And we continue to wait...

I left a message a couple days ago with the person at Holt who reviews the CHI dossiers. She hadn't called back yet today so I called again. She said she had "just" received it and hadn't gotten a chance to review it yet and probably won't this week. She expected to be able to review it next week and then would call me at that time.

Dossier to Holt

I emailed CHI today and asked them to let me know when they receive the agreement from NCHS. We got a reply tonight saying that they received it today and sent it to Holt in Eugene, OR, today. She also said that they will call us when the dossier is being sent to China and that will probably be late next week. I hope they call our cell phones as we will be out of town next week.

Woohoo!

Dossier to Children's Hope

I sent the entire dossier (13 "official" documents, pictures, passport pictures, copies of passports, additional forms, fees, etc.) next day air to Children's Hope in St. Louis. They have everything else except the document that our caseworker has to sign. He's waiting on more information from Holt because it is more than an "agreement", it's more a "contract". He said he didn't think there would be a problem but it has to go through administrative steps before they can sign it.

So... that's what's going to hold us up now. I hope not for very long, though.

Once CHI receives our Dossier, they will review it and make sure everything is correct. They will then forward it on to Holt. Holt will review it and send it to China and someone will call us and let us know all about Holt.

More Agreements

Today we received the last 2 agreements that will be needed for our transfer to Holt. One is for our homestudy caseworker to fill out and I forwarded it to him. The other one we have to read (all "legaleze") and sign in front of a notary. Wow! Does it ever stop?

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...