Our I-171H is Here!

This morning Cameron and I drove to the Post Office and an envelope from Homeland Security was waiting for us. Inside was the much anticipated I-171H, "Notice of Favorable Dispostion Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition."

Tomorrow we will be driving to Atlanta to have all our documents state certified by the Secretary of State. Hopefully I'll have another positive update tomorrow evening!

Your Home Study Has Been Sent

We received an email from our agency this afternoon. Our home study is being overnighted to USCIS. I'm so excited! Someone who had theirs mailed this last Friday, received their I-171H today. This means we could have ours next Monday!!

Amazing Social Worker!

Our social worker somehow managed to draft our home study narrative in record time. I was able to get the drafts this morning, make edit to them and return them to her. She's now made the changes and is forwarding them to the individuals who review them for our agency. I'm hoping this means that the long version may be sent to USCIS next Friday. If it does, then we could be getting our I-171H October 8th!

Fingerprints and a Home Study

We're over two more hurdles! Yesterday, we drove up to Atlanta and had our fingerprints taken for Immigration. We ran into a couple we met at our agency orientation, who were there for the same reason. Everything went smoothly and we treated ourselves to lunch at the S&S.

This afternoon, our social worker came for our home visit. She was here for a couple hours. It was all very relaxed.

We now wait for her to write everything up. She'll be doing two versions. A "long version" which goes to Immigration, and a "short version" that will become part of our dossier. Once CCAI approves it, the "long version" will be sent to USCIS, and we'll start the wait for our I-171H, which gives us pre-approval to bring an internationally adopted child into the US.

After we received it, we'll have to have all documents state certified and then authenticated by the Chinese Consulate in Houston.

Once all that has been done, they'll be off to CCAI, where Katie will review the documents and provide a translation. Then off our dossier will go to China. We'll be DTC!!

New Appointment Set for SW

We talked to our social worker last night. She'll be coming to our house this Sunday at 2:30 p.m. to do our home study. We're hoping she'll be able to get it written up quickly.

We're still planning on going up to Atlanta to get our fingerprints taken on Saturday.

Hurricane Frances

Frances made it's way through Middle Georgia last night. Knocking out power, causing flooding and fallen trees. As a result, it wasn't safe for our social worker to drive to our house today, and our meeting was cancelled. It is tentatively rescheduled for this Sunday, the 12th.

Our power was out from 12:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. today. We didn't lose any trees and there wasn't any flooding on our property, so we were very fortunate.

Well, at least the house was cleaned!

California Documents on Their Way

Yesterday, I FedExed my birth certificate and our marriage certificate to the the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco for authentication. I've been obsessively checking the FedEx website and noted that they arrived at the ramp in San Francisco at 5:07 a.m. local time. Now I'll be watching for them to arrive at the consulate.

The documents are coming back USPS Express mail, as that is the only way the consulate will mail back documents. A tip is to make sure you list yourself in the To AND From sections of the address label. So, if there are problems with postage, it should still come back to you.

California Certifications Complete

While we were in California, we took our marriage certificate and my birth certificate to the Secretary of State. In and Out in 5 minutes, we celebrated with lunch at Frank Fat's, an excellent Chinese restaurant in downtown Sacramento.

We received our fingerprint letter from the USCIS. We plan on getting those done on September 11.

We'll be spending this week tidying up for our Social Worker's visit on September 7. It should be a pretty easy visit.