FINGERPRINT APPTS!!!

They came in today!! Our appts are April 28th at 11 and 212 (but we will go in at the same time!) They are saying from receipt date to approval is running 45 days right now. Don't know if that will change by the time we get our appts done, but if that's still how it's going, then we will be approved the first week of May, get our papers authenticated and have them back by the 3rd week of May and hopefully be DTC by the time Anthony leaves on his mission trip (June 2-8)!!! I am even thinking we could be LID by the end of JUNE!!!!! AHHH, it's getting closer now!!! PLEASE keep praying that everything is ok and goes through smoothly and we get to see Zoey fast!!! ANd leave to go get her!! :) Thank you!!

Certification

Well, we got our certification papers from Little Rock today! YAY!! Now we are just waiting on our fingerprint appointment, which I think we will have by next Friday..the 8th! But now we have all but one paper and then once that's back, we have authentication then we will be sending it ALL to the agency and hopefully be DTC!!! So, moving right along! Had some bumps here and there, but it's going fine!

Privacy!

This adoption is different from Olivia's. It is illegal for us to post a picture or information about our daughter on a public website, and that's going to be HARD for me. How will they find out??? Who knows, but I will do NOTHING to jeopardize this adoption, therefore, I will follow the rules!
That being said, I need all the emails of people that would like to see her and her info and follow us in China because this will become a private blog as soon as we have info or a picture. NO! We know nothing, but you never know with the special needs adoptions! But if I have your email, I can add it to the privacy setting and you WILL be able to see it, so if you want to be added, just send me an email to mystyfy@rittermail.com, leave it on here or message me on facebook. Sorry about this, but I know you all understand!

One more step down!

We received our notice in the mail that our I800A paperwork has been received. NOW, all we can do is wait for our fingerprint invitation. Looks like it's taking about 3-4 weeks to have your appointment date then just days to get approved. So, that's a plus!
I have some documents already certified, and should receive the others in the mail this week. Then I have to send all those papers off to Houston to be authenticated (A PAIN WITH MORE MONEY NEEDED NOW!!!) and then just wait on our approval to come back...send that to be certified and authenticated, then mail it all to CCAI. Then, 7-11 days later, our dossier is OFF TO CHINA!!!! (DTC) We will then wait for our LID and pray that a referral comes in QUICKLY after that! So, as confusing as all this is...it's still looking like we will be DTC the end of May, but we can always pray for sooner! Our God is a BIG God and HE knows who our "Zoey" is and when she will be ready for us to come and get her! Although patience is NOT a virtue of mine, I know from experience that GOD is in control of this situation and I just have to sit back and wait for HIS timing!! (Although I do pray for speed! HAHA)
But...one more thing down! WOOHOO!!!

IT'S DONE!!!

WOOHOO!!! Our homestudy has been Approved!!!! This is a BIG step because until this was done, we couldn't get an appointment to get our fingerprints done, which this step is taking up to 60 days, which it's taking almost all 60 days!! So, while we wait for an invitation to do this, we will notorize, certify and authenticate our paperwork which will take about 4-6 weeks for all of this! It all goes well, my goal for being DTC in May will become a reality!!! WOOHOO!! Thank you Lord!!

WOOHOO!!!!

Have just been notified that our first draft of our homestudy has been sent to our agency!!!! That's a HUGE deal! Now, we need prayer that there are NO mistakes and that it gets approved on the first try bc that means we can apply for our fingerprints and it's closer to getting that back to have things certified and autenticated to be sent to CCAA (China) If we don't have a baby picked out by then, it's the CCAA that will choose our baby girl a few months from the time of receiving our dossier!! So, the faster this gets approved, the faster we are DTC and get to see our baby girl!!! In reality, all this could happen (things mailed off, DTC and seeing our baby girl) by September...then we just have to wait to travel after that!!!!! WOOHOO!! Please pray for first time being a charm!! Thank you in advance! We are coming, Zoey....as fast as we can!!! We love you already!!!

Im SoOOO excited

I feel pretty safe in saying this on here and I have to say it somewhere!! I AM GOING TO BE AN AUNT TO IDENTICAL TWINS!!!! AHHHH My brother and his wife found out today. They have tried for 5 years and it finally happened and God gave them TWO!!! AHHH I am so excited and feel so blessed. Now I can't wait to find out what they are!!!! WOOHOO!!!!

