Paperwork is DONE!

I called NCHS again today to check the status of their contract. Dick called me back this afternoon and said they finally got the kink worked through in the contract and that he was going to send it to CHI today. Yippee!

We also received an email from our contact at CHI that she received our pictures that I had sent off last week.

Another email from her today said that CHI received 22 referrals today! Ages ranged from 5 months to 4 years 1 month and all were within what the families requested or were within the parents' age guidelines for toddlers.

The next post will probably be when we are notified that the dossier was sent to Holt.

Dossier and CHI

We received an email from our contact at CHI today and she said that once they receive the form our caseworker has to sign, we are all ready to go! That felt SOOO GOOD to know that everything is OK and all perfect knowing how much I concentrated on getting this all done and went over everything multiple times before I sent it to DC and again before I sent it to St. Louis! Whew! I will keep checking with our caseworker to see how their approval of the agreement/contract is coming.

We also had to take and send some "family life" pictures to include with the dossier. These are pictures of us doing things at home, more casual pictures. We went out tonight and took a picture of me picking a couple of tomatoes and then a picture of Tony working on his race car (or at least pretending to). I'll get those sent tomorrow and then all we are waiting for is NCHS.

We are SOOO close to getting our dossier sent to China! I hope it can be sent by mid-September.

In another email, the China program was informed today by the Beijing office that CHI will not receive anymore multiple agency waiting children until they are Hague Accredited. This doesn't affect us but does affect those whose dossiers are in China and who were wanting to be matched with a waiting child. If they want a waiting child, they would have to start completely over with a new agency and create a brand new dossier. Any families who have already been matched to a waiting child can still proceed.

In the end for us, timing is such that transferring to Holt is our best option. We would have liked to complete our adoption through CHI but the Hague it not letting that happen.

CHI to Holt Transfer

I got the I-171H form copied and notarized today. We have to take the original to China with us.

We also received an email from CHI today explaining the details of our tranfer to Holt International. When our dossier is ready to be submitted, we will send it along with the fees required plus the small additional amount for the transfer to Holt. We also have to fill out a Holt application and a release for CHI. We will also receive next week a form for our caseworker to fill out and another agreement for Holt that we have to sign.

Otherwise, that's it. Our fees that we have to pay won't increase (unless the CCAA increases their in-China fees which would obviously be passed on to us).

Once our dossier is submitted to China by Holt, we will be a Holt family and complete our adoption through Holt. Holt International is a well-established international agency and I have no qualms about completing our adoption through them. It will be nice to get acquainted with them as we wait for our referral.

I also had a talk with another CHI person today and she explained in detail all they are going through. They are frustrated and disappointed in the whole thing as much as the families are. They are getting very little information from the Hague and the US government so they are trying to figure things out on their own and get them corrected. CHI is not giving up on trying to get Hague accredited. They will even try in a few weeks to request another review and see if they get one or have to wait a year to request again. I asked about possibly waiting till then to see if they might get approved but she said that we are SO CLOSE that waiting might not be in our best interest. We might be waiting for nothing if they don't get the review and would have to tranfer anyway.

More tomorrow...

I-171H Form RECEIVED!

We received our I-171H form today--the last form we need before we get everything certified and authenticated! Interesting thing about it -- it has Holt International as our agency on it. They are the ones that will be submitting dossiers for CHI until CHI gets accredited. But interesting that it happened kind of automatically.

So, I will go to the State Capitol on Thursday after getting this copied/notarized tomorrow.

Another interesting thing -- The I-600A approval expires 1/30/2010 (18 months from now) and the Fingerprints expire 10/1/09 (14 months from now). They can't possibly make them expire at the same time....but that's the government for you! We can (and will) apply for a free extension on each before they each expire so it's not a big deal.

More later...

No Form Yet

Well, we didn't receive our form on Saturday or today so I guess that's OK. We'll get it when we get it. I've actually heard that it takes a week to get it.

I did receive a call today from Tina at CHI. They do have an agreement worked out with Holt and it sounds like it will be fairly simple. We'll have to sign a couple forms for Holt, our caseworker will have to sign and notarize a form for Holt and we will send our dossier to CHI along with the dossier fee, the CCAA fee, as well as a tranfer fee for Holt. The transfer fee is extra over what we would have had to pay if CHI was able to submit dossiers but it's not much in the grand scheme of things and we have it already. So, it sounds like God's perfect timing is working for us right now.

