Our Journey So Far

Here is the timeline of our adoption journey so far:

April 5, 2007 – We decide to adopt a little girl from China.

April 7, 2007 – Jeff names our little girl Terra, which means earth. He chooses Terra because it reminds him of someone he loves very much, a friend of his named Adam, which also means earth.

April 7 & 8, 2007 – We tell our families at Easter dinner that we’ll be adopting a little girl.

April 11, 2007 – We send a letter to all of our friends and family to share our exciting news!

April 15-19, 2007 – We gather our birth certificates and marriage license as the first step to completing our paperwork.

April 30, 2007 – We meet with an adoption agency and discover that the wait for a baby from China is getting longer every day. Less babies are being abandoned and more couples are applying for adoption. Some estimates are up to three or four years.

May 1-3, 2007 – We realize that there are children all over the world who need homes and begin to explore adoption from other countries.

May 5, 2007 – We decide to adopt a little girl from Taiwan through Cathwel in Taipei, Taiwan. Cathwel is an orphanage and home for unwed mothers.

May 9, 2007 – We begin gathering all of the paperwork and complete the application for adoption.

June 8, 2007 – All of the paperwork is gathered, our autobiographies are written and we mail our complete application.

June 21, 2007 – We are officially welcomed into the Taiwan adoption program and contacted by our social worker to begin our home study.

July 17, 2007 – We have our first meeting with our social worker. We discuss the process of adoption and our reasons for adopting. We go over all of our paperwork and fill in any missing items.

August 6, 2007 – We have our home visit.

August 28, 2007 – We are approved to be adoptive parents!!!

August 29, 2007 – We mail our photo profile and Dear Birthmother letter. We’ve been working on the profile and letter for nearly two months, definitely the hardest part of the process thus far. Dear Birthmother letters are written by adoptive parents to birthparents. We integrated our Dear Birthmother letter throughout our photo album of family pictures. Our album and letter will be sent to Taiwan for birthmothers to look through as they choose the right family for their adoption plan.

September 20, 2007 – Our documents are mailed to Taiwan!! Once Cathwel receives the package, we will be placed on the waiting list – we’ll be paper pregnant soon!

October 23, 2007 – We complete and mail our I-600A form for USCIS. Once accepted by USCIS, we will receive approval to adopt internationally.

November 29, 2007 – We receive our notice from USCIS to have our fingerprints on December 11, 2007 at 1:00 pm.

November 30, 2007 – We begin discussing the possibility of a special needs adoption. We feel there are many special needs that we’re comfortable with and start talking about this possibility. We talk about the possibility of adopting a little girl with hearing loss and about extending our age range to two-years-old.

December 8, 2007 – There is a link posted on our Taiwan adoption yahoo group about a 10-month-old girl looking for her forever family. Kelly follows the link to the girl’s information. She feels an unexplained connection to this little one and emails the contact person for more information.

December 11, 2007 – We go to have our fingerprints done. We should receive our approval in 30 days! We also hear back from the website about the 10-month-old, we receive information about the adoption agency that is holding her file. Kelly emails the adoption agency to ask for more information. We find out that she is in China, not Taiwan, and decide to learn more about the Taiwan special needs process.

December 14, 2007 – We continue to talk about the 10-month-old in China, Kelly feels compelled to find out more about her and emails the agency once again. We learn more about the little girl. She was born on February 3, 2007. She is described as a quiet, cute and very smart little baby that greets each day with a smile. There are three pictures of her and Kelly feels the connection grow. God is leading Kelly to this little girl, is she meant to be ours or are we supposed to learn about her for some other reason? We ask the agency if we can review her file so that we can decide if she is meant to be our daughter. The agency tells us that there are several families waiting to see her file and that we would be placed on the waiting list. We don’t really expect that we will ever get to see her file, we suspect another family will commit to her before the file makes it’s way to us.

December 21, 2007 – We receive an email that the file is available for us to review! We have until January 1, 2008 to decide if we would like to commit to adopting her. We’re filled with excitement and nervousness.

December 23, 2007 – We discuss the possibility of this little girl becoming our daughter. Jeff remains neutral, while Kelly begins to feel that she is meant to be a part of our family.

December 26, 2007 – We contact our pediatrician and ask him to review the file.

December 28, 2007 – We hear from the pediatrician that she looks incredibly healthy and beautiful. He asks when we’re going to bring her home.

December 28, 2007 – We ask the agency if there is any chance that we could get a current medical evaluation, since the one we have is a couple of months old.

December 29, 2007 – The agency requests a current medical evaluation from China, now we wait some more!

January 7, 2008 – We receive our CIS approval!! We’re approved for Taiwan, now we’ll have to start the paperwork to switch the approval to China!

January 8, 2008 – We receive the updated medical evaluation and begin filling out the application to adopt!!!!

January 15, 2008 – Our Letter of Intent is translated and mailed to China. They tell us we should receive a preapproval in the next 3-6 weeks. We begin working on our dossier.

February 7, 2008 – We receive our updated home study (with approval to adopt from China). We mail the new home study to USCIS, now we wait for our USCIS approval to adopt from China!

February 21, 2008 – Our USCIS approval comes in the mail!! Our dossier is complete!!

February 22, 2008 – We mail our dossier to the Secretary of State for authentication.

February 29, 2008 – Our dossier comes back fully authenticated by the Secretary of State.

March 5, 2008 – We bring our dossier to the Chinese Consulate to have it authenticated.

March 6, 2008 – We mail our complete, authenticated dossier to the adoption agency so they can mail it to CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) as soon as we receive our preapproval letter. This means our part of the process is complete!!!