UPDATE!!! Found out at a later ultrasound, when they are now bigger, that they are NOT idential! There are two of everything and that takes Kristi out of the high risk category! It would have been cool for them to be identical, and they still might be (confusing to explain) BUT we are happy that Kristi is no longer on that list! We just want TWO healthy babies to love and spoil, so we don't care if they look alike or not! We find out (if they cooperate) on April 18th and if not then, she has an appointment in Mobile the next month, so we will know by the end of May what they are!! CAN'T WAIT!!!!

WOOHOO!!!

I just got the message that our Mississippi forms came in the mail to our social worker today and we will meet with her on Saturday to finish our part of the homestudy which means....PROBABLY sometime next week, our first draft will be headed to our agency!!! woohoo!!! I sooo needed some good news today and God provided!!! Thank you God!!!

Well, it was a possiblilty

I know I haven't updated in a while, so here it goes.
We have our last homestudy this Friday (Feb 5th) and we are still waiting on our Mississippi clearance form for child abuse. Once those two things are done, we are hoping to have the homestudy finished and on it's way for the first look-over by the first week of March!
We had been looking at a little girl with hydrocephalus, but unless we get updates, she will not be the one for our family bc of her condition being much more than hydrocephalus (as of the info that we have now) She will be 2 in April and she is gorgeous, but we have to wait to see if any updates will be sent (Her orphanage has to send them and they don't always comply) so we will wail, bc that's all we can do! If we get more info that's positive, we will send them to the neuro's that have been looking at her file and get their opinion and go from there, but for now, we still wait!!
Please keep praying for Zoey and that she stays well and that she's presented to us soon! We are so ready to see her face and get this ball rolling!!! We know waiting is part of the process, but it's so hard...still! So, your prayers are coveted!!!
So, until I have more news!!! Zoey, we already love you and are praying that you are shown to us soon! Stay well and know that your family here are waiting on you and can't wait to see you!

More papers came in

Well, Lori received our Child maltreatment forms from Louisiana and Arkansas. Mississippi is being a pain and I will mail those forms Monday. We got our certified birth certificates and marriage license in week before last also.
I have gotten all the papers that I could get together for the dossier. I am waiting on Anthony to do two papers, the homestudy (that we hope will be done by the end of this month) and then we will wait on our I800A. Then we can send all this off to be certified and authenticated! Then...well, not sure when but the dossier is sent to China (DTC)
We are still praying for a phone call from our agency for a referral before we are DTC so if there is anything you would like to pray about, that would be it. It would shorten our wait time to go and get Zoey and save us a few hundred dollars which is NEEDED in an adoption!
So again, I just sit and wait! I'm not good at patience things, but in an adoption you have to wait!! The best is yet to come! HA
So...until I know more...that's all for now. Prayers are appreciated and needed!!!

WOW! What a week!

On Friday, November 4, 2011, my second mom, Sheila Taylor, went home to be with the Lord. She found out almost 4 months ago that she had brain tumors and lung cancer. We all left on Monday (the same day I found out that I had the FLU!!) and drove for the services. Zackery was a paulbearer and Anthony did the service. It was a very hard service for my family and the Taylor's and it will be a long time before pics of Sheila stop running through my mind. My mom said things for her best friend and sang and Anthony preached. They both did an amazing job under the circumstances! Continued prayer for everyone who knew and loved Sheila would be appreciated!!! She was a very precious woman and she will NEVER be forgotten but ALWAYS missed!!!! I love you Mrs. Sheila!

Almost there!

I have gotten all the papers together to be certified and authenticated that I can do. Got to wait on the I800A and our dossier to be finished. Can't do I800A til dossier is complete, so it will be about another month before that paper will even be accessible. We are hoping that the dossier will be complete by the end of this month so that maybe we can get our dossier to China (DTC for future reference) by....May sometime!! That's hoping! Right now, I need you to pray for Zoey. We would really like to have her picture before we send off our dossier. If it prolongs sending our dossier, then we will just wait, but if we have her picture before we are DTC then we could travel before the end of the year!!!! That's what we are praying for (and the money that needs to go along with the whole process, of course! :)
Things are going great with the adoption right now though. Things are right on tract. It's always hurry, hurry, hurry and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! But we knew that coming in! So..we are good!
Please pray for my parents LONG time friends, Jimmy and Sheila and her 4 kids, their spouses and grandkids and of course my parents. Mrs. Sheila was diagnosed with cancer in Sept. and they think we are at the ending days now. She is only 56 and such a special lady to my family. Please pray for either miraculous healing (Which I KNOW can be done) or that when God takes her, that HIS arms are wrapped around the family (and my family is considered family) to get through this! It's going to be hard! Anthony is preaching and Zackery is a paulbearer!!! So, it's gonna be a tough service! Thank you for your prayers in advance! Love you Mrs. Sheila! And Love you Zoey! Stay well in this weather. Mommy, daddy, bubbas and big sister are coming as fast as we can!!!

