LID update

We found out today that our log in date was on 10-12, instead of the 9-15 that we were told to estimate. That puts us back about a month and makes December travel to bring home Ethan a near impossibility. I'm still praying for a miracle that will bring Ethan home this year, but we're preparing for January travel.

Things to pray for:
1. That CCAA will process our dossier quickly and that we can bring Ethan home this year.
2. That Ethan will be healthy and safe until we can bring him home.
3. That the transition will be easy for both Ethan and Brandon.

LID

I emailed our agency and just heard back that we can estimate that our dossier was logged in on 9-15. That means that we're 5 days into our TA wait!!! The earliest that we might receive our TA could be mid November but most likely it will be in December sometime.

Things to pray for:
1. That Ethan will be safe and healthy until we can bring him home.
2. That Brandon will be prepared for the changes in our family when Ethan comes home.
3. That our dossier will be processed quickly at CCAA with no problems.
4. That we can travel and bring Ethan home this year.

Chengde SWI part 1

Part 1. Ethan is in the blue and white striped shirt and green and white shorts

Chengde SWI part 2

Part 2

Chengde SWI part 3

Part 3

Chengde SWI part 4

Part 4

We're DTC!!!!

As of today 9-7-06 we are officially DTC. Our dossier is on it's way to China. It is scheduled to arrive on 9-11 and once checked over by our agency person in China, it will be submitted. They expect that we'll be logged in by the end of next week! It feels so nice to be past this mark. Now we wait for our TA.

Things to pray for:
1. That our dossier will arrive safely in China and will be submitted and logged in quickly.
2. That China will process our dossier quickly so that we can bring Ethan home for Christmas.
3. That Ethan will be healthy and safe until we can bring him home.


Here is a new picture we just received of Ethan, he was around 6-9 months old.

Another document setback

I was hoping that my next post would be to say that we were DTC, but it was not to be. I got a call from our agency today, the Chinese Consulate would not certify our marriage certificate because it was too old. It was issued less than three years ago. So, I called the Greene county recorder of Deeds, and convinced them that, instead of me having to either mail a written request, or going in person, to do a verbal request for a new certified copy of our marriage certificate and let my mom pick it up. She picked it up and sent it FedEx so I should receive it tomorrow morning, then I can drive it to Jefferson City for the state certification, then I'll FedEx it to DC to the courier that our agency uses who will take it for the federal certification and to the consulate. Then it can be sent back to our agency and they can forward it on to China.

Things to pray for:
1. That our marriage certificate can make its rounds and get all the certification it needs quickly.
2. That we can be DTC quickly and that the wait time won't get any longer, hopefully shorter, and we can travel and bring Ethan home before Christmas.

Kudos to Minnesota Secretary of State

My state certified birth certificate came back today from Minnesota! I was not expecting it so soon. It arrived at their office on Monday morning, and they had to have mailed it back on Tuesday because it arrived today on Wednesday. Now the only thing we're waiting on is our homestudy which I should be able to pick up on Tuesday and if I get it early enough, I'll take it to Jefferson City that afternoon for the state certification, otherwise it will be Wednesday morning, then FedExed to our agency. One step closer to being DTC.

Also, yesterday I received another picture of Ethan from a mom whose daughter is from Ethan's orphanage.

The paper chase continues

Friday, we went to Jefferson City to get the state certification on all of our paperwork except for the homestudy which should be done on the 21st and in our hands on the 22nd. They recognize us when we walk in now, we had our Ukraine dossier apostilled three times there, and now our China dossier certified. We were told that they can not certify my birth certificate because it is a Minnesota birth certificate. I didn't even think about double checking all the policies on certification, because they've apostilled the same birth certificate three separate times, but now say that they wouldn't have done that because it's not from Missouri. At least we found this out now, instead of after we had all of our other paperwork ready to send to China. Saturday morning I sent my birth certificate and a request for it to be state certified, via FedEx to Minnesota. Hopefully it won't take them very long. I'm praying that it comes back by the time we get our homestudy, that way both can be sent to our agency in order to be sent for the federal certification at the US Secretary of State office, then to the Chinese consulate for their certification. The majority of our dossier should arrive Monday to our agency so that they can look it over then send it on for the federal and consulate certification.

It seems hard to understand how I could be patient for three years waiting on Ukraine, now I'm having trouble feeling very patient waiting for all our paperwork to be finished so I can sit back and wait again for our TA.

God knew that Ethan was supposed to be our son long before he was born and long before we decided we wanted to adopt him. He will work this out in his best timing.

Things to pray for:
1. Ethan will be health and safe until we can bring him home.
2. We can get the rest of our dossier together in a timely fashion so that we can be DTC.
3. The wait for our TA will be short so that Ethan can come home as soon as possible.

