"Paper Ready"

Paper Ready!

As the saying goes in the adoption world - Dean and I are officially pregnant on paper - what does that mean? That means that our paperwork is done and ready to go to Japan with Taz the next time she goes!

As you may have read below, our I-171H arrived in the mail right before we left for California for our meeting at ATWA. The above photo shows Lesley (ATWA director), Me, Taz (Japan facilitator) and Dean at our meeting Monday.

We now begin the wait process. Keep us in your prayers, we are hoping that our baby is growing in a very special birth mother, that she is taking very good care of herself and that she has an uneventful pregnancy and an easy delivery. Please keep her in your prayers as well.

Our preference is that we do not know when our file is being viewed. We want to find out once the baby is born, we have been chosen, and the birth mom has signed the pertinent paperwork. We have NO idea when this will happen - all we know is when the baby that is supposed to be our baby is born --- we will find out. We are patient and we believe that our baby is out there and we will find each other when the time is right.

We ask that you check here --- we will update our blog as soon as we hear something!

Miracles

Last weekend I put this on our wall above the fireplace in our living room - I truly believe what it says!

As you know we left for California Thursday evening. Before we left Dean and I were driving home from work and I saw the mail lady in our neighborhood, I had a moment or two of worry because my brother was due at our house for the weekend, and I worried that he may have parked in front of the mailbox - when I saw her I said OH NO! The mail lady... I hope that Matt didn't park in front of the mailbox! Dean asked "Why" - I said "Because if he did - she won't deliver our mail." - Dean had kind of a puzzled look, and said "You're not still holding out hope for that paper (before we go to CA)." - I commented "Of course I am, today is our last shot before we leave!" (Mind you, on the way home from the grocery store Monday night I chanted I-171, I-171, I-171 all the way home!)......so I ran in the house, grabbed the mailbox key and went to check the mail - low and behold there was an envelope in the mailbox from Dept. of Homeland Security - however it was only addressed to Dean, so I reluctantly handed it over to him, upset that it must be a 'problem' with our prints or something, since it was only addressed to him. Dean read through it, and handed it to me - I read through it and didn't know what it was exactly. This looked like any everyday correspondence - white typewritten paper, nothing special - until I glanced at the VERY bottom left hand corner to which I saw - I-171H (in very tiny print)!

Our Immigration paper had arrived! I was sooooo excited - our last piece of paper was here, all we needed to send our paperwork is now complete!

Dean and I celebrated yesterday at Mikuni's in Roseville with Dean's cousin Greg - we had a nice lunch together and filled Greg in on our excitement!

Monday we visit with Lesley and Taz and we will give them all of our paperwork, book, and letter for potential birth mom's - and afterward we will meet up with Eryn and Nancy and their kids - we are excited to finally meet everyone. We will post more pictures when we get home.

San Diego and Mail!

Dean and Jennifer

23 October 2008

Today Dean and I headed to San Diego to attend a wedding for some friends. The wedding ceremony was beautiful - it was aboard the Carnival Elation. When we received the invitation to the wedding, it also stated that everyone was welcome to join the couple and their families aboard the Elation for a 4-day Celebration cruise to Cabo San Lucas, however since we had JUST mailed in our application for China (this was before we even knew about Japan), we decided that we had better "opt out" and didn't book the cruise - after being on the cruise ship, I have to say that is something I would love to do in the future!

When we got home there were two envelopes in the mailbox! Our court paperwork was approved - this means that our Home Study has been approved by the court! YEAH! Today turned out to be a very exciting day!

Edited: Dean hated the photo I had, so I have replaced it with a different one :)

Application/Biometrics/Baby Care Class

First - Yancha Bozu and Wrigley were feeling left out since they haven't been on our blog yet...so for those of you that don't know our fur babies - meet Yancha Bozu and Wrigley.

Now for our update from last week. Last Tuesday (14 October), Dean and I went to the courthouse and signed our Application to Adopt Baby Boy Doe/Baby Girl Doe, so we are officially on the court docket here in Yuma County! Deloris (secretary to the County Attorney) explained that this petition would be filed with the court and once it is granted we would receive a signed copy in the mail, then our Home Study would be logged and processed ~ she said that we should hear something back within a couple of weeks (according to Dean, I don’t remember what she said exactly).

