We have LOA

I am very excited to announce after a very LONG wait....we have our LOA (letter of approval).  This allows us to file our last paperwork with immigration then get VISA's then we get travel approval.  We so wanted to have our baby girl home before Christmas but with all the paperwork bumps it has postponed her coming home and she will have to spend another Christmas without her family.  Thanks to our agency we have arranged to have a special treat delivered to her in China.  She will get a Christmas cake, a stuffed panda and a photo album with some family photos.  I hope she knows we will be there as soon as we can and how excited we are to hold her in our arms and give her hugs and kisses.  Just a few more weeks and we will have her forever!!! Thank you to everyone who has helped us raise the money we need to bring her home, we are almost to our goal.  Love you all!

Final paperwork in...

Our final paperwork is on its way to China :)  We has some bumps in the road to getting it done and it put us a little behind but it is finally done!  Hopfully we have some travel information soon!

Paperwork Problems

Our dossier has been translated and reviewed but they have rejected our medical forms because the doctor didn't fill out our vision.  We had to have the doctor do new forms, get them notarized, to the UT state, US Dept of State and Embassy for authentication then the Embassy rejected the new forms 2 times because they wanted the SW license removed from our home study. Thank goodness the courier service has done this a lot for adoptions because she has been trying to get these finished, she said the Embassy has new staff who are not trained very well.  They are making her write a letter as to why the license is in the home study.  Our LOA is waiting for these papers.  We are hoping to get them done by tomorrow.  We are trying to get our baby girl home before Christmas!  Please pray that we can get these papers moving along so we can get her home!  Thank you :)

Still waiting....

It has been a couple months since I posted an update here so let me tell you what is up. Our medical records were rejected because they were missing information. We had to get them redone, that means notarized, state approved, US dept approved and embassy approved again. That will probably cost us about $160 to finish the dossier paperwork and added a couple weeks onto our wait :( Good news is we got an update on Leanne :)

Looks like they cut all her hair off again :( She has a foster family and goes to Physical Therapy. She is not able to walk on her own yet. She eats and sleeps good. We keep moving forward and hope to travel in a couple months. We can't wait until we can hold this perfect little girl in our arms! We had an online auction to help with her adoption costs and our FSP on Reeces Rainbow went up a little bit :) We want to thank everyone who has helped out and participated, it means the word to our family!

We Are DTC

We finally did it! There is so much paperwork for us up to this point and it seems like everything has to be perfect! Dates have to match, documents can't be more than 6 months old, people have to write reference letters for us. Medical, work, income. Everything had to be notarized then State approved then, US approved then Embassy approved. Some paperwork had to be done 2 times, 1 for home study and 1 for dossier. We had to hire a courier to take our paperwork to the US dept and the Embassy to make sure everything was done right. Now the paperwork has may steps in Leannes country before we can go get her. So now we wait. We were able to submit our dossier a month earlier than our due date so we should be able to go get her a month sooner too. It is exciting and scary at the same time since the first part of our adoption took us 5 months to save $10k to get us this far now we need another $20k before we travel which looks like the average has been 5 months. Now that our paperwork is done the fun begins with serious fundraising. We have a great friend who has offered to help do a BBQ charity event so we hope that will be a great turnout! Please pray that we will be able to raise, save and continue to work like crazy so we can get this little girl home :) She needs kisses goodnight!

Paperwork update

We have our I-800a approval from USCIS (Homeland Security Immigration). Our next step is to get our dossier together. We have a list of paperwork we need to compile then some of it needs to be notarized then sent to the State for authentications then to Embassy for more certifications then all the paperwork (birth and marriage certificates,application, employment, reference, and medical letters, home study, financial statement, another background check, copies of passports,some family photos and USCIS approval) will go to Leannes country. The sooner we can get this step done the soon we can get our travel dates :) It looks like the average time right now is traveling about 5 months after Dossier is sent off. Hopefully we can get all this done by mid June. I also realized I did not put Isaacs 1 year from Gotcha video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrK4t-8TqKc&feature=youtu.be Isaac is one super human little boy! We love him so so much!