Home Study

The wait is over for the 171H, but we are still waiting on our homestudy. We were able to do an addendum to our old homestudy from when we were pursuing Ukraine so that we could go ahead and file for our INS approval. In the meantime, we've been having our homevisits for our official China homestudy. Since we didn't think we were in a rush for it, we didn't push to get it done really quickly, and didn't worry too much when we would be pushed back because of something else that the social worker had to work on. But now, we are in a rush, and there is nothing to do but wait. Our homestudy is done, and waiting at the homestudy agency to be signed by the director of the agency. Technically only the social worker that does the homestudy has to sign off on it, but the policy of our homestudy agency is that the director sign also. The problem is, he's on vacation until August 21st! So we wait. . . Impatiently. I have to keep telling myself that it's all working in God's best timing. There's still a chance that we can bring Ethan home before the end of this year, but it's too early to tell for sure. The average wait from LID to TA is currently around 80 days. We'll see how long it takes us to get our dossier authenticated and sent to China then logged in (LID) Then we can start counting down the days.

I-171H

WOW! I was heading out of town and checked the mail as I was leaving and our INS approval came! They said it should take 90 days but it has been taking around 2 months for processing. Guess what, our application was filed on June 28 and we were issued approval on July 29th and it came in the mail today! Now we have to get our homestudy which should be done in a few days, then we can get everything apostilled and authenticated.

We've been praying that INS would come quicker than expected. God answered our prayers!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

As I write this it is 11:40 AM on July 25, but in Chengde it is 12:40 AM on July 26, Ethan's birthday. He is 4 years old

This will be his last birthday in the orphanage, his 5th birthday will be celebrated with us!!!

Happy Birthday, Ethan!!!!!

Meet Ethan Michael Cline

We picked a name and are proud to introduce to you Ethan Michael Cline. These are his referral pictures.

Info about waiting child adoptions

Before I start throwing around terms and acronyms that most people will not know, I'll give a brief overview about adopting a waiting child.

A child could be classified as a waiting child because they are over 6, or have some kind of physical condition or ailment, many people also would call a waiting child a special needs child.

The process for adopting a waiting child is a little different than with many other adoptions. You can either pick an agency, sign up with them and keep looking at the waiting children that they are given to place until you find the child that you want to be part of your family, or you can look through the photo listings of many different agency's and pick the child, then sign up with that agency. That is what we did, we saw Lei in the photo listing and chose him from a picture with a description and medical report. When you decide that you want to adopt a WC (waiting child) you will fill out an LOI (letter of intent) This is pretty much what it sounds like. A letter asking China for permission to adopt a certain child, this will also include a rehabilitation and nurture plan for the child. The LOI will be sent to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) which is the governing agency of adoptions in China. Once the CCAA processes your LOI, in approximately one month you will receive your PA (pre-approval) which is pretty much their way of saying that yes we will allow you to adopt this child. Once you have PA, as soon as you have your dossier ready then it can be authenticated and sent to China. At this stage you are DTC (dossier to China) A more important date is when you are LID (log in date) The LID is important because this is the date that they have your dossier logged into their system and that is when you start counting the days until you receive your TA (travel approval) The TA is when they say yes, you can come and adopt your child and usually you will travel in just a couple weeks to get your child and complete the adoption. Currently the trip is taking about 2 weeks in China.

For us, we are LOI 5-22 and PA 6-15. We turned in our I600A on 6-28, which is the form for USCIS(United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval to adopt and bring a child into the US. This takes approximately 2 months to receive.

Hopefully that is a good enough background to the process.

The beginning of the story

During the summer of 1997 we went on a mission trip to Ukraine, after spending some time in the children's wing of a hospital playing with some of the children, we decided we wanted to eventually adopt.

Brandon was born in Taiwan on July 21, 2000 and came home on December 16, 2000. Our first child and first adoption, but we knew we weren't done.

In November of 2002 we started interviewing adoption agencies and choosing which country we wanted to adopt from for our second adoption. We initially chose to adopt a child or siblings from Ukraine. Since that time, we left the agency that we started with and pursued the adoption independently. Ukraine also went through a lot of changes both politically and with their adoption process.

In May of 2005 we were finally officially registered with the National Adoption Center in Ukraine to adopt. In July we were told that our letter was in the mail telling us when our appointment would be in Ukraine to choose a child, adopt them and bring them home. We soon realized that our letter was lost in the mail and were first told that we would get an appointment in October, then once October came and went we were told that there were no 'healthy' children and that we would be given an appointment after the first of the year. The first of the year came and Ukraine closed their adoptions.

As our paperwork was getting ready to expire, and with the delays from Ukraine, we started to look at other options. I was told to check out a yahoo group that lists waiting children from China that are considered special needs for a variety of issues. From that site I looked at several pictures of children available for adoption. One of those pictures was of a little boy named Li Lei who looked so much like our son Brandon it was amazing. God did not let me forget that little boy. After much prayer and discussion we decided we wanted him to be our son, not a waiting child any longer. This was in May 2006.

Lei was born on July 26, 2002. He is at the Chengde SWI(social welfare institute) in the Hebei provice of China. He had surgery to correct spina bifida at six months old and also is diagnosed with strabismus(cross eyed).

By the middle of June we were well on our way to getting the paperwork together, and traveled to Kansas City to turn in our I-600A for our INS approval on Wednesday June 28. We used the infopass to schedule an appointment and we were in and out in twenty minutes. I was amazed at how much easier it was this time around. The first two times we spent a lot more time in the INS waiting room.

Now the wait begins. First for our 171H from INS then our dossier can go to China.