Waiting For Referral
Our Paperchase  |  May-August 2007      

Thank you for joining us in our journey to our first child, Brianna. We will update this site as new information is available.  ~Chris & Jackie OUR PAPERCHASE January 2005-September 2005 We investigated numerous adoption agencies, more than ten! We read and read and read so many pamphlets and books. We spoke to so many social workers, and although every one of them were very kind, it just didn't “feel” right. We are getting a little worried. October 2005 We received paperwork and information from Children's Hope International. BINGO! It feels so right! The excitement grew. We are moving forward with our adoption just as soon as we get settled into our new home in Wisconsin! December 3, 2005 We attended CHI's Informational Meeting. We learned more details of international adoption and knew immediately that we were destined to adopt from China. In our hearts we know our daughter is in China. The paperchase will begin first thing on Monday. Since our placing agency is in Chicago and we live in Wisconsin, we are required to have a Wisconsin certified Social Worker conduct our homestudy. Special Children was highly recommended to us by CHI. December 5, 2005 I spoke to Debra at Special Children and she is sending information to us including an application for a homestudy. We have completed the application to CHI and will return it today. It’s time we start the "paperchase". We started to order all of the necessary documents for our dossier. We've heard horror stories about getting the proper documents and having them certified and authenticated. We are praying for a very speedy paperchase. The faster we can get this done, the faster our dear daughter will be in our arms. The waiting period is now 6-8 months. We may have our daughter by Christmas! December 29, 2005 We received word from CHI that we are approved to move forward with our adoption. Full steam ahead! December 31, 2005 Returned all required documents to Special Children so they can begin their investigation. It occurred to me that we are receiving letters and documents from various police stations. We are new to this area. I will mention to our mail man that we are adopting so he doesn't think we are a bunch of criminals (ha-ha). January 11, 2006 Today was our first home study with Special Children in our home. We are nervous beyond belief. Will our social worker be able to see past our nervousness and see that we want more than anything to adopt a child? Pure panic sets in. ** Update: Our social worker was incredibly kind and made us feel at ease quickly. After a tour of our home and in depth conversations regarding our hope to adopt, our plans for our daughter, etc. we were done with the first homestudy. We scheduled our next homestudy for February 8, 2006. January 16, 2006 I heard that WI allows prospective adoptive parents to fingerprint before the actual homestudy is complete. They won't process our prints until they receive the homestudy but this could save us time at the end of our paper chase. I'll call Homeland Security and see what they say. *Update: The fingerprint request needs to be in writing. I made a copy of our I600A request which was already sent to them and send a letter requesting that we fingerprint before our homestudy is complete. Keep your fingers crossed! January 25, 2006 We attended the required classes for international adoption through Special Children. They gave us information about issues that can occur with institutionalized children. We pray our daughter will have an easy transition.

"Brianna, your mommy, daddy, JAG, SKY, Faith and Trace can't wait to get you home! We love you baby girl!" SKY "What do you mean we have to wait longer for Baby Brianna?" FAITH "Do I have to give up the couch once we have Brianna?" TRACE "Can I still sleep under the crib once Baby Brianna is here?" JAG "Do I have to share any of my toys?"

