Update Day!

Yesterday I received a wonderful email from our agency with our quarterly update. Linh has grown 2 inches and gained 1.5 lbs since the last update. She now has 6 teeth and can feed herself some crackers. It sounds like she is doing well. And she has grow- look at her next to the little baby! She is walking while holding on to the crib and obviously sitting up. All very positive news.


Below are the pictures of our sweet little girl-

MOJ Approval!

We received notification yesterday from our agency that the Ministry of Justice has approved Linh's dossier! This means we are one step closer to bringing our little girl home. Thank you MOJ! Now we will wait for Peoples Committe approval and then Travel Approval.

New pictures

I have some new photos of Linh to share. A family traveling to Hanoi was kind enough to bring the doll Linh is holding in the photos for us and send photos. It is so amazing to see her holding an item that was with me just a couple of weeks ago. Thank you Cathy for your thoughtfulness!!

Our wait seems to be getting longer

We have been told that approvals are taking longer right now in Vietnam. Our hope to be in Hanoi with Linh or home with Linh by Christmas may not happen. We heard from our agency that travel may still be this year, but it may not happen until January. We are not alone -there are at least 3 other families that I know of waiting to bring their children home from the same orphanage. It has been 18 weeks since we first saw Linh. I really hope we are more than half way through our wait.

I have one suitcase packed with gifts for the children at the orphanage, the staff, and officials. I used our large suitcase. I am relieved that I started shopping early. I have been able to find some good deals on gifts. I have the tissue paper, ribbon and just about all of the needed gift bags. There are a couple of gifts I still want to pick up- but since they are Sanders chocolates (made in Michigan) I need to wait until travel. Those of course will go in my carry on luggage. I suppose its good that I used a large suitcase- this way when we do travel we will have a lot of space for souvenirs from Vietnam! I tested out packing Linh's things and it appears I can fit everything into our smaller suitcase. Once her room is set, I will wash her clothes and pack the suitcase. John and I need to try to fit everything in one other large suitcase. We have another small one we can use but I just can't see us walking through an airport with 2 big suitcases, 2 small suitcases and 2 carryons. It sounds like so much luggage. Plus a baby on the way home!

We STILL have not finished bedroom which is why I have not posted photos. The freshly painted vent covers have been installed. It is amazing how much paint can accumulate on vent covers over 54 years. It took a number of steps to remove all the old paint before they could be painted white. The new light fixture is hanging. The walls are painted. The hold up is the casing for the door which John has removed, sanded and is restaining. And we need to finish painting is the floor molding. The plan is to finish that up this weekend. We'll see how it goes...

I600 Approval!!

I checked my email this morning before work - which I began doing about 25 working days ago when I found out our paperwork had been submitted to USCIS in Vietnam. To my surprise we had an email from the embassy indicating we are approved. Hard to believe it only took 22 days! Now we wait for approval of Linh's dossier by the MOJ. Then People's Committee Approval, then travel approval. We are one step closer to Linh. Maybe we will be home by Christmas with Linh?

In the meantime, work in her room has slowed. This week has been totally about preparing for John's sister's wedding. Her wedding is Saturday and John is standing up. We have worked on cookies, place cards, and tonight flowers. Sunday we will be back to finishing Linh's room. Then we'll post some photos.

Linh will be 1 yr old on 10/10. I sent a package to our agency and it will arrive next week in Vietnam. I'm sorry we won't be with her for her first birthday. But I know we will be with her for her next birthday and each one after that.

Update Day!

We received updates yesterday on Linh's progress! She is crawling around the room very fast to get toys and play with her friends. She can stand with support. She gained 2 1/2 lbs and grew 2 inches in 3 months. Her hair is a bit shorter too. Here are the updated photos from 8/6/08.

People really are good

I checked the Holt blog today (at work which I try really hard to limit). And I had a PM from another family adopting a little boy from Hanoi. They had received a video of their little guy. In the video is another child that he thought was Linh- based on her referral photos I posted. So I sent him my email. I am unable to check home email at work (security and all). As soon as I arrived home, I checked email and would you believe he already sent the video? It is about 1 minute in length and their little boy is the focus (very adorable baby about 1 month older than Linh) and there is another child in the background. Most of the time you just see 2 little legs moving around and the child is playing with a toy. But then the little baby turns around and it is Linh! There is no question about it. All that hair and those eyes!