New Photos

We are so blessed to have new pictures of our little girl! Thank you Jennifer! Jennifer is someone we met through Reeces Rainbow Facebook group. She adopted her little girl from the same orphanage that Leanne is in so when she went there a few weeks ago to get her little one she was able to get some new photos of Leanne. We are so excited to see she is getting bigger :)

We had a great turn out to our fundraiser at Chilis. Including all the donations from that night we were able to raise $1548. We also submitted our I-800a application to Homeland security on April 5th and we have an appointment to have our fingerprints done next month (background check #2). Every step gets us a little closer to bringing her home. When we get our immigration approval we will be able to send in our dossier. Thank you to everyone who has donated and helped in any way!

Adoption fees

Usually when people decide to expand their families they rely on their healthcare insurance to pay for the high cost of moms care during pregnancy and delivery of the baby and then cover the babys healthcare costs after they are born minus a deductable of course and that is how we paid for our first 6 children. We looked into adoption a few times between the births of our children but the cost was always to frightening and we did not know how we could ever afford to do it. When we decided our family was not yet complete and birthing another child was not an option for us we looked into adoption again. We found out that through foster care you could adopt for free but there were a lot of factors that we did not feel comfortable with. We could adopt a baby domestically for $20k-40k and our healthcare insurance would pay $5k if the baby was placed with us within 3 months of its birth. Usually when people go this route they wait years to be matched, we would need to pay at least half the adoption fees upfront before the agencies would show a birth mother our family profile and then we would have to wait for a birth mother to choose us. We have been in the National Down Syndrome Networks data base but not had much luck, while we were waiting on the list we found that we could adopt internationally for the same amount of money and there were countries that did not require several trips overseas and whos travel times were not months long. We were able to see lists of waiting children and when we seen ones who we thought would make a good fit into our family we made inquiries. Also the agencies had lists and support groups that help with funding. We found Isaac on the Reeces Rainbow grant website where they help advocate and give support throughout your adoption. So with a GIANT leap of faith we moved forward and we were GREATLY blessed when doors opened and our adoption was final. Our adoption with Isaac has been so good and rewarding in everyway that we decided to do it again. Yes, the finance part is a BIG scare but we are working hard to achieve all our goals and bring another little orphan with Down Syndrome home. Here is a list of our fees for anyone who has said adoption is just a way to “buy” a baby. As you will see None of the money goes to the birth mother as it does in some situations. Application fee with adoption agency $500 Home study fee $1200 Home study review fee by adoption agency $300 Adoption agency fee $4500 Include administrative costs, admin overhead, operational costs, training and education, communications and publications, and any other cost related to providing adoption services in the US. USCIS fee (Immigration) I-800 application $975 Authentications for dossier paperwork $600 Courier Charges $600 Chinese Authentications $1200 Dossier registration fee $500 Dossier translations fee $260 Charitable Aid $500 Contributes to humanitarian aid work done by our adoption agency Total = $11,135 due when we submit our Dossier to China which must be before July 23rd. After our Dossier is approved and we get a travel date then the following fees are due prior to traveling Travel in country per person average $2000 Person #2 $2000 Includes incountry airfare, hotel, meals, ground transportation, and translator Airfare to China per person average $1200 Person #2 $1200 Foreign Program Expenses $1500 Includes inquiries/trips to China welfare or orphanage on childs/family behalf, child updates, translations, Hague processing Fees and wire transfers Childs VISA $230 Post adoption Social worker fees $1800 Total = $9930 due before traveling to China During travel in China Translation and Document fees $1100 Preparation of Chinese adoption documents, notarization, registration and childs passport Care of Child Fees, orphanage donation $5300 USCIS fees for medical exam and Vaccinations $300 Total = $6700 Bringing the overall total to $27,765

