New Pictures

A fellow Zhuhai mommy visited the SWI and got these great pics of Bailee.

Next Step Done

We received our 800 approval from immigration yesterday in the mail.   Our approval date was June 28.  We hope to be cabled by the end of the week which is the next step.   We are still on track to leave at the beginning of September.  It would be wonderful to have our Travel Approval in hand by Bailee's birthday on August 18.
We are coming sweet girl!!!!

LOA and What is Next

After 75 days of waiting (not patiently) we got our Letter of Acceptance from China.   We have been approved to be Bailee's parents.   We were blessed to have it come this quickly as many people lately have been waiting over 100 days.   Our wait for LOA with Taylor was 132 days so I guess it evens out.

It arrived at our agency on Wednesday and they overnighted it to us.   We watched for the FedEx man in order to get a picture.   He probably thinks we are very strange.

We signed the LOA and sent it back to our agency.  It arrived there this morning (Friday).

Many people have asked what is next.   Here are the next steps and the approximate dates we should reach them.

1.  Our I-800 immigration paperwork is being sent by our agency to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services  (USCIS) branch of Homeland Securtiy.  The Form I-800 is our Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative. It's our approval from USCIS to adopt the child we were matched with specifically-Bailee.  It should arrive on Monday (6/18). 

Here is what happens next: 
Approximately one week after sending the USCIS Form I-800 and all supporting documents we will receive a Notice of Receipt from the lockbox in Texas. This letter will simply state that our application was received! It will list the date it arrived at the lockbox**** as well as our case number.
After that, our application will be forwarded to the National Benefits Center (NBC) where all I-800 applications are reviewed and approved!!    We should have our approval by July 9.

*****The lockbox is the location where USCIS reviews the Form I-800 application quickly to make sure there aren't any missing pages, unsigned sections of theapplication, etc.. They want to make sure everything is in order before they send the application to the National Benefits Center for approval.

2.  After approving our file, our officer will mail our approval to the National Visa Center by 2nd Day UPS Air. However, the approval isn't always mailed out the same day it's approved, so applications can take up seven days to arrive at NVC. Upon receiving our approval, the National Visa Center (NVC) will enter our information into their computer system.

Within 1-3 business days, the NVC will "cable" (basically emailing/sending electronically) our file to the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China. This is approval of our visa petition.



Upon doing this, the NVC will then mail us a letter stating that our petition has been forwarded to the Embassy.   We hope to be done with this step by July 16.


3.  Once our agency has the NVC letter, they will forward it to their in-China representative. 
The in-China rep will take the NVC letter to the US Embassy in Guangzhou along with our DS-230 application and Parental LOA. The US Embassy only allows representatives to drop off the paperwork on certain days.
The consulate needs to review Bailee's visa application (the DS-230), make sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed. This is called the Article 5 letter. We cannot obtain custody of Bailee until the Article 5 letter is issued!
The consulate takes a standard two weeks to complete this process. If our paperwork is dropped off on a Monday, it will be picked up from the consulate by our agency rep two Mondays later.
Once it's picked up from the consulate, it will be delivered directly to the CCAA for Travel Approval! We hope this step is done by August 6.

4.  Now we wait for China to grant us Travel Approval.   We hope this step can be completed by August 27 however we would love for it to be sooner.

Our prayer is that we can leave for China on either September 6 or 13.   We cannot leave any later than that and still travel in September as all of China celebrates a holiday starting September 30 and ending October 6.   Because we have to do two weeks of appointments in China and we could not do anything that holiday week, we couldn't leave on the 20.   After the holiday and during the whole month of October there is a trade fair in Guangzhou the city where we will be the whole time.   Because of the trade fair the prices for hotels and food almost doubles.   We could still travel then, but it would cost us so much more money.  

We are praying that God would allow us to get our precious baby girl in September.   We ache to hold her in our arms and love on her.

Here are Jordan and Taylor doing the LOA Happy Dance.

Day 49

It has been 49 days since China preapproved us to adopt Bailee.  I have to say for me at least these 49 days have seemed like 409 days.   I just want to hold her in my arms so much.   I want to feed her her bottles and rock her to sleep.   I want to change her diapers and give her baths.   I don't want to be halfway around the world from my baby.   Come on, China!!!! These precious children need their parents.   Work faster on the paperwork.!   I am still hoping for September, but as the days pass and the times for LOA get longer for the people on my Facebook group who are also waiting it may be October before we travel.  I know God has the perfect timing, but it is so hard to wait.
My SW who visited Bailee's orphanage in April sent a CD with 2 videos of Bailee.   They are kind of long so I am not going to post them however here are two still shots I took of the videos.