I am so grateful to this family that sought me out to send me the video clip. We do not "know" each other and have never communicated before today. But they gave John and me a glimpse of baby Linh. It is wonderful to have this snippet of her.

I600 Submitted!

Yes, our I600 paperwork has been submitted to CIS in Vietnam! CIS typically takes about 60 working days to investigate orphan status. This means that the required child documents have been received from the Department of Justice and sent with our CIS paperwork for review.

This happens concurrently with the submission and review of Linh's dossier and the hopeful approval of the Peoples Committee.

Still Waiting

My mother and I went to Ikea today. I love that place! We filled up my Honda with goodies for Linh- a chair, rugs. and light fixture for her room, essentials like bibs, potty, step stool. Grammie of course picked up some soft toys for her. She couldn't resist. I came home and John arrived with a nearly new dresser from one of his Navy friends. It is perfect. We had planned on refurbishing the one I used growing up - but now we will have one less project. I will put new knobs on it to match the color in her room. We will try to paint her room the weekend after Labor Day. Then we can start loading the room up - I'm looking forward to that! It is going to be so fun putting it all together. It has been fun planning too!

Other than planning and shoppping- we are waiting for an email from Holt with some news. Hopefully we will hear something soon.

Linh Elise

I believe we have decided on our daughter's name. John wants to keep Linh Thuy without making any changes. I want to add in another name. We had always planned on naming a girl Lena after my grandmother. But when we were matched with Linh - which is so close - we agreed to keep her name as Linh instead of changing it. Plus my middle name is Lynn - so now she and I share a name. So we are going to leave her first name as Linh, but give her another middle name, and keep Thuy as a second middle name. This way she will have her Vietnamese name as well as an American (although really its a French name). She will have options when she is older and has her own opinion of what name she wants to use.

Linh Elise Thuy Austin

What do you think?

MOJ Approval

Well, it is official. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has approved our dossier! This is wonderful news.
Now, we wait for Linh's dossier to be sent to Department of Justice and approved. This may take approximately 30-60 days (more or less).
Then certain child documents will be added to our immigration paperwork and submitted to USCIS in Vietnam. This may take 60 working days for the USCIS to investigate her orphan status.
At the same time Linh's dossier is sent to the MOJ for their approval. This approval may take a week or so.
Then a couple of weeks for the processing of the commitment paper- which Holt submits for us.
Then local Department of Justice verifies MOJ approval and requests a meeting of the local People's Committee (PC) in Hanoi. The PC makes their adoption decision, travel approval and schedule the Giving and Receiving date. This is expected to take 2 weeks.
Travel to Vietnam is about 2-3 weeks after the People's Commitee approval.
Potentially, we could be makeing travel plans by the middle to end of November. Wow!

Different Trips to the Same Place

This was posted by an AP and I thought it was perfect.

Different Trips to the Same Place
Unknown Author

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place, you've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip. So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait--and wait--and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax. You'll get on a flight soon." Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!" After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat." "By BOAT!" you say. "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat. It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip. Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air. People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy." You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not the way you get there, but in the place itself.

Just about through with the paperwork...

Last week John came to the bank and we signed our Power of Attorney document, had it notarized, then John had the document state certified and sent it to Holt via FedEx. Seems appropriate since I did the running for the dossier. :) Then we received our acceptance documents of Linh from Holt and we read through those over the weekend. John again stopped by work so we could sign and have our signatures notarized. We're becoming regulars at the branch for notary services. This time I took the documents to UPS after work and barely had time to put my documents in the envelope before the carrier arrived for the last pickup of the evening. Just in time! Today I copied and compiled the remaining documents to submit with our I600 to Holt. I will send those tomorrow to Holt, however, they will not submit for processing until our power of attorney is sent to Vietnam.

After I send the documents tomorrow, basically we wait for MOJ, USCIS and DOJ approvals. We will need to have an update to our homestudy, since it was done last September and the study is only good for 12 months. But we have a bit of time before we need to do that.

In the meantime, I am putting together a photo album to send Linh, along with a letter (recommended by our agency). The photo album will include photos of our house, me and John, and some extended family. The intent of the photo album is to familiarize Linh with us and her future surroundings. Our agency sends packages out each week to Vietnam, so I would like to have the album and letter sent early next week. I will send a couple of outfits to Linh as well. Last week Carters was having a Super Duper sale. Couldn't pass it up and bought about 10 outfits in 9 months, and 10 outfits in 12 months. I'm going to send a couple of the 9 months. I have learned that we will be traveling in December or January and the high temperature at that time of year is 67-70 in Hanoi which is where we will be the entire time. Now that I know this, some of the summer onesie outfits I bought will probably be too light for Linh. I may need to go back and exchange some of the outfits.

