we had been approved as of February 8th!  I ran out to the mailbox and there it was, just staring out at me.  This is seriously the quickest approval I have ever heard of!  It usually takes 2-3 months and it took less than a month for us!  Wow, enough with the exclamation points.  Can you tell I'm excited?!  But so many things have felt to us like we can just see God's hand in them and it makes me wonder, is our girl almost ready for us?  Is that why things are happening quickly?  So, our I-797 form has been notarized and should be arriving at the Texas Secretary of State today to join our other forms.  Or maybe it passed them in the mail on their way back...who knows?

More good news, I got our documents back from Oregon and Washington today and it looks like they certified them correctly!  So, tomorrow I will send them to the San Francisco Chinese Consulate to be authenticated.  Whew!  All of this certifying and authenticating business is a bit of a whirlwind!

End of the paper chase...?

Well, we did it...almost.  We have finished getting all of the documents together that we need for our dossier, except for the approval from USCIS.  Today, I sent off all of our documents to the Secretary of State offices that they need to be certified at.  Some for Oregon, one for Washington and the bulk to Texas.  After this, we have to send them to the Chinese consulates (the San Francisco one for the west coast documents, the Houston consulate for the Texas documents) to be authenticated.  I should be doing a happy dance, right?  But I'm a little on edge (err...maybe a little more than a little) because all of these precious and important documents that we worked so hard to get together and get done right are now out of my hands.  Oregon has already tried to screw things up by being the only state in the whole country that changed the way that they certify documents.  China is the one country that is not okay with the way they are doing it so it's causing problems.  I talked to someone at our adoption agency and they weren't sure exactly what was going to happen either but right as I was about to leave our house to send everything to the Secretary of State offices, she emailed me that if I request them to do an "old style" certification (old, as in, prior to January 26th when they changed it), they are now willing to do that until they work it out with the consulate in San Francisco.  When I talked to them 2 days ago, I didn't have that option so this change just happened.  Thank you, God!  Now, I'm just praying that everything is certified correctly and nothing is lost and when I get them back, I'll ship them off to the Chinese consulates and pray some more.

As for our wait with USCIS, we were fingerprinted last Friday so now we're waiting for them to assign an officer to our case.  Hopefully this happens soon and they approve it quickly.  Somewhere in China, there's a little girl just waiting for her family to come and get her.  Hurry up, USCIS!

Home study approved...finally!

I have been waiting to do this post for a long time.  It's been one month and 2 days since we had our last home study interview and I had no idea it would take this long to get it approved.  It took about a week and a half for our social worker to get the home study written up.  Then we were waiting on our last reference before it could be finished.  Our friends actually overnighted their reference so that it could get to our social service agency ASAP but then...nothing.  Finally, I emailed them to make sure they got it and they couldn't find it.  Great.  Apparently, whoever sorted the mail put it in wrong place.  The good news, they found it the day after I emailed them about it.  The bad news, they found it on the first day that the director went on vacation for a week and she's the only one who can approve it.  Okay, we wait.  She comes back and approves it the next day and sends it on to Holt.  Then we wait some more.  After a week, I email them to ask (nicely) how long they think it will take.  They email me right back but don't answer my question.  Finally, after having it for a week and a half (I know, it doesn't sound like much but it seemed like forever) we got the email.  Our homestudy has been approved!!  Now, our social service agency notarizes it and sends us 3 copies, one of which we will send to USCIS with our I-800A application.  And then...we wait some more...a lot more.  But hey, at least we've made it to this point!  It's taken so much work to get here, I feel like this is a major accomplishment.  Now, let's see if I can get some sleep.  Ha!