First Post - Chinese Adoption 101

Hello All-
Welcome to our blog.  I hope to chronicle our time in England and our adoption journey. 

The facts:  Hubs and I are adopting a child from China.  We are working with a U.S.-based agency that is familiar with military families living overseas.  Why adoption?  Hubs and I would like the experience of parenting together and would like to add to our family.  Because we live outside the United States, U.S.  domestic adoption isn't an option for us.  We have explored various international adoption programs and find that China fits us best. Their program is well structured and stable & the physical health of the birth mothers is generally excellent. 

We are adopting under the China Special Needs Program.  The wait time for a child is substantially less - the non-special needs program is running 4+ years, or so we are told.  Most "special needs" are minor and/or correctable and not what most of us would equate with "special needs". 

We've been working with a Utah-based agency that specializes in military families since May.  We were "matched" with a child in November and have received pre-approval from the Chinese Central Adoption Authority - CCAA.  This means we've seen pictures of our new addition and already love him, and that we've got China's OK to proceed with the adoption. 

What is next -  we've spent the past several months prepping for our Home Study (social worker visit) and Dossier Preperation (the large packet of paperwork that introduces us to the CCAA as prospective parents).  Our dossier includes marriage/birth certiciates, copies of passports, pictures of us, our home, letters of reference, employment and financial documentation and much more!  We've also had to get police clearances from every state we've lived in since age 18.  Being a military couple, this has been a HUGE PAPER CHASE.  Between us, we have lived in 6 countries and 7 states.  This is ALOT of reaching out to various state agencies - great news - clean criminal records, ha ha.  

Our homestudy report is in progress as is our application to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, the artist formerly known as INS) to bring an "alien" in to the U.S.  Once those things are done, our dossier can be authenticated by the United States and sent to CHINA!  Once China logs our massive paper chase in, we wait for the LOA - Letter of Approval.  The LOA is followed (hopefully closely) by the TA - Travel Approval, which is basically - hey, come get your kiddo. 

At least one parent must travel to China to pick up the little one.  As of now, we both plan to travel.  Ideally, we will spend 3 or so days in Bejing touring, travel to the province where our little guy is living, spend a week or so there doing paperwork, and then travel back to the U.S. Embassy in China - Guangzhou.  We'll spend another few days there getting the visa stuff squarred away...and then...we are not sure.  We may be able to travel back to the UK but we may need to travel directly to the U.S. to complete the natrualization process....if we have to do this, we're thinking HAWAII...that might not suck.

So, that is a pared down version of what the next 9 months or so looks like for us.  Our little guy is TODAY 17 months old.  His special need is a congenital deformity of his right hand.  I'm going to post a picture of former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott (yay Michigan).  Our little guy is way better off than Jim...and Jim made it to the big show.  Piece. Of. Cake.  Soccer, track, cookie making and lots of giggles and hugs.  We are thrilled this beautiful boy is going to be ours - and he seriously is no joke handsome.  Not biased. 

So...at the beginning of our journey.  We wanted to post something that would let people know where we were at/where we were going. It will be a long wait, but there are things to do.  We are both in grad school, and have some decorating/traveling/running/Chinese learning to do while we wait. 

Love to all - thanks for reading!!