February 1, 2006 All of our documents are back from various authorities with the exception of NCIS approval. Our documents have the Seals of each Secretary of State. Copies were forwarded to Special Children. The next step will be getting the documents authenticated by the Chinese Consulate but we can't do that until we have our final home study and Homeland Security approval. Wow, the paper chase is going much faster than we anticipated. This adoption is meant to be! February 8, 2006 Our final homestudy was done in the office of Special Children. It was a very long meeting and we discussed everything under the sun in great detail. No stone was left unturned. We have been investigated by every authoritative agency there is in almost every state we have lived in. There were no problems that came up of course but the feeling of being an open book to so many people is overwhelming. Now we wait for a copy of the homestudy so we can review it for any errors, etc. We should have our drafted homestudy in a week. February 9, 2006 We received a letter from Homeland Security. Yes, another investigation is getting underway. Our fingerprint date is scheduled for February 24, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. We realize that all we will do is fingerprint. We can't get an approval until our homestudy is complete. We still believe this will save us time toward the end of our paperchase. February 17, 2006 Received our draft copy of the home study. Only minor errors were found (misspelled words) that can be easily corrected. We reviewed the homestudy several times to make sure we didn't miss anything. February 20, 2006 Returned drafted home study to Special Children. We were told it would take approx. three weeks to receive the finalized version that will go to Homeland Security, CHI, and eventually the CCAA. February 24, 2006 Today we get fingerprinted. We arrived in Milwaukee a half hour early. We walk in to see three armed guards. We were directed to an area to pick up (you guessed it) more documents to fill out. This is the first time I ever had to be fingerprinted. I really don't know what to expect. The place wasn't too busy but there were several people ahead of us. All of the sudden I hear a lady getting upset saying she hadn't run into any problems with her name change and the adoption until now. Oh no. It hadn't occurred to me that we may run into document problems at Homeland Security. Now my heart is racing and panic is setting in. Did I bring everything we need? Will we run into any problems or set backs? Everything has gone so smoothly...please don't let us get held up now! Finally, Chris was called in. He was back there for only a couple minutes but it seemed like forever. Time was standing still. I am praying he doesn't come out and say "we forgot this..." or "we have to reschedule because of..." I am not leaving without them fingerprinting me!!! Finally, it was my turn. I thought I would have to place my fingers in ink but it was really high tech. They did more of a scan than anything. Oh no... the computer is flashing the word "denied" in red! What? I swear I'm innocent!!! After my slight heart attack the technician told me the scanning machine needed to be cleaned. Well, clean the thing and let’s get moving! He scanned me again and the word "approved" flashed. They told us the approval would come in the mail after the prints were processed. February 25, 2006 We attended the MAFCC (Milwaukee Area Families with Children from China) dinner. Every child we saw was cuter than the last. We met so many nice people. Some were still in the paperchase, some already home with their child, some still looking into the adoption process. Tears filled my eyes when I saw all of these adopted children with their forever families. What a blessing for all! March 7, 2006 We received our finalized homestudy! A quick call to Special Children to confirm a copy was sent to Homeland Security. Indeed, it had! We are praying for a very fast approval so we can get all of our docs to the Consulate. We have been thinking about different names for our daughter and we keep coming back to "Brianna Christa-Elise". Each name has meaning within our family. March 24, 2006 We received our approval from Homeland Security!!! Next step, get the homestudy and approval out to the Secretary of State for their Seal. We've contacted couriers to handle our out of state documents and everything was overnighted to them. Our courier will have all of our documents authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. We will hand walk our homestudy and approval to the Chicago Consulate as soon as we receive the Seal. **We officially chose the name Brianna Christa-Elise. April 3, 2006 We have everything back from the courier. All of our documents have been authenticated by the Chinese Consulate. Everything was forwarded to CHI-St. Louis. Can we get a 4-7-06 DTC (dossier to China)??? Fingerprinting before our homestudy was complete was a good idea. Instead of waiting for a fingerprint date right now, we are getting ready to send our completed dossier to CHI! April 5, 2006 We received a call from CHI. They are missing one form. Of all things, it is the form stating we are United States citizens. We rushed to get that written and we faxed it out to them. April 6, 2006 We received another call from CHI. Our dossier will be mailed to China the following day. April 7, 2006 Our dossier was mailed to China!! We are officially DTC! April 24, 2006 WE HAVE A LID! We were notified that China has received our dossier and has logged it in. Our official wait time begins. Current wait times for adoption has grown to 8-10 months. September 2006 We received a package from the CCAA giving us our adoption case number. We are inching closer! The wait time has now grown to a staggering 10-12 months. October 2006 The wait time is increasing again. Now it is approx. 12-14 months. We aren't happy about the current waiting period but we know to trust God and He will make sure we are matched with the daughter we are meant to have. November 2006 Wait time 14-16 months. The good news is we are inching closer to being in Department One (the reviewing Department). Right now the CCAA is reviewing dossiers for the month of February 2006. We hope to be in Department One by January/February. December 6, 2006 We can't help but notice the 24th comes up often with our adoption. We were married on the 24th too. It seems like many of the "big "dates are on the 24th (fingerprint date, approval date, LID). I wonder if that date will continue to play a role in our adoption? Many people say they validate that they were matched with the right child because dates match with other important dates in their lives. We know that no matter what, God will match us with our daughter. The wait time is still between 14-16 months and we are almost 8 months into the wait. We won’t be able to hold our dear Brianna in our arms this Christmas but she has her first ornament and she is here with us in our hearts. Throughout the whole paperchase and waiting game, we have achieved a lot. Brianna's room is almost complete. We have a couple decorating things to finish. Brianna's closet is already full. We have boxes filled with donations to the orphanage and we have started a box that we will need in China. We go into Brianna's room often and can't wait to hear the laughter of her bellowing out of her room. It is easily our favorite room in the house. Brianna: baby we are coming for you just as soon as we can. Hang in there little girl! March 6, 2007 It was just announced that April 2006 dossiers are being reviewed by the CCAA in Department One. Hopefully, they will review the entire month instead of splitting the month like they did with the March 2006 dossiers. WISH US LUCK!

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