Our Adoption Timeline

April 2005 - We decided to adopt. Five months after losing Joy, Madeline, & Anne, we began to have some hope again.

May 2005 - We read many books on international adoption and in one moment we decided on adopting from China. It was that easy. We knew our daughter was there.

June 2005 - We chose our adoption agency, submitted the application with pictures of ourselves and our house. Then we went to Jamaica with our own little secret!

July 2005 - While it was fun keeping our secret, we decided to share the news with the whole family. Then we went to Maine for a week where we I bought a journal so I could begin writing to her and George picked out some handknit lobster mittens for her.

August & September 2005- The paperchase was on! We began to gather every single bit of information about us. Criminal background checks, financial status, proof of insurance... the list goes on and on. We each had to write our own autobiography, submit references, and declare that we will fully love this child and never abuse or abandon her. Then we met with a social worker who asked us about the way we were raised, all about our parents and siblings, asked how we would raise this child, about religion, discipline, etc. Then she came to our house to see how we lived and to make sure it was a clean, safe, and loving environment for a child. Then we were fingerprinted. When those cleared, we had all of the above documents notarized. Then we had them notarized on the state level, and then they were sent off to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for the final authorization.

October 2005 - When all of that cleared, we sent this now complete and fully authorized dossier with passport photos, candid photos of us and our house to our agency headquarters in St. Louis. Once the agency approved that everything was correct, they sent it to their office in Bejing where the entire dossier was translated into Mandarin.

November 2005 - Once the dossier was translated, it was submitted to the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) where we officially became "Logged In." This means we were officially given our place in line (November 2nd). Yeah! We did it!

Now we've spent the past year in the hardest stage of it all....the wait! The wait was initially supposed to be only 6 months but it kept growing longer and longer...for many reasons. Currently, the CCAA has matched babies with families up until last August 9th. We are logged in last Nov. 2nd so we aren't entirely too far off. The problem is there's no way of knowing how long it will take the CCAA to get through those 2 1/2 months until they get to us.
The good news is that our dossier has been reviewed by the CCAA in Department 1 and is just sitting and waiting to go into the Matching Room, Department 2. That's when we'll finally be matched to our daughter. Please watch for updates!