We have our LID!

We found out from our adoption agency last week that we are officially "logged in" to the Chinese system. Our LID or Log-In-Date is Nov 28th, 2006. That is an exciting piece of news since that is when our official wait time is determined. Right now the wait time for the Regular or Non-Special Needs route is about 15 months from log in date but times, as we have found, change rapidly. That wait time can either get longer or shorter or stay the same. Based on the 15 months, out wait time would be approx 12 months from log in date if we in fact get a referral from China. Obviously we hope that maybe we can find out little girl off the waiting child list sooner than that but there are no guarantees. We are excited to be finally logged into the Chinese system and officially waiting though!
Please continue to think of us and pray for us that maybe the process could happen sooner rather than later and that we would continue to have patience through the process. I have included a few more recent pictures of the girls. Hope you enjoy! We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We are DTC!!!!

We have some great news to announce! We are finally DTC as of 10/31/06! For those in the non-adopting world that lingo stands for Dossier to China...Which means that all of our paperwork has been notarized by our agency and they have sent it on to China to be logged into the Chinese system. It could take up to several months to find out exactly when we were "logged in" with the China Center for Adoption Affairs but we are excited to finally be DTC. The wait time right now seems amazingly long-approx 15 months for the non-special needs route so approx 12 months for the "special needs" route...and our agency expects the wait to get even longer in 2007. We aren't excited about the wait but God knows exactly when we are going to adopt. None of it is a surprise to Him so we are trusting that He will direct our paths and give us the patience we need to wait on His timing. We do continue to pray that although we have submitted our paperwork to China through the special needs route that maybe we will find our little girl before then on one of the waiting children lists that get sent to our agency every 4-5 months. They will probably receive another list this spring and our hope is that maybe there is a little girl on the list that is meant to be ours. In the mean time we will continue to get prepared, get Mackenzie's and Ainsley's passports, and get the proper vaccines so that when the time comes we are ready to go! Thanks to all of you out there who are praying and encouraging us. We appreciate you so much!

Process Moving Along!

Sometimes it is difficult in the adoption process to wait and the last few months have seemed to drag on but we do have some good news to report! Today we received our I-171 H which is the last final document that we needed in order to start processing our paperwork and getting it ready to go to China. I will make copies and send it on to our agency in the next few days. For most people it is really exciting because that means the agency can go ahead and make sure their paperwork is ready and send it out to china. However we still have a wait due to Jeff's age. Our agency will get our paperwork ready and notarized for us but it will not be able to be sent out until after Jeff's birthday the end of Nov.

We also were hoping that we would find our little girl off the latest waiting child list from our agency but that didn't happen. There were other families ahead of us in the process and all that our agency has left on their list are boys. So we were a bit disappointed but are confident that God knows exactly the little girl who is meant to be ours. She may already be in China at this moment and I know He loves all the little boys and girls around the world that are looking for loving families.

So for now all that is left to do is wait. We will keep you posted on any changes that happen. Thanks for following along on our journey with us. Please keep us in your prayers as we trust His plan through all the waiting.

Paperwork Finally Done!!

Thanks to all of you who thought of us or prayed for us. Today at immigration went well and we are finally done all of our paperwork. As some of you may or may not know, today was our 2nd attempt at filing our I-600A in Louisville, KY. Our social worker suggested we file in person and then get our fingerprints done that same day. We attempted this for the 1st time over a month ago...But yes..Due to ME, we failed. I brought the wrong birth certificate with me. The cute one that you get from the hospital with your footprints on the back...Yes, that's the one I brought by mistake. Not even sure why I have it saved but unfortunately it was mixed in with all of my other "official" documents and there you have it! It worked out well since I did need to get another version of my birth certificate for china anyway and did so while we were in Maine on vacation a couple of weeks ago. So today, bright and early at 6 am, we roused the girls, put them in the car and drove to Louisville for a 8 am appointment. All went well and we were able to get our fingerprints and be on our way back home by 8:30 which was an answer to prayer for us! So thanks to everyone who has been thinking and praying for us!

We are hoping and praying that we will be able to find a little girl to adopt off our agency's waiting child list that they should be receiving within the next month. So keep up all of the prayers! While we are waiting, as that's one of the most difficult aspects, I may try and post a few pictures of the girls to see how posting pictures works!

There should be a couple of pictures of the girls. One of each of them at our yearly vacation to the beach, one of Mackenzie at her ballet recital and then one of Ainsley on her 3rd birthday.

Adoption process finally started!

Our family is excited to announce that we have finally "officially" started the adoption process. We actually started our homestudy to adopt a little girl from China back in June and are almost complete! Tomorrow is our last meeting with our social worker who will then put together our homestudy paperwork. We still need to file our I-600A and get fingerprinted but that should be our last step in the paperwork process. We look forward to keeping everyone posted on our adoption process as it progresses. Jeff and I are glad to be almost done the paperwork though! And Mackenzie is looking forward to traveling to China and to meet her new sister. Ainsley will be not be traveling with us but it also looking forward to her new sister as that will make her a big sister and not just the baby of the family:) I will try to be faithful in updating the blog as new events arise. Thanks for praying and thinking of us during this exciting time!