2 more

One personal reference and one letter of employment received today!  Thank you to everyone who is doing their part so quickly!  I am truly amazed!

Medical #1

Colton's medical form was finished today.  Some progress.

Shenglian

She lives in an orphanage in Harbin City.


Yes, we will go pick her up, it is a 2 week trip. I am tossing around the idea of taking the whole family on the trip. Yes, that would be 5 tickets there and 6 on the way back, but I think it would be worth it.

I don't know for sure if she speaks Mandarin, but I hope so.

We asked the agency to look for a child for us from the waiting child list. They were able to find her MUCH faster than we expected. Our parameters were that it be a girl 6 or under with a minor special need. The waiting child list from China surprisingly consists of mostly boys.  While I would love to have another boy, it seems logical for us to add a girl to the family due to the fact we already have 2 boys and only 1 girl (who by the way has been asking if we could adopt her a sister for a couple of years or more).  We also got our pre-approval back faster than I thought we would so now I feel like I need to hurry to get the paperwork finished.

Shenglian's special need is cleft lip/cleft palate. This birth defect is very common in Asian people. She has already had them repaired, but will need some more procedures as she grows up.

She is an orphan. In China, due to the law, if parents are not able to care for their child they leave the child in a public place to be "found".

Enough for now. :)

Teeth

Colton told me he has a tooth ache at bedtime tonight.  I looked in his mouth and 2 teeth have pieces missing!  They are back teeth so who knows how long they've been broken.

Bradyn has a sore tooth also, so I guess we'll be making a visit to the dentist.

Pre-Approval!!!!

We received the news this morning that we are pre-approved to adopt Shenglian!  So exciting!!!

I am choosing not to post her photo on the internet, as we are not her parents yet and some country's officials have frowned upon people posting photos.  If you know us and want to see a photo please email me!

tigiabra at yahoo dot com

Here's what else we need right NOW...

Forms for the homestudy....
2 more references from non-relatives
5 medical reference forms (one for each person in our family)
1 set of married people we can mention as our child's guardian for the adoption
4 state child abuse clearance forms (one for each of us for every state we've lived in which is 2)

Forms for the Dossier (which is the pile of papers which will be sent to China)...
2 medical forms (duplicate to the ones above) notarized
1 Letter of Employment from Tim's employer notarized
Birth Certificates and Marriage Certificate (already ordered)

There are numerous other documents as well, but I think all the rest of them I either already have, or they are forms I can fill out myself.

Letter of Employment #1

I recieved my "letter of employment" from my boss today.  I feel so grateful to have such a helpful boss.

Police Clearance Report Notarized

We went down to the city police station and got the police reports filled out an notarized today.  It was so quick and easy, they were very nice.  We also dropped off a copy of the form that we will need to have filled out at the doctor's office so they can look it over and see what we need.

Birth Certificates and Marriage Certificate

One item crossed off the list.  I ordered the certified copies of my birth certificate and our marriage certificate today.  I already have a certified copy of Tim's birth certificate that we can use.

The News

The reason I am starting this blog is to share some bits and pieces about our family here and there.

Right now we have some big news. We are adopting a little girl from China! She is 5 and so gorgeous. Our information has been sent to China by our agency for pre-approval. We are expecting to receive that back in 4-6 weeks!