I have heard so many songs that fill my heart with so much hope. It is funny how songs can mean very different things to many different people! We are well under way in our dossier process! The dossier is a collection of important papers, home studies and US approval to send to China. Everything must be perfect, but if it isn't perfect, CCAI will look through it with a fine tooth comb and let us know what to change before being mailed to China. We finally got our first home study set up yesterday for this Tuesday! We are feeling like we are floating on clouds! We also made some changes to our MMC (medical conditions checklist). Since we have chosen to take a child with special needs, we can choose from the list what we are accepting of. Some things we have chosen are cleft lip and palate, club feet, minor heart conditions,etc. We also chose a female ages two to five. Last night we changed that age from 18 months to 5. :) Many have asked many questions and I will try to answer some now. One question we get a lot is "what does your little girl look like". Our agency has our MCC and will most likely match us after our dossier has been sent to China and accepted. We will receive a call from CCAI on that special day with a file to review. The file will contain everything about the child they have. We can deny that file and wait for the next or send our LOI ( letter of intent) for that child. One of our many prayers is that we will not have to deny a file. That would break our hearts! Another question is how long it will take to get her. It takes roughly 6 months from the time we were accepted to complete the dossier. I called CCAI a few days ago and asked what the APPROXIMATE wait time would be for us. She said we were highest on the cleft lip and palate list and it would roughly take 18 months. I think they might give a longer time than expected. I am on a Facebook group for parents adopting through our agency. A family was just matched at 13 months with a 2 year old girl. You just never know! I am taking this wait seriously already by doing lots of learning! Justin and I are starting our training courses tonight online. We have to complete 12 hours of video broken up into one hour each, I believe. Our friends who are going through the process to adopt their own child from China have been so encouraging to us. They told us to take one step of that dossier at a time. It truly isn't as scary as it looked when we received that dossier packet of things to "do". We will be extremely happy to have that over with though. Another question is "do you have to learn Chinese and will the child know English". We will not have to learn Chinese, but we are trying to learn some basics in case we get a five year old especially. I have learned and taught the kids several things. As I learn, I share to the family. Justin doesn't have a hope!!!!!! He is terrrrrrible at Mandarin!!! It is hilarious!!!! I have learned "hello", "how are you" "youngest sister" "sweet baby" "I love you" I am doing great" "thank you" "girl" "daddy". "Daddy" is "baba". We will all be calling Justin "baba" for awhile! I am happy that "mommy" is still "mama"! :) She will not know English, but from what I hear she will catch on very quickly! I will also get flash cards to help her learn. The funniest question was from Justin's grandfather who said "well, when will they ship her over here"? I hated to tell him that we will have to fly over there to get her! :) hope to answer more questions soon!
She may not have our eyes, but she will always have our heart.
She may not have our eyes, but she has our heart.
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