All along I was thinking that if everything worked out, our dossier should be in China sometime in August and as long as everything KEEPS working out, that can still happen. Once we get our Log In Date (LID), that officially begins our wait. People who are getting their referrals now have waited 30 months -- just to give you an idea.....

CHI & Hague Update

We heard today from CHI in 2 emails. The first one was a fairly detailed explanation of why they were denied and what they know NOW about the action they are going to take to resolve it. I'll spare you the details because they would just confuse you anyway, but ... long story short: it has to do with a very minor detail that doesn't even apply to them as an international agency.

The 2nd email was from our program director and she gave various paths to take based on where we are in the process. We are still waiting for the fingerprints to come back and the I-171H form to be issued so our dossier is not yet in China. This gives us 2 options: 1) find another Hague Accredited agency to work with or 2) remain with Children's Hope--they are working on a plan to work with/through Holt International to get dossiers submitted. They don't have the details worked out yet but hope to by the end of this week.

How does this affect us? It doesn't -- YET. Again, because our dossier is not ready to be sent to China yet we are so far not affected.

Obviously, the ABSOLUTE BEST thing that could happen is that they get another review soon (rather than having to wait a year to re-apply but that is up to the review board) and they get approved and then our dossier is ready to send and all is good. Plan B for us is option 2 above. Once they have details worked out with Holt, that will PROBABLY be our best option and path of least resistance. It sounds like we would still contact CHI as we have been doing but they would be working with Holt on other things like getting dossiers submitted, etc.

So, that's the latest. Our contact at CIS has been out the last week but will be back in the office tomorrow so maybe I'll get an answer soon to my email about fingerprints status.

Stay tuned......

CHI & Hague Accreditation

We received an email from CHI today letting us (and all CHI families) know that they were reviewed on July 9 and received word on July 17 that their accreditation was denied due to a problem in one state where they are licensed. Groan.....

They will let us know how it affects us in a later email from our program.

Still waiting on word of the fingerprints.....

China Program Update - 7/11/08

Today we received an email from CHI saying they recently received 3 referrals: 2 girls and 1 boy ages 11 months, 14 months and 20 months. They also received 13 seeking confirmations for waiting children. So far this year, CHI has placed 82 children from China: 30 healthy and 52 waiting children.

They also said that the wait time is currently 30 months, 18 months for Chinese expedited.

Wow!

CCAA, CHI and Hague

Ah, today was an interesting day for emails. This morning we received an email from CHI that they were notified yesterday that as of July 15, 2008, the CCAA would no longer accept dossiers from non-Hague accredited agencies. At this moment, CHI is not yet Hague accredited. Families whose dossiers are in China are not affected. They were advised in June that their review for accreditation would in July or August. What is means to us right now is basically nothing. Our dossier is not ready to be submitted yet. But, if our dossier were to get ready to be submitted and they were not yet accredited, we would have to wait. CHI would continue to accept dossiers and review and send them to their office in Beijing so that they would be ready when they do become accredited.

Then, this afternoon we received another email from CHI that they have now been scheduled for their review for Hague Accreditation on July 9, 2008. They think it will be at least a couple days after that before they hear the outcome of the review.

So, maybe we won't have to worry about that part of it at all!

Home Study to CHI

Got a call from Dick saying that he has faxed the home study to CHI/KC for them to look over and he expects their OK on it soon.

Children's Hope International

On February 13, 2008, I emailed CHI about our application and received a reply that it had been received at CHI in Kansas City (our regional office) and it was being mailed to St. Louis (the main office).

We received a voice mail at home from Diane at CHI/KC that Tina Qualls would be our contact for questions and any help with paperwork. Tina is in St. Louis.

After supper on February 17, 2008, we told all of Tony's siblings and spouses about our new direction. They are quite excited. They have questions and we hope we'll be able to answer them over time. Adoption (and specifically International Adoption) questions can't all be answered at one time. All of the information would be too overwhelming. We hope they will all be open-minded about all that our journey has to offer.