We have a daughter!

4 months (2/15/08)





















7 Months (5/6/08)

8 months (6/3/08)

Wednesday evening I was talking to my mother on my blackberry. Our home phone rang, I didn't recognize the name, so I continued talking to my mother. Then my cellphone rang- same phone number. I decided I should hang up with my mother and see who was trying to contact me. By this time, cellphone stopped ringing, but there was a voice mail message. I began to retrieve message and while I did so, home phone rang again. Apparently this person really wanted to talk to me. The answering machine (yes we have an old fashioned answering machine) picked up and I heard a women telling me she was from Family and Children Services and she had very good news for us. We have a referral. I picked up the phone and asked if she said what I think she said. She laughed and said yes. I was stunned. We have an 8 month old beautiful little girl waiting for us in Hanoi! Sue sent the email she had received from Holt (As we live in a state without a Holt branch, we work with a participating homestudy agency. If Holt had been unable to reach someone at our HS agency, they would have contacted us directly to tell us about our referral.) John was at class and would not be home until after 9pm. It was 6:30 when I received the phone call. Sue remained on the phone with me for nearly 40 minutes as we together looked at the 8 photos and went thru each page of information provided on Linh Thuy. I was so surprised by this phone call. As I said in my last post, I thought it would be 6-8 weeks for any news. Maybe this was why Minnie avoided telling me where were on the list. She probably already knew we were matched and she just could not share that news yet. Oh what a wonderful phone call! I tried at first to not look at the photos- I thought I should wait for John but I could not wait 2 1/2 hours. So I looked and looked. When John finally came home, I was looking at her photos on the computer. He asked what I was doing. I said come here and look at these photos. He said "Oh, she is so cute." I scrolled through and he finally asked whose she was. I said "She is Baby Austin." He didn't get it right away. So I repeated it again and again. Then I showed him our email. He was just as stunned as I had been. The entire evening seemed so unreal. We have spent so much time researching international adoption programs, agencies, adoption in general, Vietnam, baby names, parenting, creating blogs, planning, budgeting, following other families journeys, preparing paperwork, tracking down traveling notaries, and speaking to doctors. To finally hear the words "You have a daughter" was truly amazing. Today is Sunday, and it still seems a bit unreal.

I have learned from another family whose child is waiting in Hanoi that we will likely travel in 6-7 months from approval of our dossier. So we have quite a bit of time to decorate her room and prepare.

No news

I spoke with our agency last week. Nothing new to report. We discussed the Vietnam Childrens Right Campaign- which I have participated in by contacting my congresspeople. It is a very important campaign for the children in Vietnam. Please read and support
http://www.jcics.org/Vietnam.htm
Agency hopes more releases will be received in the next 6-8 weeks. I hope maybe Baby Austin will be one of those referrals. I can only hope and pray. In the meantime, I'm researching the cost of flights, and hotels. Not much else to do right now and its better to keep my mind occupied.
Friday the 13th we will reach the 9 month point of our official wait.

MOJ

Well it is official. We have received word that our dossier has been logged in with the Ministry of Justice. Now, if we receive a referral by 9/1/08, we will be able to complete the adoption. I am hopeful that we will receive a referral during this period. Based on movement of other families, I feel that we have moved up on "the list" a fair amount since March.

May 15 was a day full of good news! Not only did we receive the update on our dossier, but we also welcomed a new member to our family. I am the proud aunt of our new niece, Jenna, who was born 5/15 . I will post her picture so you can all she how adorable she is. She will be welcomed home tomorrow by her two big sisters Emma and Megan.

John and I are now uncle and aunt to 12 wondeful kids. Wow! Can't wait to bring home our first little one.

Latest happenings

Latest warning concerning adoptions from Vietnam http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/adoption_warning0408.html

Positives from the warning: deadlines provided for PAP- Dossiers will be accepted by MOJ until 7/1/08 and those families with dossiers matched to a child by 9/1/08 will be able to complete their adoptions. At least those of us waiting have some concrete deadlines. If we do not have a referral by 9/1, then we will have to start a new plan. We will remain hopeful for now that we will not have to start a new plan.

