|
OUR
TIMELINE |
|
May 26, 2004 |
Application received at
New Beginnings |
|
June 7, 2004 |
File the State Central
Register Database Check. Now we start the real paper
chase! We filled out pages and pages of profiles,
questionnaires and wrote long autobiographies about our
lives. |
|
June 10, 2004 |
Attended a New
Beginnings Seminar. |
|
July 12, 2004 |
Adoption Profile and
Questionnaire approved by New Beginnings. |
|
August 9, 2004 |
Howard’s Letter of Employment
is drafted |
|
August 20, 2004 |
Mandee’s Letter of Employment
is drafted. |
|
August - September 2004 |
Sent away and went to various
town halls and government agencies for birth certificates,
marriage licenses, and had them certified and notarized.
Compiled three years of tax returns and partnership
schedules and a financial statement. Thank goodness Howard
is a CPA!
Fingerprint’s at the Police Station
with Howard, Mandee and Papa June. Met Uncle Gordon’s colleagues
at the police station. |
|
September 16, 2004 |
Howard, Mandee and Papa June are off
to the Nassau County Police Headquarters’ for a state criminal
record’s search. We all receive our Certificate of Good Conduct. |
|
September 19, 2004 |
Howard and Mandee get
medical
examination reports back from Doctor Basta. Our local notary
notarizes all documents. |
|
October 5, 2004 |
New Beginnings
received all documents and assigns Bonnie Goess as our social worker to visit with us and write our
home study report. |
|
November 18, 2004 |
Bring all
documents to the County Clerk’s office for Notarization
and then to the Department of State for Authentication. |
|
November 19, 2004 |
I-171H filed. |
|
November 24, 2004 |
Filed our
I600/I-600A and received by USCIS
(United States Citizenship and Immigration Services under
the Department of Homeland Security). In the good ole’
days this branch of government was called INS. Now we wait
for an appointment to have our fingerprints taken again.
This time it is run through the FBI. This appointment will
be granted after the home study report is sent to USCIS by New Beginnings. |
|
November 29, 2004 |
Our Home study
was approved! |
|
December 2004 |
Mandee Howard and Papa June are off to
get fingerprints taken. |
|
January 2005 |
Mandee’s fingerprints are rejected. |
|
January 12, 2005 |
Papa June’s fingerprints were
rejected. |
|
January 13, 2005 |
Second appointment for fingerprints
for Mandee. |
|
January 31, 2005 |
Papa June’s
Fingerprints are cleared. |
|
February 2, 2005 |
Second set of Mandee’s fingerprints
are rejected. I must meet with Manuel Hernandez at USCIS in
Manhattan and take an oath. |
|
February 17, 2005 |
Fingerprint clearance for all! Hooray!
Now our I-600/I-600A is completed. We went through such stress
with the fingerprint fiasco’s. This held up our Dossier to China
an additional two months. |
|
March 1, 2005 |
Yes! Our Dossier to China is on it’s
way to CCAA. |
|
March 25, 2005 |
Our Log in Date
is March 25, 2005. Now all we can do is wait, wait, wait. |
|
And Eight Very long . .
.long . . . months later! |
|
November 10, 2005 |
We receive our referral! We have a
beautiful baby girl! I got the call at 11:00 am. I was the first
to post a referral on the March DTC board. I fly like a bird to
New Beginnings to meet our daughter. Howard meets me at the
agency. Pauline Park our director hands us our daughter’s photo
and referral from China. |
|
November 12, 2005 |
Doctor Lee
checks her medical report.
We sign the “Letter of Seeking Confirmation of Adopter”
for CCAA. |
|
November 14, 2005 |
We hand deliver
signed letter to New Beginnings. |
|
November 17, 2005 |
New Beginnings sends the referrals
back to China. |
|
December 2005 |
|
Avian
Influenza (Bird Flu) strikes China and there is an alert
issued by the American Government that there might be
terrorist activities in Guangzhou, the city we are
traveling to. What more can go wrong now. We will pray
that our daughter will be safe and out of harm’s way and
that we will be able to travel safely.
Within the last few weeks of November we met one of our
travel families. Barbara, Andrew and Joshua
are so wonderful. We met at FCCLI party just a few days
after receiving our referrals. The boys hit it off great!
Josh and Matthew are just about one year apart and both
are big Pokemon fans. Barbara and Andrew and Howard and
myself are very compatible. They were so kind when
Howard’s dad passed away, the came over to offer support.
We have gotten together several more times over the past
few weeks are fast becoming good friends. Our daughters
are eight days apart and are looked after by the same
caregiver in their orphanage. They are already as close as
two sisters can be. So are lives are quite paralleled. Our
sons and daughters will be great friends and so will the
mommies and daddies. The best part is we live only thirty
or forty miles away from each other.
Now we are waiting to meet family number three! Hopefully
we will all get to meet before our travel. |