Great video and orphan reality

The number 60 for our fundraiser is now gone. Here is a video that has been shared on Facebook for the last week. For those who are unfamiliar with international adoption this video may not hit home, but to those who have seen and experienced it know how BEAUTIFUL this woman is. On the plane when we came home from Taiwan we talked to a Utah woman who has lived in China and Japan for the last 7 years and she told us a little about the women there who have babies out of wedlock and how their families do not support their decisions if they decide to keep their baby. They are told that no man will ever want them, they will never be able to marry, and it does not matter the circumstances. Having an unplanned pregnancy or delivering a baby with disabilities is hard on the mothers because they have no support from the father, family, friends or society so they risk mandatory 5 years in prison if caught and they abandon their babies. These babies are left at parks, bus stops, intersections, near rivers, bathrooms and the lucky ones are left in medical clinics. She said these women do not have any options if they can't afford to raise the child on their own. Since we have been involved in international adoption we hear about these children and see profiles that tell about how the baby has come into the adoption situation. I have seen some profiles where older children (6 years+) with disabilities were found roaming the streets. Some babies come with a note telling their story, some are very young moms (12 years old)and some have been abused or raped that caused pregnancy. There are 147 million orphans in the world, they all have a story some stories are known like Isaacs and some are not known like Leannes. The cost of adoption prevented us from adopting when we were younger and it prevents many many many other people from adopting too. I still don't know how we afforded Isaacs adoption, we were very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends who helped with some of the cost, we received a grant from Reeces Rainbow and one from Gift of Adoption Fund that helped tremendously, we also worked hard and our kids even helped out with a paper route. We are taking a leap of faith again with Leanne and we know in our hearts if we do the right thing and she belongs in our family things will work out again in the end. Every child deserves to be showered with hugs and kisses, and feel the love and warmth of a family. We have felt very blessed to have Isaac in our family and we want to thank everyone who helped him come home and THANK YOU to everyone who is helping Leanne come home too. Copy and paste this address and watch this touching story. http://damn.com/p/this-video-my-beautiful-woman-will-touch-your-heart-like-never-before-must-watch/

Number Update....

So far here are the numbers that have been taken.....1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20, 25, 26, 33, 40, 50, 74, 89 and 100. Thank you to ALL who have helped us out!!!

Fundraiser Kick-off

Since it is a Chinese New Year tradition to put money in red envelopes for children we thought an envelope fundraiser would be a great way to raise funds for Leanne so she can come home. Please help by choosing a numbered envelope 1-100 then donate that amount to her adoption fund. You can use the donate button on our blog. Please put your envelope number in the comments so people know what numbers are taken. Kung Hei Fat Choy!!

Starting Over

We are excited to announce that we are now in the process of starting over with adoption paperwork!!! Yes, we have been matched with a 15 month old little princess! When we were adopting Isaac he was on the website Reecesrainbow.org and with their help we received a grant to help with adoption costs in the amount of $1200. This Christmas we wanted to donate to the Angel Tree program to help another Reeces Rainbow child find their family. We found and donated to Leandra. After donating I received an email from someone advocating for a child named Leanne, we were given her adoption information and photos and it was the same child. Since our adoption with Isaac has been so good and we have been so blessed having him in our family when we found this little girl we just could not resist. We sent in an application to the agency, they sent it to country and now we have a PA (pre-authorization) to adopt and move forward with her. We are now in the process of another home study and hope to have it completed soon.

Updates

Well, Isaac sure did enjoy his holidays! We celebrated Halloween, Isaac was the cutest lion you ever seen and he trick-or-treated with his niece.

For Thanksgiving we had grandma, grandpa and all Isaacs siblings over for dinner. Food was yummy, company was perfect and games were fun. The weekend after Thanksgiving our family went down south to cut Christmas trees. Isaac loved riding the 4 wheelers and playing in the snow. December was very busy with Festival of Trees, baking, decorating, shopping, Temple Square and making gingerbread houses.

Isaac was too tired and didn't quite make it until midnight. We woke him up but it just made him cranky. Now we are looking forward to a very eventful 2014!!!!!