Here is an update on our adoption:
About 2 weeks after sending our I-800a form we received notices in the mail from the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS). We had been happily anticipating our fingerprint notifications (yes, getting fingerprinted by the Feds is exciting... when it means your adoption is moving along!) and the form we got basically stated, "be at THIS location at THIS date and time, or your documents will be ABANDONED." Yikes! Thankfully, we were able to be at the USCIS in Detroit on the date they requested. It was done quickly and efficiently, and was rather interesting to see our fingerprints being scanned and showing up on the screen in front of us.We should be hearing back from them in about 4-6 weeks or so. The I-800a approval is the FINAL document needed for our collection! Then we just have to get everything notarized, state certified, and sealed by the Chinese Embassy, and our dossier will be complete and we can send it to China!
When will we be bringing our daughter home?
This has been a very common question lately, and the answer is... we don't know. We have been told that the entire process can take roughly 2 years. Some as little as 12 months (not so common) and averaging perhaps around 24 months or so. The reason the estimation is so hard is because there are so many variables, making each adoption case a little different. Also, each step of the process seems to have a broad time frame ranging from 3-6 months for each step. It could all add up to the short end or the long end, but each step we complete helps us narrow it down. Currently, we are 6 months into the adoption. If the rest of our paperwork takes about 3 months, we will be logged in with China around Feb-March. We are hoping to be matched with a child shortly after that, which will bring on another short round of paperwork. China will have to give us "travel approval" once the adoption is ready to be completed, and we are told to expect only about a 2 week notice of our travel time. We will make sure to have our packing list ready! At this point, the earliest we could see being approved to bring our daughter home is fall of 2014. That's being VERY optimistic...I'm just hoping to have her home by next Christmas! :-)We are all content and have peace about the time frame, knowing it's in God's hands. We pray for our new daughter every day.
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| Evie's Christmas present, something to help pass the time until her new little sister arrives! |
