U - T - A - H Baby!!!

When you are adopting, little things can be huge. Getting a piece of paper, having your papers stamped, sending your papers off...yes, it is a big deal. Yesterday we finally were able to send off our papers, our dossier, to our agency for translation to make their way to China. The packet should arrive in Utah this afternoon.

Our agency will go over every document to make sure that everything is perfect before it makes its way across the Pacific. After it arrives in China, we will be issued a log in date. This date marks our "official" start of the waiting game. The waiting that we have done since January it doesn't count....at least not to anyone except us!

So another milestone accomplished and a step closer. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out. I really think that February travel is possible even though there have been some very long waits for those already logged in. With Anna's adoption there were some that had waited a long time and our wait looked much longer than it was, but the CCAA must have done some overtime because we only waited 2 months for our LOA, which is not long. I don't expect a 2 month LOA, but I am not ruling it out either ;-)

Looking to the next milestone & sending love to Elli,

Rodney, Marcy, Carter, Jacob, Parker & Anna

Traveling Papers...

So now that we have all our "documents", what's next? Many times I assume that people just know, but I am reminded, pretty much daily, that they don't. Since I love adoption, I actually enjoy trying to explain to people and hopefully educate potential adoptive parents of the process. In fact, I probably try to explain 'too much'. Rodney tells me that I should skip out on some of the tiny details, but I am a detail girl, so if you like details........

We got our USCIS approval on Monday afternoon before we left for Anna's surgery, so I couldn't "do" anything until after we got back home. On the Monday following Anna's surgery, I took all the documents to my lovely notary ;-) and she notarized the documents. On Tuesday, I went to my county courthouse to have the documents county certified. Basically it is the county court clerk saying that the notary can notarize. I had already sent the police clearances to Franklin County to have them county certified because they were notarized in Frankfort, KY. So since all the documents had been county certified in the appropriate counties, we left from Anna's post op visit in Louisville, KY and drove to Frankfort, KY. There we had all the documents certified at the State level, which is the Secretary of State of Kentucky saying that the county court clerks can verify the notaries to notarize...yeah, do you see the repetitiveness of this stuff?? On Friday, I sent all the documents to a courier in Washington, D.C., who will take the documents to the US Secretary of State to be authenticated, saying the Sec of State of Kentucky can verify the county court clerks that can verify the notaries to notarize. Then they will travel to the Chinese Embassy to authenticate. The courier will then mail the documents back to me. After I get the documents, I will make copies, add family pictures, add money :-( and send to the agency where they will be translated and sent to China where we will receive our LID, log in date, and our official "time" will begin.

Pretty sad that all this "time" doesn't really count for much. The paper gathering stage doesn't affect your "wait" time. Your timeline doesn't really begin until your documents are logged into the China program. After you receive your LID, then you can follow the "averages" to try to determine your travel dates. However, as with any average, there is a low end and a high end. Fortunately with Anna, we fell on the rather low end of the averages...we pray the same will happen with Elli.

So we are waiting on our traveling papers to return home to us. I am hoping by the end of this week, beginning of next. Wait, wait, wait....that is the name of this game.

Sending love & hugs to Elli,

Rodney, Marcy, Carter, Jacob, Parker & Elli