It has been an exciting week on the Holt board with at least four families receiving referrals. Referral days are so exciting- it wonderful to see children being matched to forever families that have waited and prayed for so long. I have forced myself to not call Holt to find out our place on the "list." I know they are very busy and a phone call from a curious PAP without a legitimate question seems distracting. I will wait until I hear that our dossier has been sent to MOJ. On 4/3/08 it was sent for translation and that was expected to take about 3 weeks - which it has been. However, based on the movement of other families, I believe that we are likely in the single digits. Wow! I started working on our baby registry this afternoon at Target. :)

DTV!

I finally received an email today from Holt that our dossier is being sent to Vietnam! This is also known as DTV - dossier to Vietnam. In Vietnam, our dossier will be translated, which may take a few weeks, and then it will be sent to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). I was beginning to worry since our dossier had been in San Fransisco since 3/14 for authentication. I suppose it can be attributed to a large number of dossiers being submitted for processing all at one time. I am just thankful that it is heading to Vietnam. Now I can update the timeline that I created.
Next step will be when our dossier is sent to MOJ. I will receive notification from Holt once this occurs. Then we wait some more. Some days I'm better at waiting then others. Hopefully the fact that we are DTV will help the waiting.

John's employment letter is still in San Fransisco for authentication. It will follow the rest of our dossier to Vietnam shortly. Since the letter was issued and notarized in Ohio, county certification and state certifcation were required (by Ohio). Earlier in March I had a day scheduled off from work for a doctor's appointment. After the appointment I drove to Toledo for county certification. My mother came along for the ride. I then sent it overnight to Columbus for state certification. Surpisingly the state was very prompt with the certification. It was processed the same day and returned to me overnight. Then it needed to be sent overnight to Holt. Now, as I said, it is in San Fransisco for authentication. So many steps in this process. But worth every one.

Dossier done- well 95% done

I took the morning off of work to finish up our dossier. A dossier consists of employment letters, physician letters, clearance from our local police, marriage certificate, copies of our passports, photos for our visas, commitments, applications, acceptance of adoption, photos of us, and our home, and our homestudy. The documents are notarized then certified by the state. The documents then go to our agency for review, after which the documents are translated into Vietnamese and sent to Vietnam for processing. Typically this is done after the acceptance of a referral, however, our agency has changed the process and therefore we are completing this task in advance of a referral.

I am still waiting for John's employment letter from Ohio however I decided to go ahead and send in everything else now. So I went to the police department and picked up the clearance letters that we requested last Wednesday after we went to the doctor's office for our physician letter. After the police department I picked up some pictures from Walgreen's and then decided that one of the pictures would be included in our dossier instead of one I had already taped to the paper. Then on to Secretary of State. It was so nice to find out that Michigan has created "Secretary of State Supercenters" where people can go to have documents authenticated. Instead of driving an hour to Lansing, I drove 10 minutes to the closest "Supercenter." I was in and out in 30 minutes. Then off to Kinko's to make 3 copies of everything. Then I went home to redo the photos and organize the sets of documents and type up a quick cover letter to Holt. Then I was off to UPS to send the paperwork. It will arrive at Holt Thursday morning by 10:30AM. After they review it, they will forward for translation and then it will go to Vietnam. At that point we will be DTV- Dossier to Vietnam. It is so wonderful to have the dossier complete (almost).

5 months and waiting

We officially hit the 5 month hurdle! It is so nice to see the numbers on that ticker going up every day! I found out that we have already moved from #27 to #26 - in one week!
We are making progress on our dossier. However, there is one glitch in my two week plan. Our doctor is on vacation for 10 days. So we have to wait until 2/27 for our physician letter. In the mean time we can have the tests completed (the physician statement must state that we are free from infectious diseases so we need to have updates to our HIV tests. John has them done frequently for the military, but it has been awhile since I was tested. Plus doctor will want to see the results for himself. ) Everything else is coming together. Oh, except of course our I171 approval. I may end up submitting the dossier without that approval. The instructions I have from our USCIS office is to wait until 90 days to contact them. It will be 90 days in 10 days. I will call on day 91.

