Where we are today

Hello everyone! I have a little time to write so I thought I would catch everyone up on how we decided on adoption and where we stand in the process......

Jason and I decided to have another child, actually it was Jason who brought up the subject first to me, at a time when we were both just thrilled with how well Jacob was doing. Until that point, we had resolved ourselves to having only 1 child as our hands were quite full and the prospect of another seemed a little overwhelming to say the least.

When we began talking of having a second child, adoption became a topic of discussion pretty early on. While I have only actually met one family with 2 siblings on the autism spectrum, our therapists have mentioned multiple families that they work with that include more than 1 child on the spectrum. When there is a child in the family on the spectrum, the odds are increased that a second child may be born with autism. With so much uncertainty and with a previous miscarriage, we truly felt adoption was perfect for us.

After doing research, we chose international adoption and China just seemed "right" for us. There are so many factors that we took into consideration before we made the decision. While there is a lengthening timeline at the moment, the process is one of the most predictable and the children are typically healthier in comparison to other countries. We have chosen to use the waiting period as a time to prepare Jacob for a sibling, a baby possibly and continue with his therapies as they are helping tremendously!

Of course, we continue to pray for a decrease in the wait but realize everything is happening in perfect timing to bring Laci to us. We trust our agency 100% and more importantly, we trust God and it is in His hands. This is how we found ourselves here:

06-20-06...Our adoption application was approved by CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International).
07-08-06...We attended the orientation with our adoption agency and other families beginning the process.
07-10-06...We officially began our dossier- our paperwork or "paper chase" as it is called in the adoption world.
07-19-06...Mailed our I600A form to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), which is our application to adopt internationally and request for fingerprints.
08-09-06...We had our fingerprints done at the Atlanta USCIS office.
09-20-06...Our completed homestudy was mailed to USCIS to add to our file (fingerprints) for application to adopt internationally, awaiting final I171-H approval form.
12-05-06...Our dossier was mailed to CCAI, with the exception of our I171H form, for critical review to ensure it is completely correct!
12/14/06...Received our I171H in the mail, CELEBRATE! (Then we had to notarize, certify and authenticate that document).
12-28-06...Our COMPLETE dossier is in "translation" and we are awaiting a "DTC" or dossier to China date!

Any day now, we hope to hear that our dossier is out of translation and headed to China, to the CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) for processing. Once it is processed, we will recieve a "LID" or log in date, and the wait officially begins. The current wait from LID to match is 15-17 months and while that sounds terribly, terribly long, we are thrilled to be finished with the dossier and ready to begin the wait. I will post again as soon as we have our LID! Feel free to post any questions or comments as I know this sounds a bit confusing for those not familiar with the international adoption process!