Legacy of an Adopted Child
Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother

Two different lives shaped to make you one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun

The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it

One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name,
One gave you talent, the other gave you aim.

Once gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears.
Once saw your first sweet smile, the other dried your tears

One made an adoption plan, that was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child, and God led her staright to you
Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?
Both, my darling, Both, just two different types of love.
unknown

SNOW!SNOW!SNOW!

We didn't get to do our last homestudy because of the 4 inches of snow we received Thursday night! Kids got out of school early because of ice and stayed home Friday. They say more is to come Sunday and Monday, but we will wait and see if it comes true!
I went and had my physical done. Olivia DID NOT like it when they had to take my blood. She said, "No mommie, it's gonna hurt you. I don't want it to hurt you. You will have a bobo!" So sweet! I told her daddy and I had to do the same thing when we were trying to get her. She just looked at me at that point and didn't say anything!! Then all day, when she would get beside me she would look and say,"I don't want to hurt u's bobo...am I touching it!" HA I told her it didn't hurt, but she was still concerned!
So..I've done all I can do on my side. Waiting on clearances to come in, homestudy to be done, certified birth certificates and marriage license to come in. But...waiting while in the process of adoption is part of it! (esp from China...they are soo thorough!!!)
Well, Livy is in the bed for a nap, Zackery is at work, Cameron and Jake are in Cam's room and Anthony and Chase are getting a hair cut so I guess I will try to find something on TV. I don't feel like doing much, on ABX for a slight infection, so I'm just going to be lazy today! Perfect day for i! :) Until next time!!!

One more thing done

There are new Hague rules that we have to follow for this adoption. It's alot more things that we have to do and one of those things are 10 hours of parent training. It's listening to videos about growth, attachment, China in general, things first time adoptive parents need to be aware of and things like that. It was actually very interesting and I'm glad we watched them. We did all 10 hours in 2 days!! And you have to take a quiz to finish and show that you did do them. We got our certificate today, so we are done! I have almost all of the paperwork ready, and are really just waiting on certified birth certificates, police clearance and the homestudy. So...if the homestudy is done by the end of February, then we could do our fingerprints in March and sending our dossier off in April/May! That's pretty fast! That means it would have only taken 4-5 months for the dossier. Now that doesn't make CCAA speed up, but it gets our paperwork to them faster! :)
Anyway, supposed to have last homestudy done Friday, but they are calling for snow and ice so not sure if it will happen! I have my physical tomorrow so that will be done! Well, that's about all that's happening now..so until another milestone...ttyl!

YAY!!!

Our agency got our first check and now I get to upload all the other things I have to do. This is good because it's a BIG step closer. The faster I get the papers done and mailed, the faster they come back and might have them done by the time the dossier is finished...about 2-3 mths!! I am hoping I can get things done that fast. It's not my first rodeo on all the paperwork, so I should be pretty efficient at getting it done! I didn't even think they were in today, so I'm VERY excited. We have to do 10 hrs of "training" on the computer this time bc of Hague requirements, but oh well!!!
YAY! I LOVE filling out paperwork too, so I'm excited! Gotta finish cleaning my room and Olivia's room, cook dinner and then I can download all of it and get started!!!

And the cat is finally out of the bag!

It was so hard not telling people about our exciting news, but we had a few things we had to do in order to tell everyone. There are several processes you have to go thorough and we wanted to make sure we were sure it was gonna happen! I guess it's kinda like when you are pregnant, you might have taken the home test, but want to make sure with a Dr. appt before you tell many people! In the adoption process, you have to be accepted and that takes alot of numbers and paperwork! So, we sent in our application in December, found out we were accepted and then had to do a few more things before we were ready! But I am SOOO glad that I can run my mouth now! HA!
Tomorrow is our homestudy day, so today I will have to clean. Then she should be coming back for the second one on Friday! The faster we get the homestudy done, the faster we can send it to the CCAA in China and they can "Choose" the baby girl that's right for us AND we get to fill out paperwork for grants! Now THAT will take a LONG time!
So, until tomorrow, we are cleaning. OH we get new windows in the whole house too (THANK YOU CHURCH) so maybe we can save a little money on electricity!!! Please feel free to leave comments or ask questions or whatever you would like to do on here. I am soo excited all of you are joining us on this journey and for some of you, on this journey again! It's so much better when shared by people you love and are interested in your lives! So, until next time!!!
WE ARE GOING BACK TO CHINA!! ONE LAST MEIMEI (little sister in Chinese), Zoey!!

