GOOD NEWS!

The CCAA has finished reviewing the dossier's that were logged in during April, 2007. This means that our paperwork has most likely been approved! If the CCAA has questions they'll send them to our agency who will then contact us so we have to allow about two weeks for that but most likely they won't have any. We really didn't have anything questionable - it was all pretty straightforward and our agency made sure we had everything we could need before they sent it in.

This is a bright spot just when I needed it.

The down side is that the non-special needs referrals are still working on March, 2006 families. This means there is a whole year and about 7 weeks of families with dossier's in line ahead of ours waiting to be matched to a child. This has been moving very slowly so don't look for much more good news anytime soon. I'm just going to savor this one all day.

Jen

Two Years and Counting

Today is April 27, 2009. It has been exactly 2 years since our dossier was received and logged in at the CCAA. At the time, we were told that in 18-19 months we would have a baby girl. Little did our agency know that the referral times would slow down so drastically. It's taken them nearly 24 months just to get to looking at the dossiers they received in April '07. Referrals right now are for families whose dossiers were received in the first week of March, 2006. At the rate they're making referrals, it could be years before we ever see even a picture of the little girl we'll be matched with.

This is such a sad day for me. I would guess it is for Drew too although I haven't talked to him yet about it. We still have our special needs application on hold and need to decide in June what to do about it. It's not likely we'll be able to stay in that program indefinitely while we try to get finances figures out. We may have to go back to the original plan of the long wait "healthy infant" line of families. We haven't lost our place or anything, but it bothers me that there a children who have special needs that we could help if the timing were better. Sigh.... there just aren't any easy answers right now.

Two years ago this was a day I celebrated. We had spent five months rushing through interviews, getting documents from all over the country, getting physicals, fingerprints, background checks, references and doing so much paperwork. Things got lost, things were delayed, and I spent a incredibly wild day in Chicago at the Chinese consulate for authentications. It was all done and on April 27, 2007 I could breathe again. We had made it in before the May 1 deadline - just barely.

I have to have hope. Things worked out then in miraculous ways and I refuse to believe that all that would have happened if we weren't meant to be on this journey. But I wonder if I exhausted all my miracles - are we only allotted so many in a lifetime? Or am I not doing enough to help create one? Only time will tell.

Cost Breakdown of Adoption

I have had a lot of people ask what our adoption costs and why it costs so much. So I thought I would spell it out to give others an idea of what we have spent so far and what we still need to raise.

Home Study Agency -
Application, Home Study, and one Home Study update: $2500

Placing Agency -
Application $150
1st Agency Fee - $1,900
2nd Agency Fee - $3,200
CCAA Fee - $1,050

Immigration Approval for 2 adults
Fingerprinting $140
Application - $580

Passports - $130

Certification & Authentication of dossier documents - $600 (approx.)

All that has been paid so far. The placement agency fees cover the work done to review our paperwork, translate it to Chinese, and send it to the CCAA.

Yet to go:
Placement Agency
Post-placement deposit - $500 (refunded after we turn in all of our post-placement reports)
Travel costs (10-14 days) - estimated to be around $4000 for airfare, $2,400 for in country transportation and lodging , $700 for food ($7,300 total)
Adoption Registration & Notarization with local government in China - $400-800
Child's Passport $100-$150
Orphanage fee $5,000
Child's physical and photo $80
Child's Visa to U.S. $400
Post-placement reports $1200
Court costs to readopt here - $1000

Total: Approx. $26,680
It certainly adds up! Not included is any spending money for while we're overseas and we certainly plan to do so to help bring back items for our daughter from her home country.

I absolutely hate hearing comments like "how much did you spend to get your child?" or "They bought their child overseas". The fees are all fairly reasonable and go to people that do the work to help get the child to their permanent home. As an adoption worker, I understand that we need to keep the lights on, the copier running, computers up to date, phones working, pay rent, and even pay a little salary.

Besides, would you ask someone how much they or their insurance paid the hospital, doctors, lab technicians, nurses, assistants, radiologists and everyone else involved in a child's birth? Think about how much people spend for a new car - a physical item that just loses value.

So if anyone has been wondering what exactly we are spending our adoption money on, this is it. No apologies - our daughter is priceless.

Jen & Drew