Dossier Arrived Safely in China!

We received an email today stating that our Dossier arrived safely in China! So, how did we celebrate?

Of course! Egg Rolls and Sweet & Sour Chicken for me! Dane had an egg roll with Beef and Broccoli! Yum! It won't be long now until we have our LID (Log-In Date). We cannot wait until we receive the phone call that we have been matched with a little girl! Some families are matched right away, others take months, and some even years. Once we are matched, it will still be a few months before we go over to China to meet her and then to bring her home. More paperwork will be needed in between. We are confident that we will meet our daughter in God's timing! No doubt! We just keep praying that she is being taken care of, fed, and that overall her needs are being met.

We have DTC- Dossier To China!

Our Dossier was mailed to China this past Friday!

Now they will officially know who we are! Once there, the dossier will be translated, reviewed, and logged in. Next Step in the process: We now wait to receive our LID (Log-In-Date) from China. This process can take up to about 4 weeks, but once we get a LID, we're officially eligible for a referral!

Waiting to be matched with our little girl, soon to be part of our Forever Family!

Moving into Translation!

Well, Wonderful News Wednesday! We received an email from our agency today! Our Dossier Documents passed the critical review stage! All of our paperwork hard work has been approved! Major step forward!

Won't be long now before DTC, Dossier To China!!! :)

Dossier Documents on their way for agency approval!

This morning at 10:00 a.m. we overnighted our Dossier Documents to our agency for approval! Our agency will critically review all of our documents, then send our Dossier off to China! We will then wait for our LID (Log In Date) from China. Just another step closer!

An Authentication Anniversary

Last week, we spent our anniversary finalizing our documents for authentication.

We had an appointment at the Department of State at 10:00 a.m. They put all of our paperwork in a certain order and completed the authentication in less than 40 minutes. We left there and went to a UPS store to make copies of the 13 cover letters from the Dept. of State. We took all of the paperwork back to our hotel room. We had to sort the 4 copied stacks into the same order as our original copies. In preparation for the Chinese Consulate, we held our originals out and made sure to un-paperclip one copied stack (the Chinese Consulate is very picky about how documents are turned in to them). We checked out of our hotel and arrived at the Chinese Consulate around 12:30 p.m. After an hour and a half wait, our number was finally called. We sat down at glass window number 5 and passed our cover letter through a little slot to the lady. Next, we passed copies of our passports through. Finally, our stack of originals and the one copied set passed through and then we watched. The lady wearing gloves matched each original page to the copied page, going through our 13 stacks of documents. It was rather nerve-racking, as we had to have everything just right. At one point, she went back on a page, but luckily then just continued forward. She gave us our pick-up receipt which was scheduled for Thursday (Perfect!). I have never been so happy to get a receipt! It was like we passed the test! On Thursday, we drove back to the Consulate. We arrived there around 9:15 a.m. and were called to the pick-up window around 9:50 a.m. We left around 10:00 a.m. and celebrated with a breakfast at the Starbucks up the street. Mission accomplished! We then drove to the National Zoo and spent the day there! We saw the Asian Elephants and Panda Bears! Panda Baby Bao Bao was there too!

We met my cousin, Barry, for dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill and then walked over to the White House to get a few pictures.

Stressful but successful and fun trip overall! Next Step: Organize all of our paperwork (authenticated documents included)into Dossier form and submit to our agency for approval. From there, our agency will send our Dossier to China (DTC)! About a week after that, we should be LID-Log In Date with China! In the meantime, we are searching for our little girl on many blogs, threads, group pages, etc. It is possible that we could find our daughter before waiting to be matched by our agency.

Oh, The Pretty Papers!

We took a road trip today to have the rest of our documents certified at the state level. First stop was Louisville to have our Home Study Certified by the County Clerk's Office.

Then, we drove over to Frankfort to have 10 documents certified.

Now, all of our documents are ready for the Department of State and Chinese Consulate in Washington, D.C.! Woot-Woot! Just another step closer...

Official Immigration Approval Letter!

Great news! We received our Approval Notice Letter from the Department of Homeland Security today! It states that our Immigration approval actually took place on July 7th. We thought that this notice was just that, a "notice." Go to find out, this is our ACTUAL APPROVAL!!! They recently changed the format of the letter from the sample we were given in our dossier packet! Over-the-moon excited! Who knew that one little piece of paper could be worth celebrating over! It took 41 days for our approval letter to arrive (timeframe given is 45-70 days)!

Now, onto our county for certification of documents, then to Frankfort for state certification, then to Washington, D.C. for certification and authentication! Woo-hoo! Moving right along! The paper chase continues!