I added a short video to this blog (below). It was made by a couple who adopted twin girls from China. Mike and I thought that it was a really sweet video, and decided to add it to our blog (courtesy of You Tube). This way, whenever we feel down and frustrated by the wait, we can watch this film as a way to remind us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this couple also used the same adoption agency as us (China Adoption With Love in Brookline, MA....otherwise known as CAWLI).

Yay! I just checked the United States Postal Service's website, and our paperwork was received by the NY City Immigration office just before noon today! Let's just keep our fingers crossed that we will recieve a speedy fingerprinting appointment. :)

Woohooooo!!!!!!!! Last night, Mike and I finally received in the mail our completed home study (for Immigration). Within 30 minutes, we had the I600A form filled out and all necessary copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate, as well as our original homestudy ready to be sent into the Department of Homeland Security (aka USCIS- Immigration Services). Today, first thing in the morning, I went to the bank and got the $685 money order to be mailed with our paperwork to Immigration (in New York City). So, today our paperwork was officially mailed to Immigration. From here, it will take approximately 2-3 weeks to receive an appointment card from them, for our federal fingerprinting appointment. After we have our fingerprints done, it will take another few weeks for our fingerprints (and for all of our paperwork) to clear through Immigration, and we will receive in the mail our I171-H (approval from the government to adopt an orphan abroad). Once this I171-H clearance is received, all of our paperwork (called our dossier) will be sent off to China, so that we can officially start the waiting process to be matched with our baby. :) We definitely met a milestone today (as we have done everything paperwork-wise that there is for us to do), so Mike and I will have a glass of bubbly tonight to mark the occasion.
Some other news on the forefront, Emily has announced to us (at the age of 2 ½) that she is going to be a teacher when she grows up “So I can teach my kids.” Needless to say, her daddy (also a teacher), was thrilled with her career choice. She also learned how to open and close large buttons by herself for the first time yesterday. She was grinning from ear to ear with pride. :)

Nothing too much to report, unfortunately. We are still just waiting for the final draft of our homestudy, in order to set up an appointment for our federal fingerprinting, get USCIS approval and finally get our paperwork to China. Mike called the homestudy agency today and they said that our social worker is on vacation until Thursday. However, they also said that the homestudy had been completed and was sent to CAWLI (our agency) for review. Mike called CAWLI today to confirm whether or not they have received it. Hopefully, when he comes home today, he'll have some good news....

UPDATE: Mike just called and CAWLI has received our homestudy draft from Family Focus (Thank you Sandra!) Yay! They said that within the next day or so, they will be done making any necessary changes/corrections, and send it back to Family Focus to finalize. Stephanie (the social worker from CAWLI) also said that Family Focus is excellent at writing home studies for China, so there probably won't have to be any corrections. So, by next week, we should be in posession of our final homestudy and should be able to send in the I600A to USCIS. We'll start filling out the I600A tonight so we are prepared to mail it out when the time comes.

We are all done with the adoption paperwork (and everything has been submitted to our homestudy and adoption agencies). Yay!!!! The ONLY thing we are waiting on is the finalized draft of the homestudy from our social worker. Without this, we cannot proceed. The social worker needed my CPA letter to finalize the draft (which we sent in to her last week). Even though it has only been a week since the SW received our final paperwork from us, it seems like an eternity that we've been waiting for the homestudy final draft (In case you haven't noticed, I am not very good at waiting). The reason why it feels like so long is because this is the only piece of paper holding up our whole process. Without this draft, we can't apply to the Immigration office for the government's permission to adopt an orphan abroad (the process of getting this approval alone can take about 8 weeks). And without this approval, we are unable to send our documents (dossier) to China. And without our documents in China, the Chinese government doesn't even know we exist, and we can't even begin the waiting process for a baby..... So, as you can see....everything hinges on getting this homestudy draft. What is so nerve-wracking is that we are no longer in control of our paperwork....Not that we're stressing out, or anything!!! :) For all who read this message, please pray that we receive this homestudy soon, so that we can sleep at night again! Did I mention that I don't like not being in control of our paperwork? Did I mention that I don't like waiting? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

A lot has happened over the past week. On Wednesday, I got my CPA letter (showing that I am working as an independent contractor OT), so that is one major hurdle that we are finally done with! On Friday, we had our physicals redone at the doctor's office. (We had to get these redone, as our original physicals expired...they can't be more than 6 months old at the time that they are sent to China). We also took all kinds of photos of the house (inside and out) as part of our dossier requirement.
Of course, with all of this work, we needed some down time....so on Sunday, we took a family day trip to the North fork of Long Island to go apple picking! We've included a couple of pictures here. We all had a great time, especially Emily!