I went to an open house last week for a nursery school that has been highly recommended. There are 11 classrooms and the classes range from 12 month olds to kindergarten. Everything was so tiny- the chairs, the tables, the toilets and sinks. So many fun toys too! They offer French classes, cooking, computers, and dance classes for kids 3 and over. I like the variety. I have to admit it was a little odd being at the school - kind of made the idea of being a parent real. We so much want to be parents, but after wishing for something for so long, reality requires some getting used to. I felt totally unprepared on what to look for in a nursery school. It all looked good to me (low ratio of children to adult, friendly, intelligent, caring teachers and teacher assistants, clean facilities, set schedules including indoor and outdoor (when appropriate) playtime (yet schedule can be flexible if need be), healthy snacks, naptime, storytime, supervised interaction with older children, naps are on low cots and the kids utilize their own linens that are required to be laundered on a regular basis, the staff waters down the juice (for the parents who choose to allow their kids to have juice- I particularly like this one since I'm super conscious of the sugar in the food and beverages we consume), the staff's own children have attended the nursery school and I have a reliable reference. Other than those things, I'm not sure what I should look at to evaluate the school properly. I am happy that I have some more time to read more parenting books. I'll have to pick one up on evaluating schools. Thus far, the focus of our reading has been on adoption, multi racial families, attachment, but basic parenting skills need to be addressed. I know we will figure it out, many parents do. I just want to make sure we are in the group that does. I really believe that we will - John and I compliment one another. But anyone who really knows me, knows that I need to focus on something.

We can put our names on the waiting list at the nursery school since we really do not know when our child will be home and we do not know when he or she will even be ready for the program. So that is what we will do. There is a developmental program in the mornings and child care in the afternoons. The schedule we will be interested in is still up in the air. We really will need to wait until our child is home and evaluate him or her to proceed further than "on a waiting list." Every child is different and develops at a different pace. I'm happy the school realizes that - another point for them.

News from Holt

I received an unexpected phone call at work on Wednesday from Holt. Unfortunately I was out of the office and when I returned, I heard the voice mail from Minnie. Panic! I thought they were calling to tell me that due the uncertainty of the renewal of the MOU, we should look into other programs. Believe me at one time or another I have looked into all their programs. Since day one, our biggest hurdle has been finding programs with flexible family requirements. There are only two other country programs with Holt that we would be "accepted" and both are not accepting applications from families for children under 3 years old. I would be open to a three year old, but I was hoping for our first child to be younger- simply because we are not parents yet. It is going to be a huge learning experience for us and it seems like it would be helpful to have some parenting experience first before bringing home a 3 year old and trying to parent him/her. By 3 years old, they are already a little person. Really, it scares me that I might not be prepared for an older child right now and I want to make sure that we do not take on more than we are equipped to handle. I believe that our second child will be an older child when we bring him or her home. John and I are both on the same page with that.

Anyhow, I called Minnie back and she was not calling to suggest we look into other programs. She was calling to tell me that we are now #27 on the list (Yay!) and that the agency has decided to change the process a bit. We are to compile our dossier and submit ASAP. The dossier will be submitted to Vietnam and translated. When we are referred a child, the dossier will already be in Vietnam. Hmm. Not what I expected her to say, but OK. It is some progress. It gives me a project to work on for the next 2 weeks. That is the deadline I have given myself. So I am going thru my list this weekend of what my steps are. First step is to contact the Secretary of the State on Monday to find out if I need county certification prior to state certification.

I have a few thoughts on the agency's motivation to change the process but really in the end, it does not matter why the change. The fact is the process has changed, and I am going to put our dossier together in 2 weeks and then go back to waiting.

Waiting and hoping

We received an update from our agency to let us know that applications continue to be accepted for the Vietnam program. They continue to encourage the US and Vietnam governments to resolve the issues of concern that will ensure ethical adoption practices in Vietnam.

Today I am optimistic that a new agreement will be reached. There are 7 months left until the agreement expires and I am hopeful that will be sufficient time for resolution.

In the mean time, I will continue to prepare as I have been - reading books concerning attaching in adoption, transracial issues, tips on parenting, the guide book from my agency, and waiting for the approval for our I600A. Oh, and going thru the book of 60,000 baby names.

Department of State issues warning

Rather discouraging, but expected-
http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/intercountry/intercountry_3939.html

How it began

We have known that we would adopt our children since before we were married in 2004. We waited a couple of years -just to enjoy life as a married couple without children. Then we began the adoption journey in 2006.

