Sunday, September 16, 2007

DTC Day

September 13, 2007
After 10 months of paperwork, fingerprints, paperwork, biometrics (?), paperwork, waiting, homestudy, waiting, paperwork, phone calls to the agency, phone calls from the agency, and oh yeah; more waiting............ we are finally, officially DTC! Oh, and now we wait some more for LID, LOA, and eventually TA!

We were expecting and told by our agency that we would be DTC on Tuesday or Wednesday and they both came and went with no word. Then, while at school on Thursday (which was also my birthday) I received a phone call in the office. If that didn't send my heart a pumpin' . When I got on the phone, it was the woman at our agency telling me not to worry when I read the email that she had just sent (saying our authentication from the consulate had yet to arrive). Our paperwork had just arrived and was already being redirected and put in with our dossier to go to China. Hopefully, not on a slow boat!

Our Story

Where to even begin.......... probably the beginning for those of you that do not know the story.
My husband, Jason, and I officially begain the adoption process on December 5, 2006. We had spent the previous 5 or 6 months researching different agencies and decided to go with a local agency out of Syracuse. And so the paperwork begun. Looking back at how excited we were to attend the first meeting. Jason and I had decided to attend the informational seminar and then chew on the information before we made our decision and shared with our family. Somehow, things didn't quite work out that way. Needless to say, we didn't keep the secret for very long and we turned in our initial application that very same night!
We also left the agency that night thinking we would be parents to a baby girl. We even had a name picked out.
After filling out our first blue folder of applications and waiting........... our second blue folder arrived. We filled out our second blue folder, took some finger prints, some of us twice, and turned it in quickly. Good thing too, just in time to wait some more. So then, we received our third blue folder. We filled that out quickly, and had some biometrics done by the US Department of Homeland Security, had about 9 passport photos taken for each of us, filled out more paperwork, and waited some more. Finally, it was time to complete our homestudy. At first that seemed very daunting, but our social worker was wonderful and by the end of May 2007, our homestudy was complete! Good thing too, because now it was time to send to Buffalo (Dept. of Homeland Security). Then, it was time to wait. Are you seeing a pattern here? Normally, this process takes 6-8 weeks. Who knows what it really takes but it seems like months..........
Finally, our agency called towrd the end of July and said our I-71H form was on its way. Days went by and still no approval... Well, patience is a virtue and we finally recieved it, right around the time our son turned 1 in China on July 24th. Very efficiently we brought the approval to the agency so they could send it on to be authenticated, whatever that means. Well, it was authenticated and came back from the Chinese Consulate on Thursday Sept. 13th and was sent right on its way to China............... You guessed it, now we wait some more............