Friday, March 30, 2012

What's in a Name?

Just a short post to let you know where we are 'in the process' and what's been going on around here.

We've just about finished paper chasing.  I only have to pick up the letter/certificate from my doctor and we should have all the paperwork stuff we need for our dossier.  Once I get that (and our agency says it looks okay) I can send all that paperwork to the Secretaries of State (all but one to Missouri - and that 'one' goes to Kansas) to be certified.

Our home study visits are finished and we just need to get our SW copies of the papers she'll need to write it up.  As soon as she's done with that (and our main agency approves it) we have to get it certified by the MO SoS too.

We sent in our I800A (preliminary permission from Homeland Security to bring an orphan into this country).  This is supposed to have the homestudy attached to it, but since we are trying to expedite this process, we sent it without it just to get 'in the queue' so to speak.  We are waiting for our appointment to get fingerprinted by USCIS (Homeland Security) and for them to assign us an officer to work on our case (hoping and praying we get a good one).

Once we get everything certified and USCIS approves us, we will have to send all our stuff to the Chinese Consulate (ours will go to the one in Chicago) to be 'authenticated'.  Beyond that, I don't know exactly what we do next - all this is on such a compressed schedule we aren't doing a lot of things the way a 'normal' adoption would be done.  All I know is that we are down to about 3-1/2 months now to get it all done.

On a less boring, non-paperwork-oriented note, we have landed on a name for 'Ned'.  Sorry, ya'll - we aren't really going to actually name him Ned.  'Ned's' Chinese name is SongSong - which we will be somehow incorporating into his "American name"  We have decided to call him Zane.  It means 'gift from God' in Hebrew - which I like.  Tim likes it because it's the name of one of his favorite authors (Zane Grey) - and it sounds "tough".

In other news, we cleared $1,125.00 at our first fundraiser and the very next day our church voted to donate another $1,000.00 toward our adoption!  We are so grateful for all the people who are supporting this adoption!  Thank you!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Pre-Approval Letter

This was waiting for me in my email inbox this morning!

One of many approvals we'll be needing...