Dossier IS Completed

We did finally get our immigration (I797) approval last week and promptly had it notarized, authenticated, and sent to our Chicago courier to have it certified by the Chinese Consulate. This way China will view the document as "Real" and truly certified. That is the process that all 13 of our dossier documents needed to go through for us to be able to send them to China. 

We had the other 12 which included: homestudy, birth certificates for Jay and me, marriage certificate, letters of employment for each of us (even me being a Homemaker), financial statements, medical reports for Jay and me, Police clearances and our letter to China asking to be adoptive parents to 2 of their precious children. There are also some other documents and things included, like family photos, passport photos and reference letters (including from our adult children). It is a daunting process to gather all those documents and not lose any of them and make sure all "I's" are dotted and "Ts" are crossed. China is very specific in wording and want the all around package to be precise. We will jump through these many hoops, as stressful as it can be to bring home our 2 new babies.

The plan should be that our agency will receive our last piece of paperwork (the I797) tomorrow morning, then send all the paperwork (the Dossier) to China tomorrow!! Our coordinator is on the look out for it tomorrow from FedEx, as the office will be closed the first 3 days next week, due to the holiday. We don't want to lose anytime. It will feel so good to be done with this step and then to sit and wait, and wait some more for now China's approval. 

Before approval can come, there is a short little wait called a Log In Date (LID). This is when China receives our dossier and enters it into their system, that they have it and will start processing it. That part can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. With Asher's adoption it was 2 weeks. 

After LID, we will then officially begin waiting for China's approval. The process goes through a translation process first and then an approval stage. With Asher's adoption we received Letter of Acceptance on day 38. It was very quick. We of course are praying for a quick approval this time, but with the averages being 60 days and with us adopting 2 children this time (which means China working with 2 provinces and might slow things down) we are going with the average. It could even be longer, of course. Some families have had over 100 day waits. But, again we lean on our God who is sovereign and in control of all of this process. 

I will keep updating as we have news and so appreciate your prayers.

We did get a couple of more updated photos of Isaiah and Elliana this week too! It is such a blessing to see their sweet little faces. We still don't have the updated questions we would like to know about Isaiah, but we just asked them 3 days ago. Ellie's updated questions came back in 24 hours!!

Here are the questions we asked and the answers we got, my questions and comments are in red, China answers are in black:

1. Weight and Height Measurements:  75cm, 8.5kg, 46cm head, 45cm chest, 10cm foot, 20 teeth

This was the answer they gave, but that means she has gained 3 lbs in 4 months (which I doubt and they usually weigh with clothing on; and her photos has her quite bundled up and that would mean her foot size is still in a baby size 2 or smaller. So I don't believe these measurements, but her feet do like very tiny)

2. Is she walking with help still or on her own? She needs to hold then walk. Can't walk alone. 

AND I wanted to add that she likely will not walk on her until she sees orthopedic surgeons in the US

3. How is her health, any sickness or surgeries recently? She has been healthy recently without any sickness or surgery.

4. What sort of developmental delays does she have? We feel her arms and legs are not quite flexible. Also her hands can't grasp things firmly. 

The video they sent, she can barely use her hands to manipulate the toy and that was the same back in August, so not much change. I am not sure what they mean by "flexible"?

5. What makes her calm and happy? She is happy to have toys or snacks. 

She is eating a sucker in the photo :)

6. Does she take a bottle for milk? Yes. 

This is good, praying that doesn't change as we need this for good healthy attachment.

7. What sort of foods does she eat? She eats noodle, congee, steamed egg, bun, bread, cracker, milk.

8. Does she say any words? Not much. But she can understand everything you talk to her. 

This is concerning to me, but God knows.

9. What sort of activities does she do during her day? She has therapy everyday. Then she plays toys with other children during spare time. 

Again, not sure about this either, she has all day to play with kids and toys, so she must have to spend a lot of time in crib because of management of so many children.





Here is the photo we got of her eating her sucker. I am sure they took it the day they sent it as we also got a 20 second video. Isn't she precious. 

We have had a little change in her name. We were going to name her Elliana Marie Jun (which is part of her Chinese name) but after thinking about it we are going to do Elliana Kate Jun (Kate is after my favorite great-grandmother's mother, "Kate" means pure). 

For Isaiah, here is the sweet photo we got of him, he still looks tiny but is still getting tender care from his Aunties, it is rare that they hold them while feeding them in orphanages. We have also picked a full name for him: Isaiah Calvert Tao (again part of his given Chinese name). Calvert was my grandfather's middle name. It's meaning is "cowboy". The meaning is nothing unique to us, but the man who held the name was a Godly, loving man and even though I never met him, I always admired his life and dreamed of knowing him.