Friday was our appointment for our “biometrics” for US CIS. Dean and I had our fingerprints taken here in Yuma, and I was pleasantly surprised that they do have technology here (just kidding!) – as they did our prints electronically. I am a little concerned since I believe one of my prints wasn’t clear, but hopefully I didn’t “see” everything correctly on the screen and it was fine. When they are doing your prints electronically there is a little green box that appears at the bottom of the screen and it says ---- pass, I imagine that means that the capture was clear, however on one of my fingers there was a little red box that appeared…..I questioned the person doing the prints, and she said that sometimes they “can’t” get it, but that it was okay. We will see, hopefully our US CIS doesn’t take very long and we will have our I-171 soon!

Last night was our Newborn Baby Care Class. Pretty funny – really not much applied to our situation as we’re not going to “nurse”, take care of newborn belly buttons, etc., but the class was entertaining, and we got our letter of completion so we can check that off our list.

I guess that sums up last week’s events. Now we wait for our Home Study to be certified by the court!

Until next time….

Tickets Booked!

Our tickets are booked - we leave for Sacramento Friday, November 7th - for our meeting with Taz and Lesley on Monday, November 10th at 10:00. I can't wait! Hopefully we will have a signed Home Study by the time we head to California, keep us in your prayers. I would LOVE to have our paperwork head to Japan in November!

Tomorrow we have an appointment at 4:00 at the courthouse to sign whatever this "application" is for our Home Study!

Throw me a bone....

An itsy bitsy teeny weenie bone....we got a letter in the mail from the Department of Homeland Security - YEAH - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (I-797C, Notice of Action) with an appointment for our fingerprints.

Our appointment time is next Friday (not the best day, since I have a workshop scheduled here at our house at 1:00), luckily our appointments are at 11:00 - I had hoped that we would go to Phoenix for our prints, but our appointment is here in Yuma.

Another note, Lesley e-mailed earlier this evening to say that Taz is back from Japan and they are going over her schedule and will let us know when to come to California for our meeting!

Bluebirds bring Happy Things

Not much news.....

In Japan bluebirds are said to bring "happy things" to married couples. Dean's cousin in Japan that initially got all of the information about adopting in Japan sent us some chocolates with bluebirds and explained to us about the bluebirds bringing happy things (they're SO sweet, the cousins that is, the chocolates were delicious too!), so I asked a lady that makes these little clay fairies to make me one holding a bluebird to bring "happy things" to us during our wait! I think I need to surround my work area and home with bluebirds - LOL!

Well yesterday I finally called Oasis to find out the status on our Home Study. I talked with Catherine and she let me know that Ralph had received it back from Lesley last week, he implemented the changes that Lesley suggested, and YESTERDAY (October 6th) it was sent to the court for approval. Catherine explained that we would receive a phone call from the court here to come and fill out some 'application' (not sure what that is?), and then it would go to the judge for his review and approval. Then Oasis will get the original back signed from the court and they will mail it to (not real clear here but I think) ATWA (Lesley) for inclusion in our dossier, and another original will go to US CIS. So we really are in kind of a "wait pattern" here...which is ALL TOO FRUSTRATING, I want to know what is happening, and I want to know what to expect as to timeline. I had another sleepless night last night...too many things to think about, and even though I have no control over them, I feel like I should.

We are still waiting to hear from Lesley and Taz as to when we will head to Pleasant Hill, CA to meet with them. I was hoping for early November, as Taz mentioned that she would be available the first or second week in November since she has two trips planned for October already to "deliver" babies....when I talked to Lesley she said that Taz has two more babies in November, but Lesley didn't know if those babies were going to be "International adoptions" or if they would stay in Japan. Taz works for the agency that handles both, she's a very busy gal! So we are patiently (hahahaha!) waiting to hear when we will go.

We have our Baby Care Class scheduled for Monday, October 20th at the hospital here. That is a new requirement from Japan.

I did get my employment letter signed and notarized last week, so I can officially check that off my list. We just need Dean's to be signed and notarized and that one will be done too.

Don't forget to leave us a comment....there's a little "hyperlink" below our post. Until next time.