Making a Point

Well, yesterday my hubby finally went and got his first shot (Hep A/Hep B combo). He had been harrassing me about not getting mine "because I was scared". Well, look who got thiers first! Who went and got theirs after his wife got hers? Just trying to make a point.

Authentication

Today I received our 12 documents in the mail Authenticated! So now they are done and ready to go to China. I am still waiting for our approval of our I800A. We are now day 57. Once I get this, I will have to have a copy of it Certified and then Authenticated. Then we can send our papers off to China! Slowly but surely we are getting there. Actually, this process has gone really smoothly. It has definately not been as bad as I thought that it would be. Yes, I do realize that I am not done yet. I also realize that the hardest part is yet to come...waiting to find our little girl.

Update: I have been going from the date that I mailed our I800A in as the date that I am counting from. It should be from the 10th of December instead of from the 3rd of December, so we have been waiting 50 days, not 57. Oh well, what's a week?!?

My First Shot in a Series of 3

I just got back from getting my first Hep A/Hep B combination shot. I have to get one next month and then one five months after that. It was not as bad as I thought (and those who know me know that I HATE shots). Getting my baby girl from China is definately a good motivator to get my shots. Two more to go!

I had a very nice lady, whom I do not know, email me from our adoption web site www.waitingforashlyn.com to tell me that she wanted to send me a square for Ashlyn's quilt. I was so blessed by this. No one has sent us a square for my baby's quilt yet (hint hint). So, hopefully I will start to get some pieces in the mail so that I can make her quilt for her before she gets home. You know I love you all!

Also~ we are day 54 in our wait for approval for our I800A! Some people have been getting their approval in 68 days! Hopefully we will have it in the next two weeks and then we can send our dossier to China sometime in March! Wouldn't that be amazing!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! That means Happy New Year in Mandarin. Today is Chinese New Year and this is the biggest holiday for China. They all get together with family and celebrate the coming year. This year is the year of the Ox. The ox is considered a hard working animal so they feel that if you work hard you will prosper.

On another note... I am desperately missing my Ashlyn. This weekend has been the hardest for me yet. I guess with Chinese New Year coming up and her not home celebrating it with us, has been a bit tough for me. Our family is just not complete without her. We talk about her everyday. She is very much a part of this family. The kids pray for her everyday "because she is not home where she belongs". Jordan is even missing her so much now that he is asking to go to China with us because he just wants to hold his baby sister. So needless to say it is hard on ALL of us...well, except Noah, who keeps telling me that he is the baby and he likes babies, but when I ask him if mommy is going to bring a baby home he tells me "no". He then explained "I the baby". So besides Noah, our hearts are longing for this baby girl who we have not even seen. That love could only be from our God!

Happy Chinese New Year, and God bless!

Approval Soon?

Today on one of my Yahoo groups someone got their USCIS aproval in 77 days! That is so exciting! That means ours could be very soon. I am finishing up our Dossier right now so that when the approval comes we can finish this process.

LOTS of Paper!

Today I am printing copies of ALL of the paperwork we have done so far. Three copies of everything to be exact. That is ALOT of paper! I have literally locked myself in my office to do this. I am getting our papers ready to be mailed out today to be Authenticated. I realized that I should also make the copies for the Dossier now too. And of course, I always make a copy for myself. My little desk printer is chugging along. It is really exciting because we are almost done with our paperwork part of the process. After talking to my agency today it seems that USCIS has sped up too and it will not take the 120 days now. (We are on day 48) She said that approvals are coming quick now. That will be one of the last pieces to this puzzle. We are very excited! Now all we need is our referral!

Fingerprints

Yesterday we had our fingerprint appointment and all went well. I talked with our agency yesterday and we are hoping that our I800A will be processed faster than the 120 days. We are on day 42. She said that a couple had come back at around the 90 mark. That would be nice. That would mean that we were half way there. Again, God's timing is perfect, so we will wait on Him.

Certification and Fingerprint Update

Yesterday our twelve documents came back certified. Now I will need to send them off to be authenticated. We also have a new date for our fingerprint appointment. So we are still moving forward, just not much more I can do at this end. Really we are waiting for the I800A to be approved. I could go and get my Hepatitis A and B shot started, but, yes, I am a chicken and I hate shots. Donny says I need to stop procrastinating, yet he has not gotten his first one either! We need three over the next six months...YIPEE!