Homestudy

Well, Lori will be at our house Tuesday, January 18th at 11:00 for our first homestudy! We hope to have the other done Friday. I have all the papers ready (except for the ones that had to be mailed) and should be completely done by the time she gets here! This process takes about 2 months (hopefully shorter) to finish. After it's done and we get the ok from the agency about our dossier (think that takes about 2 weeks) we fill out the application to get our fingerprints done. While that process is at work (I think it takes up to 6 weeks) we will be getting all the other paperwork done. I'm not sure how long all this will take, but I'm thinking up to 5-6 months. Then, the dossier is sent to China and then our Zoey is picked for us (unless we have found her before then!) That wait time is totally up to the perfect child being available for us! So..alot left to do, but getting them done as quickly as possible! Just keep praying for the 6 of us here and for Zoey. We don't know if she is/has/will have to undergo surgery for whatever her medical condititon is or where she is living or anything. We just want her to be well and stay well. We just can't wait to see what beautiful little China girl God is going to give to us that we will name Zoey! It's so exciting!!!

Well....first big check down!

Today, we got all the agreements and fee pages signed and notorized and sent our first agency fee to CCAI! This really means we are doing this again. Now we wouldn't get much money back if we turned back, so it's a big deal!!! Next big thing is the homestudy and I hope we get it done sometime in the next week or so!
Zoey, get ready sweetie...we are gonna work as fast as we can to get to you! Stay well and don't get too big!! :) I hope to see you and hold you in our arms for the first time in about a year!!! We love you!!!

We sent in our application in December. This is very nerve racking to me. Even though I know that it will all be okay, it's still a little scary. We receive notice from CCAI that our application arrived on December 6, 2010 and was approved on December 15, 2010. Now our next step is to fill out some papers, get them notorized and mail in our first agency fee. Once we do this, there is NO turning back!!! Not that we want to, but now we are tied in, unless we want to lose some money. SO... until we mail that fee and get confirmation that it's at the agency, then I am done for now.
Anthony got his physical and I will get mine in a little while. Next week we should get a call from Lori, our homestudy lady, to get that started! There is alot of paperwork to do after that, so that's what I will be busy doing! SOOOOOO here we go! Please continue to pray for us and the whole process!!

Here we go again!

Well, after atleast a year of praying about what to do about our family, we have made the decision. We didn't know if God wanted us to stop with the 4 beautiful kids we have, or go and get a baby sister again. We were worried about what people would say, how our kids would feel and of course the money, but God showed us many times in the past year, and especially the last 4 months, that He wants us to go back to China and get our last daughter. We decided that it didn't matter if people thought we were crazy, they already do :) We also asked all 4 kids, especially the teenagers, and told them the pros and cons of going back and the all said they would rather have another little sister. Now if that wouldn't bring tears to your eyes, to hear teenagers say they would rather have another little sister instead of monetary things and things that would be for them, then I don't know what would. My boys are sooo sweet and we love the fact that their heart is open to adoption again. Olivia is so ready for her baby sister. She talks about her all the time. SO, the journey begins. We welcome you to join us one last time on a journey to China to get our beautiful little girl, Zoey! This process is supposed to take 12-18 months, so we should be getting Zoey sometime between next January and summer of 2012. Please join us in prayer mostly, but just to see how things are going. I will update as much as possible and let you know how it's going.
This process is a little different because we are going Special needs this time. We are not sure what her special need will be, but Anthony and I had to fill out a paper that said what we would/wouldn't accept and that she be 3 or younger when we bring her home. Our agency looks at that list and when there is a child with our specifications on it, they will send us a picture with all her current medical info and pictures. We then have 48 hours to take the info to our Dr. to see what she says about the child and if she sees any potential future major problems. If all looks good, and the special need is what we stated we were willing to take and no other problems present themselves, then we send back the acceptance letter. We aren't sure how long all that can take, but we are told it could be fast, or slower...but all of it shouldn't take more than 18 months. Like I said, it's different than the last time, so bear with us...it's new to us too!
Again, I hope you follow us and enjoy our blog. We know that with God being the center of this process, all will go according to HIS plan and HIS timing....and as I know from last time, it might not be as fast as we would like it to be, but it will be perfect according to HIS plan!
Thank you God for this opportunity! It's in YOUR hands now! Protect our Zoey even now because we know she's already born. Get her heart ready for us and ours for her! Help the process to go smoothly with no hitches! You know best, and we commit this process, our family and Zoey to You! AMEN!!!