USCIS Approval and a Party!

We received our USCIS approval in the mail on Thursday! I express mailed it to Meg to put with our dossier. She told me that she would send our dossier to China today!! The Chinese government can take up to 90 days to send us our letter of acceptance, so we have another LONG wait ahead of us.

In the mean time, my mother and sister and mother-in-law are planning an adoption party for Chris and I (and of course for Saiya). I made some suggestions and narrowed down the invitation list to about 25 people. My sister and I also zoomed around target making a gift registry so that people will have an easier time figuring out what we need. The party is scheduled for February 28 (which is Saiya’s birthday!).

We are still up in the air about a middle name for her. Chris is having a hard time pronouncing You Ai, so I think we are going to try to give her an American middle name. We are not even close to a decision. We keep throwing names at each other, but so far, we cannot agree on any one in particular. I still like Jojo! Oh well, at least we have some time.

Busy Day for all of Us!

Our finger printing appointment was yesterday in Orlando. The US government certainly has the process streamlined. We arrived at 2pm and were done with the whole fingerprinting process by 2:30pm. They have these new scanners that electronically capture your fingerprints. No more ink! It was very impressive.

After our appointment, I swung by the post office and mailed out our first care package! So, clothes, stuffed animals, sippy cups, pictures of us, and a variety of other items are on their way to China! The orphanage should receive them in about 10 days.

YAY! She finally gets to see pictures of her new family and her home in America. I hope she is just as excited as we are.

Our First Care Package!

We got the care package packet in the mail over the weekend! We have a box filled with blankets, clothes, hair bows, and other items for the orphanage as well as a stuffed elephant for our little girl and a photo book with pictures of us and our home. I tried to translate some of the text in the photo album to Chinese using a translation web site, but I think I might have gotten a few things mixed up. I hope they can get the overall meaning of what we are trying to say. Anyhow, there are some really good pictures of us, I hope they enjoy them!

The packet didn’t contain tags or clips for the items, so we improvised. I hope that is ok. The box is all wrapped up and ready to go to China. I will probably get to the post office on Wednesday afternoon after our fingerprinting appointment in Orlando. We will be sending another care package in a couple of weeks with more clothes and things for the orphanage and our daughter. She already has several cute dresses and outfits hanging up in the closet and in the dresser in her room. There are such CUTE little girl clothes out there! We are going to go broke! :)

We had a wonderful Christmas!

Both of our families bought our little girl presents! We are going to be sending some of the items we received for her to China in our first care package. We got clothes, hair bows, books, sweaters, and toys for her. Thank you so much to everyone who thought of her over the holiday. We have one box all ready to ship to China as our first care package.

The day after Christmas, we received our fingerprinting appointment for our USCIS approval. We are scheduled to go to Orlando for our appointment next Wednesday, January 6, 2010. We are thrilled that we are almost there!

I received a Ross gift card for Christmas and went shopping on my lunch break. I bought some of the cutest clothes for Saiya! Last night we wandered around the mall and my mother bought some really cute dresses for her. I showed Chris, but he didn’t seem interested. He is excited, but I think he completely misses the appeal of CUTE clothes!! Haha! It’s a girl thing I guess.

We got our Pre-Approval from CHINA!!

We received our pre-approval from China today! This means that China has received our petition to adopt You Ai from the Ningxia Children’s Welfare Institute. We will be getting tags and the orphanage address very soon so that we can start to send care packages to our little girl! We are so very excited and can’t wait to see her and bring her home! We are one step closer and I know that this process is going to fly by.

Have a Merry Christmas! We have received the best Christmas present EVER!

>>>From China Center for Adoption Affairs<<<
中国之爱收养组织:
你们递交的Christopher Bonnett 和 Tina Bonnett收养宁夏(省、市、自治区)宁夏儿童福利院儿童尉迟友爱的申请已收到，经过对该家庭的基本情况及其为该儿童制定的医疗康复及抚育计划的审核，中国收养中心同意在该申请文件到达（截止日期2010年03月23日，含当日）后，按照收养特殊需要儿童的程序处理，特此告知。

So much excitement!!

It’s been one week since our referral and we have finished all of the additional paperwork needed to accept the referral of You Ai. We have submitted additional photos, an addendum to the USCIS and other paperwork for the Chinese government. Now we are planning the first care package to be sent to China as soon as we get the tags and orphanage address.

I’m so glad that this is close to Christmas as we will be able to buy her Christmas presents and put them in the care package box! Our parents are having a little too much fun picking out presents for her!

We even got a little overzealous and went wandering through the little girl department at Walmart! They had the CUTEST monkey pajamas. We almost bought them, but we refrained… barely!

This is going to be a LONG 6 months!

What a Wonderful Christmas Present!!!

We received a phone call on Tuesday afternoon asking if we would like to review the file of a little girl who is 3 (going to be 4 on February 28). She had a HEMANGIOMA (strawberry mark) which was treated early last year and is currently resolving. We were a little wary, wondering if reviewing a file meant that we would then be committed to this particular child. Once we cleared it with Meg (of CAWLI) that we could review the file and, in the event that we thought she was not a good match for our family, be placed back into the waiting pool, we went ahead and took the opportunity to review the file.

The file Meg sent me was filled with several pages of medical information, lab tests, and pictures of a little girl named You Ai. I did some (A LOT of) research on hemangiomas and later Tuesday night, Chris and I discussed this little girl.

Neither one of us could come up with a reason not to accept this referral. This child is PERFECT for us in every way! She dresses herself, walks, speaks full sentences, albeit in Chinese, and sleeps soundly. She is a little quiet and shy, but we can handle that, especially with my super-outgoing niece and nephew for her to play with. I’m sure she will come out of her shell quickly.

We had her file reviewed by a physician where I work and Chris’s mother took it to work with her as well. Once we were sure that she was as healthy as can be expected, we went ahead and ACCEPTED THE REFERRAL!!!!

We are still in shock as we thought this process would take a couple more years! We are still waiting on our approval from the USCIS, so we were not expecting a referral until at least next year. All I could think about was that we are SO not ready!! Haha!! But then again, according to most mothers, you never really are!

So right now, we are busy submitting the paperwork to adopt this specific child to our agency and the CCAA, as well as filing addendums for the USCIS (not to mention making final arrangements with the room and checking out child care/VPK programs in our area). We could not have gotten a better Christmas Present!!! Hopefully, if everything goes smoothly, we will be able to travel to bring her home around my birthday in July 2010!!!




As a side note to those expecting pictures of her to be posted: I am VERY wary of posting pictures of children on the internet, therefore you will not find any attached to this blog for now. If you would like a picture of our little girl, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me (tting5@aol.com) and I will e-mail a picture to you. Thank you very much for your understanding.

If you would like to leave a comment with your e-mail address I can make this blog private and once that is completed I can post pictures and invite you as a "reader". This will more than likely happen by January 1, 2010 as I'm sure everyone wants to see pictures! :)