We got PA!!!!!!!

Wow, this is borderline stupid at this point, we are flying through most of the steps. We just got the email today that the CCAA(China Gov for adoption stuff) pre-approved our letter of intent. Usually this takes 1-4 weeks, so we are surprised that we got it in 2 days! Here are a couple pics of Dang Ying!




A little bit of info since we can legally give it out. She was born 8/30/07, so she is about 5 months younger than Matt. She is in the Henan Province in a Pingdingshan Orphanage, actually its a foster home. She is "special needs", she has cleft lip/palate, ToF/Tetralogy of Fallot(Heart disease), and a floating kidney. The cleft lip has been repaired, and we think maybe partially the palate, but she may need another surgery, we will just have to check. The heart issue has also been surgically corrected. As for the floating kidney, apparently thats not a big deal, most people don't even know that they have it unless they experience some kind of pain from it. No surgery or treatment required for it unless it bothers her. We reviewed her medical profile with 3 doctors, and they all seemed to say the same things, and weren't overly concerned with most of the issues she had. So now, we are back to the awful process of waiting. The agency said even though all our other approvals have gone through so quickly, that the next step likely won't, and will be about 4-5 months before we are set to travel.

Updates

Ok, first, since I have had a few people ask, "jnj adoption adventure", jnj stands for Jason and Jamaica. The wifey's first name is Jamaica, yes, like the country, :)


We have all our paperwork done again. We submitted the letter of intent(LOI) Monday, and it was translated and sent off to the CCAA Tuesday, so now we get to wait for the ever elusive PA. Could be 5 days, could be 35 days, I love how broad a window all the steps can be. We also confirmed our immigration status, to make sure that it lists that we are approved for a "special needs child", which it does. And lastly, *I* type up the home study addendum and sent it to the social worker. CCAI provides a basic template where you just drop in names and dates and what-not. So HOPEFULLY we will get the home study addendum back this week, all she needs to do is print it and stamp it, but historically our SW has taken lengthy periods of time to get things done. After we get the home study back, thats it, we are back to hurry up and wait status. Only NOW the whole "waiting" process sucks 10x more, because now we have a baby over there, with a name, and a face.

We are fully aware of the "averages" associated with the next few steps. Basically 4-6 months is what we were told from now until we travel. BUT, given the fact that we have greatly blown out most of the previous "average" numbers, we're hoping to get her before she turns 2, August 30th. Thats about 2.5 months away, and fairly unreasonable, but we can still hope! I've seen other people get LOA/TA in 2 months, so I know its a possibilty, :)

Since the referral came about 6 months before we had anticipated it, at the earliest, we are now faced with a few things we need to get done. A bed, DAH! I just took the baby's bed apart last month so he could sleep in his big-boy bed. Now I need to reassemble it and buy another mattress for it. Clothes, I've been batting away all the girl clothes wife looks at when we go out, saying "We don't have any idea how old/big she will be, just wait, we have a few months!" HA! That kind of backfired on me, so now we get to spend twice as long in the clothing sections looking at 2yo boys clothes, and 2yo girls clothes, grrrrrreat! Also we need to get the room arrangements setup. We are still debating on how thats going to go. Since they will be "virtual twins" we are thinking about putting their beds in the same room to let them sleep together. It will def help the bonding process, and may help ease the transition for the two of them. Then we could setup the other room as a pure playroom. We're going to do some research on that though to see what other people have experienced. We will probably need to get another stroller, or a dual stroller now too, and maybe another chest of drawers for clothes. Other than that I think we have everything else, purely because we already have a 2 year old. Now the wife's girl friends, that have been asking, can finally setup a baby shower and dump clothes on us, lol.

Lastly, yes, we have pictures of her, but we aren't supposed to post them publicly until we get PA, so as soon as we get PA, there will be pics!

Referral!

We have a referral! Whats that mean? Well, it means that we reviewed a child's profile, and made visits to several Doctors for some consultation. After reviewing the precious little girl and talking it over with the family we called and told the agency YES! Her name is Dang Ying, she was born(a guess on the orphanages side) August 30, 2007. The bio-kid and the new little one will be about 5 months apart in age, yes, two 2 year olds in the same house. Mommy and daddy may need to start buying box-wine, :) She is currently in Henan province in Pingding Shan City, China. We have a little more paperwork to do now, but we are sooooooo close now(hopefully 4-5 months). I will post some more info later, but had to post SOMETHING to mark the occasion.

We're Pregnant!

Well, we are officially adoption paper pregnant! We got our LID date on 4/10/09, 2 days after it was delivered to the CCAA. Pretty quick actually, we are excited, this means we are now logged into the system in China. We also completed our medical conditions checklist over the weekend and faxed it in on 4/13/09. That means we are also in the special needs program as well. Our agency, like most, will allow you to be in the NSN(Non-Special Needs) and the SN(Special Needs) program simultaneously. Most likely we will be matched with a SN child way way WAY before a NSN. Currently the wave of people that are being matched for NSN children have a March 2006 LID. So even if it were still moving at the same pace since 06, we would still be 2012 before a match. The SN program averages 12-18 months. If you want a little boy the match can be even faster, I've seen people with matches 10 days from their LID date, insane. Per our agency, the most common SN request is a little girl, 0-24 months, with a minor heart problem, (ie, heart murmur, small hole, etc) basically things that don't require surgery or can clear up on their own as the child gets older. The major SN that the agency gets is children with cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Many times the child has already had surgery to repair the cleft lip/palate. So we are thinking we should have a match in about 6 months, as that seems to be the average from what I've been seeing in forums.

Almost Pregnant

Our packet has been delivered to the adoption agency in China as of yesterday! Now we wait on the official check in(LID==Logged In Date) to their system and at that point we get put in the queue for a child, ie we will be "pregnant". Hopefully the special needs route will only take us 6-18 months, but thats a big estimate that could grow or shrink at anytime.

Translation

Our completed packet is being translated this week into Mandarin. We had a few set backs. Somehow wifeys physical forms didn't get the HIV and Hepatitis sections checked off, but everybody and their brother signed off on it. We had the origianl forms with her results, so that was easy. My letter of employment verification lapsed the 1 year mark and I had to get it renewed. We also seemed to have missed a signature on our financial statement from the wife, and I also had to get a letter from my doctor for my inhaler. All easy junk, didn't have to get anything notarized for that, just re-re-verifications I guess. More waiting, supposed to be done and shipped to China next week, we will see, :)

No more paperwork

We got our documents last week from DC and everything looked great. We went to Fedex Office(ITS NOT KINKOS ANY MORE!!) and made photocopies of all the documents. Got all our "family and friends" photos done, and wrote a check and sent it all to the adoption agency in Atlanta, GA. Basically they proof the photocopies several times, then send the packet to Colorado, thats the agency's headquarters, and then translate and bind the packet to ship. The agency got the packet on Tuesday, and this process takes 9-11 business days. So now we are waiting for word that they are done and shipping to China. This is good news mainly because it means we have no more paperwork to do, NONE!! Now we just sit and wait, and wait.

We need to email our "special needs medical checklist" off to the agency to get us in the special needs program, but thats super easy. The agency has a very thorough list of conditions on the list and you have a yes/no/maybe option to choose from. We have a doctor appt next week for the baby, so we will probably ask the doctor some questions about some of the things on the list we aren't sure about. We have seen stories from agencies that match families and kids in the special needs program very quickly, ie less than 6 months. We aren't thinking that is going to happen, mainly because many people have opted to go special needs within the last year due to the extremely high wait times for a 'healthy' baby. I will post more info when we get it.