We got our docs from Sec. Of State

After a several weeks wait. . .We got the packet with all our documents back from the Sec. Of State today!!! That only leaves the 797 that we need back from the Sec. Of State--it went out a day later than everything else--we should have that my the first of next week. So, we will go ahead and get everything ready to go out to the Chinese Consalate in Houston, TX.

 Once that is completed,all our documents are sealed and ready for one last check by our adoption agency, CCAI before they go to China!

Woo Hoo! I-797 Received!

After a long wait and one Request For Additional information (apparently they overlooked our birth certificates when they were going through our paperwork the first time),we received our I-797 approval from US Citizenship and Immigration Services today!! That means we have been approved to adopt a child from out of the country!

That is also the last document we needed to complete ALL The documents for our dossier. After the Secretary of State told us we didn't have the correct birth certificate, I ordered the correct birth certificates and had them mailed directly to the Secretary of State. To date, we still don't have confirmation that the Secretary of State received them. We are going through all the hoops right now trying to find out where the birth certificates are. 

Matthew will be running around town tomorrow having 797 notarized , then going to the county courthouse to have them sign off on it, and then off to the post office to overnight it to the Secretary of State. Hopefully, our birth certificates will also turn up at the Secretary of State tomorrow. After all the documents get to the Secretary of State, they will have them authenticated and back to us in just a day or two. From there they will be heading to Houston to the Chinese consulate. We should have them back from there in about a week. Then everything will go to CCAI in Atlanta & They will send it off to China in a matter of days!!

We should be matched by no later than Christmas!!

We are getting close now!

Speed bumps

We hit some road blocks last week. We realized in the span of 24 hrs that because we got our birth certificates from the local health department, instead of from the state on-line or from the county of our birth our 1-800 & our Dossier docs were all at a dead standstill. So after a few very stressful hours & $300 later, we are back on the right road. Actually, all of that happened last Tues/Wed. I ordered the new BCs on Wed night and we got one of our birth certificates delivered to us on Saturday. I was extremely impressed with the two day turn around! We had one set of BCs set to us & another set sent directly to the Sec. Of State because they will only hold our docs 5 days before they will send them back to us. Please pray the Sec. State gets their copies in time so the process will not be delayed any further. 

We had hoped to have the papers all certified and back from the Sec. State last Friday or tomorrow. . .well that isn't going to happen, but by the end of this coming week would be pretty good. Please pray for that.

Also, we need to mobilize some fundraisers. We are planning to do another Garage Sale the 3rd weekend in October. We also have multiple adoption grant applications ready to send out as soon as we get a copy of our 2012 taxes.

Docs mailed to Sec. Of State

We finally got all the documents together and in the mail to be verified by the Sec. Of State! Six months worth of gathering documents, and today is the day we were ready to send them off! This is step 2 in the process to seal our documents. There are 3 steps to seal the documents and then. . .they go to China! The next and final step in the sealing process will be the Chinese consulate in Houston Texas.

Please pray all our documents are correct and there will be no problems. We are overnighting them there and back, so we may get the documents back by the end of the week!

Finished at County Courthouse!

We just got our Dossier docs verified at the County level! Now we will be preparing them for the Secretary of State.  Please pray we will do it all correctly, get them sent quickly & back ASAP with no problems!

Daddy working hard on paperwork!

This afternoon we are going back over our dossier and making the corrections suggested by CCAI to reduce the chances of any problems at the county, state, or Chinese consulate level. 

After this we will be able to start sealing the documents and hopefully nothing will slow us down! Please pray for that with us!

Also please pray that we will be able to pull off another fundraiser soon. We have had lots of distractions in our life lately. We need focus.

Fingerprinting Complete!

We had a good & safe trip to Charleston & back. 

We were fingerprinted at the Department of Homeland Security without any problems.

We also had the chance to enjoy some time as a couple that we needed. So, blessings all around!

So we will be working hard over the next few weeks to seal our documents & then the paper from the Department of Homeland Security will be here. At that point, it will be the final document needed to complete of Dossier to send to China!