Our Little Russian Peanut: June 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The process

Nail biting… lots of nail biting going on.

First, thanks for the nice comments on my last post. And thanks for not calling us crazy. Smile

As I am finding out, the China process is much different than the Russian process. Same “bones” but many different details. We still have to do home study and dossier, but the requirements are different. The dossier is MUCH smaller, but the authentication process is quite different (and more expensive).

China is a Hague Convention country. What this means is that all your i’s have to be dotted and t’s have to be crossed the same exact way both in China and the US. It actually means a whole heck of a lot more, but that’s about as complex as my brain can get. Comparing it to Russia (which I have a feeling I’ll be doing quite often), it’s actually kind of nice because there is a standard for everything. I remember doing my first dossier with my 1st agency and I think I had 26 documents. We switched to our 2nd agency and had 12. No rhyme, no reason.

So where are we with i dotting and t crossing? Well, our home study is being reviewed by our placing agency. As soon as it is approved, we will be sending it off to USCIS along with our I-800A application. Here’s the problem and thus the nail biting. China has some new rules that are coming into effect on October 1st. One of those rules is that your home study MUST be written by a Hague approved/accredited agency. Guess what? Yep. Our home study agency is NOT Hague approved/accredited. If our dossier is NOT logged in by October 1st, we have the great pleasure of having a brand new home study done. Awesome, right?

So, here is the timeline that needs to occur in the perfect world that exists in my head:

By Thursday, June 30th – overnight i-800A and home study to USCIS
July 1st – September 1st – USCIS reviews and approves (and we get our fingerprints done). Problem: USCIS was taking approximately 60 days to approve, but now it appears to be closer to 70 something. Note to self: adjust perfect world scenario.
July 1s – September 1st – Complete dossier and all authentication.
September something – overnight USCIS approval for authentication
September something – overnight completed dossier to agency
September 15th-ish – dossier is sent to china
Before October 1st – dossier is logged in to China.

Anyone see any issues with this plan?!?!?! Oh yeah, I don’t have a single day wiggle room. If USCIS requests additional info, that will add time. If our officer goes on vacation, that will add time. I think my plan is to start compiling the documents needed for a 2nd home study just in case it is needed.

On a happier note, I did find out that we can post pics AND we can send a care package to our newest little cutie! Want to see the picture that we fell in love with? Our own little Rockstar! He’s much smaller in this picture than the latest ones we have, but I love that mischievous smile… so contagious!

Toodles!

Becky

Thursday, June 23, 2011

And one makes five

I used to think that our family would be perfect with 4 people. A nice even number, right?? Within the past year, the number five just seemed to sound a bit better. I’m a big fan of even numbers and symmetry, so why would I ever think five sounds nice? Well, you see, I started reading advocacy blogs and came across this handsome little guy from China on Lori’s blog. I thought “what could it hurt to just check with the agency that has this little guy’s file? I mean, I’m just checking on him, no way are we adopting again!!”

So guess what? 3 months later and we have our home study completed, have sent in our LOI (Letter of Intent) and have received our PA (Pre-approval). So much for just checking on him!! We’re in full swing with our dossier, trying to get everything completed and sent to China by September 1st. I’ll explain the reason for our tight timeline later, but let’s just say that if we make that deadline I will be overjoyed. I’m not fooling myself though… we have to wait on USCIS approval which is taking 60+ days right now. We hope to have our homestudy and I-800A application to USCIS by mid next week, so we’re cutting it VERY close.

Unfortunately, we can’t share pictures on the blog until after we receive our LSC (letter seeking confirmation) per our agency agreement. I don’t expect to see that until December at the earliest. I can tell you however, that “N” will be 3 in September. Andrew will be 6 in August, so they’re about the same age difference as my sister and I, which is perfect!

I’m so tired and don’t have energy to type much more, but wanted to share our good news! Much more later… I have lots of research to do about China, the city where “N” is, travel, etc, etc… so many details but first the focus is on paperwork!!!

Hugs!

Becky

Sunday, June 12, 2011

The past 6 months

Glad to see some of my bloggy friends are still out here! I promise I read blogs faithfully. A lot of times I read them on my phone and it’s a pain in the neck to try to comment. Now that I’m trying to get back in the swing of things, I will do better! Smile

So, the past 6 months have been fun! I LOVE Andrew’s age. So inquisitive and full of wonder. He is very much into sea animals right now so I really need to read up on who eats who. Specifically octopus, squid, sea anemone and electric eels. We had the opportunity to go the aquarium last weekend with Karyn and Ilya. We met up with Dinia and her family which was awesome! Andrew had a blast and got to pet his favorite – a starfish.

Kindergarten was a blast. Believe it or not, we made it the ENTIRE year with good behavior! Keith and I really struggled when deciding if we should start Andrew in Kindergarten at the early age of 5. He turned 5 on August 22nd and the cut off was September 1st so he is quite a baby compared to those that turned 6 in September. Honestly, he held his own. Met all of his goals, is reading, spelling and writing. He wasn’t the smallest one in the class and maturity wise he did great – especially the 2nd half of the year. We learned 6 million sight words. Maybe not 6 million exactly, but it sure seemed like it. I swear I’m going to do a post on sight word games to save some of you some sanity with your up and coming Kindergarteners.

Alex enjoyed his freshman year in college, maybe a little too much. Remember those days? He needs to get back on track this fall, for sure. He is majoring in Mechanical Engineering and this spring he (and his group) had to build a robot. How cool is that? He’s definitely a science and math kid – gets that from his dad. I think this fall he’ll be taking Physics 2, Calc 3 and some other classes that make me shudder in fear. He joined a fraternity that was just chartered in the fall. Did I mention he had fun?

So, over the past 6 months, here’s what we did!

We celebrated Christmas and Santa brought Andrew (and Alex) a trampoline.

We had snow… lots of snow. We were unable to go to work for a week. Of course, we still worked remotely, but we also had lots of fun!

It started to get warm out so we had fun with our cousins and our friends. (Look at the picture of Ilya and Andrew driving… a glimpse into their future maybe??)

We went to the Great Wolf Lodge for a few days over Spring Break. It was awesome. We enjoyed story time, ice cream, water play, ice cream and sleep. Lots of ice cream. We even went to Charlotte Motor Speedway for a car show!

We had Patriotic day. Andrew told me on the way home that when he listens to “Proud to be an American” it gives him goose bumps and makes him love his country. Which, of course, gave me goose bumps too!