"It is my pleasure to recommend the Stump family, of Des Moines, Iowa for adoption from The People's Republic of China."
Our homestudy report is being reviewed by our agency currently!
Never have papers and paperwork meant so much. Recently, one of our adoption forms (completed, notarized, you name it) went flying off the car windshield as I was driving, and I shrieked pleading Micah (our son) to catch it in time. If you've been through the process, you probably understand! These pieces of paper are like gold when you're adopting. And one little mistake or error here or there can cause major setbacks.
Never have papers and paperwork meant so much. Recently, one of our adoption forms (completed, notarized, you name it) went flying off the car windshield as I was driving, and I shrieked pleading Micah (our son) to catch it in time. If you've been through the process, you probably understand! These pieces of paper are like gold when you're adopting. And one little mistake or error here or there can cause major setbacks.
Now that our homestudy has been written and submitted to our agency, we now wait to get it OK'd by our adoption agency so that we can get that puppy, along with our i800a application sent to USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration) for approval to adopt (in general). We've heard that USCIS has been approving homestudies lightning fast lately (within a month), which is such good news for us! If we get all our lil duckies-in-a-row, we should be able to submit our dossier to China in early February -- which has been the plan since starting this process! (We can't submit our paperwork to China until then, because Billy turns 30 then.)
So, currently we're tying up our dossier paperwork (which is the paperwork portion that goes to China). We're waiting for our passports to arrive, we've gotten background clearances from our local police dept (yes, more clearances -- ontop of Iowa, Ohio, and FBI!), we've written our application letter, had our medical reports filled out by our doctor, filled out additional forms, more pictures of our house and family, employment letters, newly-issued vital records, and a couple other things. All of these documents have to be without any error, be notarized, certified, and authenticated.
Are you tired of me talking about paperwork yet? For the first six or so months of your adoption process, it's pretty much what the process looks like. I actually can't believe it will be six months February 4th. It's blown by!
Okay -- so you're wondering, "When will you see your child?!" I'm wondering the same thing! Actually -- constantly wondering. We're going the "waiting-to-be-matched" route of things. See, you can be matched very early on in your process (even during homestudy paperwork), but usually only with Special Focus children (those designated as Special Focus have more moderate-to-severe medical/special needs or are older children). Since we're open to 0-3 with more minor needs, we have to have at least gotten our homestudy completed (or more likely have our paperwork in China -- which won't be until Feb). We've been told that we *could* potentially be matched after our homestudy is complete (which is exciting to think about seeing it's in review currently!).
More realistically, we'll get a referral after our paperwork is in China (hopefully February). But since we're open to a boy (lots of boys in need of families currently), we could get a match fairly quickly. They're saying it's only taking on average up to two weeks to receive a referral for a boy! That means, by the end of February, we could very well have a referral for our child! If not then, in March. That totally blows my mind, because that's only two months away, people!! Two months and we could be looking at pictures of our child!! You bet it'll be crunch-time at that point. Once having a face to our child, we will be RACING to get him/her. Typically, it takes 4-6 months to travel to get your child after being matched. This lil-mama-face will have her mama-bear-game-face on at that point!
I wrote a post on my other blog about my feelings this Christmas concerning the adoption process if you'd like to read::: http://rstumpblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/all-i-want-for-christmas.html
And so...Merry Christmas to our Little Stump. Wherever in China you may be. Whoever you may be. We're praying for you. We're thinking of you. We'll hold you in our hearts this Christmas -- until we can hold you in our arms. ~
I wrote a post on my other blog about my feelings this Christmas concerning the adoption process if you'd like to read::: http://rstumpblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/all-i-want-for-christmas.html
And so...Merry Christmas to our Little Stump. Wherever in China you may be. Whoever you may be. We're praying for you. We're thinking of you. We'll hold you in our hearts this Christmas -- until we can hold you in our arms. ~
