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).