Enjoy!!!!

New Pictures

Right after we accepted Bailee's referral I joined the Zhuhai Yahoo Group.   A lady in the group is an American who lived in China for a while and volunteered at Bailee's orphanage.   I contacted her with some general questions and she told me that she thought my agency, Lifeline, was going to start a partnership with Bailee's SWI (Social Welfare Institute).
I called my SW, Mallory, from Lifeline to ask a few questions and I mentioned to her what this lady said.   She asked me what orphanage Bailee was in as she wasn't as intently studying Bailee's paperwork like we were.  When I said the name she got quiet for a minute and said that yes, they would be announcing in a few days that they would soon be partnering with three orphanages in China and Bailee's was one of them.  Then she said something that blew me away.  She was leaving soon to travel to China to each of those three orphanages.   She was going to get to hold my precious baby and get some pictures for me.   Out of all the social workers at my agency she was going to be one of two who were traveling and out of all of the thousands of orphanages in China she was heading to the exact orphanage where my sweet Bailee was living.  God is so good.
Well Mallory got back recently and today she sent two precious pictures.  
Here she is (8 months old):

I so much want to hug this sweet baby girl and get some slobbery kisses.

Please pray that our paperwork comes quickly!!!!!!!!

I Love Yard Sales!!!!!!

I went to yard sales today (my spring/summer/fall hobby).   I ended up getting the following for Bailee:
13 shirt/onsies
1 bib
1 pair of shorts
12 pairs of pants
1 dress
5 tights
7 long-sleeved one piece outfits
10 one piece pjs
and the following for Taylor (4 1/2):
2 pairs of size 4 pants
12 pairs of size 5 pants
4 pairs of size 6 pants
2 size 4 shirts
7 size 5 shirts
3 size 6 shirts
1 dress
1 skirt
1 pj pants
all for ........................................................................$38!

Introducing

Bailee Joy YuanQin Weaver

Date of birth: August 18, 2011

Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China

I know this post is going to be long, but I want to document our journey to Bailee.

Back in April of 2011 Stefan and I first talked about adding another daughter to our family.  He wasn't convinced that he wanted to have to go through the process and travel again so he said no at that time.   My heart was in China with a little girl and all summer I kept thinking about the fact that another daughter was in China that was meant to be in our family.  Finally in August he told me that God had changed his heart and we could start the process again.   I made contact with Lifeline Children's Services on August 9.   The next week on the 15th we submitted our application and on the 16th I started our homestudy process with Adoption Related Services.   Little did I know that just a couple of days later our precious daughter would be born halfway around the world.
This adoption paperwork process was different (and harder) than the process we did for Taylor.   Right after we submitted our dossier (oodles of paperwork) to China for Taylor in March of 2008, the US ratified the Hague Treaty which adds lots of paperwork and about 3 extra months to the adoption process.   Here are the steps that we had to do so far:

August 15/16 applications to placement and home study agenices completed
End of August-Child abuse clearances for every state that we lived in since we were 18 sent for/birth certificates ordered
September 13, 15-Stefan/Joy Dr. Visits
September 13-1st home study visit
September 30-2nd home study visit
October 6-3rd home study visit
November 9-Home study finished and approved by Lifeline
November 14-1-800A form and home study sent to US immigration for approval
December 28-Notarized papers for dossier
December 30-Took documents for dossier to Harrisburg to get state certified
January 3-Sent documents to courier to go to US State Department and Chinese Embassy to be authenticated
January 4-Call from courier that birth certificates needed to be state certified (Joy's mistake)
January 5-Stefan runs to Harrisburg to get new birth certificates and get them state certified
January 9-Documents taken to State Department/Chinese Embassy
January 12-1-800A (I-797) approval
January 16-Receive 800A/receive 12 dossier documents back from courier
January 17-Stefan takes 800A to get notarized and then to Harrisburg to be state certified/sends to courier
January 18-800A authenticated with overnight service from US State Department/Chinese Embassy
January 23-All dossier documents now at Lifeline
January 25-Dossier to China
February 8-Log-in-Date-We can now officially wait for a file to be sent to us that could possible be our daughter.