There were country programs to research, adoption agencies to investigate, references to contact and all of this took considerable time. In early 2007 while John was serving his 6 month deployment in Kuwait, we finally decided to move forward with Holt International. Holt has been helping to build families for over 50 years and continues humanitarian work in numerous countries. Every comment on the agency was that it is highly ethical, very reliable, and considered one of the best choices (if not the best choice in agencies). Holt works in various countries, and has adoption programs in about 10 countries. We felt very confident that we made the right decision with Holt. (We still believe this today).

We chose the Vietnam program. Various factors were taken into consideration for choosing a program. There are many requirements that we as prospective adoptive parents (PAP) must meet to be accepted into a program. Of the few programs we were "accepted," Vietnam was the program of choice for us. Although the children are generally in orphanages, they tend to be healthy. In addition, the program has been reopened since 2006 and appears to be relatively stable. Our agency, Holt, first tries to place the children with relatives. If that is unsuccessful, they attempt to place the children with families domestically. If that is unsuccessful, then they work to place the children internationally. From what I have read, this is not done by all agencies. As a result, the wait for a referral from Holt is longer, and the children may be slightly older when referred than with other adoption service providers. However, I would prefer a longer wait for a referral since I am confident that by the time PAPs receive that referral, many attempts have been made to place the child with biological family members or domestically. Unfortunately there are instances of unethical behavior with international adoptions when children are placed despite not truly being legally available for placement. I have not read or heard about an intance where Holt has been associated with such a situation.

After identifying our Agency and program, we submitted our application in March 2007. I completed the 8 page agreement, sent it to John in Kuwait, along with a DVD on Holt International. He signed it, had it notarized and returned it back to me in the states. We had hoped to be officially accepted and moving along with our family assessment (homestudy) by the time he returned in May 2007. We did submit our application to Holt and we were officially accepted into the program on April 5, 2007. We also had to apply to a cooperating homestudy agency, since Holt does not have a branch office in our state. John finally came home on May 11, 2007! He was gone 8 months exactly. He had left on September 11, 2006. I didn't waste any time scheduling our first home study visit. We met with our social worker at the cooperating agency on Monday May 14 for our first 3 hour interview. In preparation for the meeting, we had to complete a 15 page questionnaire on ourselves. From this Angela asked us questions to try to have a good understanding of us, how we would be as parents, what our motives were for adopting, whether we had a good support system, and did we understand the issues with adoption, and trans-racial adoption and were we prepared to address these issues. We had a second interview on May 21st, and a third on May 29th. During these visits, we supplied her with the names and addresses of 3 people (not relatives) to contact for references. Questionnaires were sent out and each person was asked to answer honestly. We also had to collect information on our finances, birth certificates, marriage license, employment verification, police clearance for our local police station, medical exams, letters from physicians, and verification that our water was safe for drinking. Then we waited for our home visit on July 11, 2007. We spent the weekend prior to her visit organizing the basement and upstairs. The night before we divided up the chores and cleaned the house. In the morning I made coffee, baked a coffee cake and prepared a fresh fruit salad. Angela came over at 9am and left after 12pm. The coffee cake went over really well with Angela. I'm sure the scent of freshly baked goods helped. She toured our house, interviewed each of us separately, and then interviewed us together. When she left, we were done with our part of the homestudy. Now we had to wait for Angela to finish composing the assessment. This took much longer than we anticipated. It was sent to Holt on September 5, 2007. Holt called us on September 13, 2007 and told John that we were officially on the waiting list for the referral of a child from Vietnam and we were number 46 . He called me at work to let me know. We received the official letter in the mail the next day.

Initially we were instructed to wait 3 months before completing the I600A, which is the Application for Advance Processing for Orphan Petition. Then we were told we could do it immediately after acceptance of homestudy. I waited until November 10, 2007 - 2 months after acceptance. After submitting the application, we were then notified of a fingerprint appointment on December 15, 2007. We are waiting to receive our approval. According to our Holt guidebook, it can take 60-90 days to clear our fingerprint by the FBI. If we do not hear something by March 15, 2008, I will contact the USCIS. Other than receiving the approval, we really just sit back and wait for a referral. We were told 12-16 months for a referral.

On December 12, 2007, we received our quarterly update from Holt and were informed that we had moved to #33 on the "list." Since then I know of one person on the "list" that has accepted a referral. Most likely there have been other referrals, but if the PAPs are not posting on the Holt forum, I am unaware of it. From the timelines of other PAP, approximately 4 referrals are given a month. This could mean by now we are around 25 on the "list." If referrals continue as they have, we could be matched as early as August 2008. Wow!