These are the documents that had to be sent to China as part of our dossier:

1. Adoption Application -one document

2. Stefan's Birth Certificate

3. Joy's Birth Certificate

4. Marriage License

5. Certificate of Income and Property (Financial Statement)

6. Stefan's Certificate of Profession

7. Joy's Certificate of Profession

8. Stefan's Medical

9. Joy's Medical

10. Stefan's Certificate of Criminal or No-criminal Record

11. Joy's Certificate of Criminal or No-criminal Record

12. Home Study Report

13. CIS Approval (I-797)

Here's the part about Bailee:

Starting on February 8, we were eligible to be given files of babies who were LID (log in date) first.   There are over 2000 children right now who are able to be adopted in China.   They are on what is called a shared list.   This means that every agency who does SN (special need) Chinese adoptions can show the files to their clients who can decide to lock the file and submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt that child.   The very young babies (2 and under) are rarely on the shared list for very long unless they have severe needs.  About every month China releases new files to the list at a preannounced time.   Every agency's rep (in the US or in China like our agency rep, Lily) is ready to "lock" a file for their client at the moment of the files coming on the list.   Because babies under a year (what we were asking for) are very rare, the files are locked within seconds of them being placed on the list.   Mallory, our SW for Lifeline, told us we might have to wait 4-6 months for a match as our age range/needs were rare.   China lately has been sending very young girl files directly to certain agencies so there are even less of them for everyone else.

In February we were e-mailed a file, but she had a need that we couldn't accept.   Two days later we were given a file, but she was much older than our age range.   We then had to wait for the March files to be released.

On March 19 we were sent a file, but she was older and had a very severe need.   On March 23 we were sent another file but she was still out of our age range.   On Sunday March 25, Stefan and I were very discouraged, but had resigned ourselves for a long wait until next month's list came out.

On March 26 when I got to school I looked at my e-mail and there was an e-mail from Mallory with the subject line: Zhu Yuan Qin for Weavers.   I was a little bit dreading opening the e-mail as my heart broke a little with every file we looked at that wasn't our Bailee.   I could hardly believe it when I saw that her birthday is August 18, 2011---she is only 7 months old.   I had been praying every night for two specific things-that our referral would be for a baby as young as possible (close to 6 months) and from Guangdong province.   I looked at the province and saw that my second request was answered-she is from Zhuhai which is in Guangdong province.  

[Let me explain the significance of the request to those of you who are not familiar with Chinese adoption.   Every American who adopts from China finishes their time in Guangzhou which is the capital city of Guangdong province.   After three different cities (and three different seasons to pack for, three different hotels, three different guides, and two in-China flights) for Taylor's adoption we just wanted to be able to unpack in one hotel and stay there for the whole time we spent in China.  We also have had 4 exchange students from Guangzhou and would love to visit them while we are there if possible.]

Back to Bailee-we sent her file to our pediatrician and asked her to forward it to Dr. Mackay who is a plastic surgeon we are familiar with from our visits to the Cleft Palate Clinic for Taylor.   He is the chief plastic surgeon at Hershey Med.   He got back to us on Tuesday and we called Mallory to let her know that we wanted to proceed with Bailee's adoption.   We sent our LOI to China and recieved our Pre-Approval on Friday so now we are able to share Bailee with you.

I guess I didn't specify what Bailee's need is.   She has a Tessier 7 facial cleft and some skin tags on her right ear.  Dr. Mackay said that both will be taken care of in a surgery when we get her home.

I am part of a forum called China Adopt Talk.   There is a wonderful lady on the forum who analyzes all the statistics that people provide on dates for their journey to their children.   Here is the latest chart which will give you come idea of our time frame.

My plan (which is probably different from God's plan) is to start the school year, teach a few weeks, and then leave for China on September 7 and arrive home on September 19 or 20.  The latest we expect to travel is October, but anything can happen.   Our wait time was 2-3 months longer with Taylor because of a glitch so we are praying for smooth sailing this time.

We are beyond excited to be blessed with this precious baby girl.   Please keep her (and us) in your prayers as we wait for the day we can finally hold her in our arms.