Finally, Some Progress...

Troy and I have been gone for a week at a conference and came home to this great email:

Troy and Amy,

Good news!!!

Just wanted to let you know that I have completed the preliminary review of your China Home Study Report. Any recommendations for these areas have already been sent to your social worker. The final review of the home study will take place during the critical review of your dossier just before it is sent to China!

Now we are waiting to get the final draft from our adoption specialist before she sends it to immigration. We would still like to have our Dossier complete by August, but we do not have control over how long Immigration, Illinois Secretary of State and the Chinese Counsulate in Chicago will process our paperwork! It is nice to be going again after a waiting period!

Troy and I had to go to a mandatory conference this morning in Bloomington as part of our adoption and DCFS foster home certification. It was nice to meet other families in our situation and get some more information on important topics such as adoption myths, stages of grief for infertile couples, grief and loss for the adopted child, adjustment issues for the adoptee, attachment and bonding, maintaining birth culture ties (Troy recommends we eat Chinese food on the 4th of July!), talking to children about their orphanage background, talking to children about adoption, sibling relationships and the adoption tax credit! WHEW! It was a lot of information, but helpful. We have been doing a lot of reading, so much of this was a repeat, but it never hurts to hear it again! The best part was hearing from a lady from the Our Chinese Daughters Foundation (OCDF) www.ocdf.org . She was great! When our children get older, they can receive a magazine from them with Chinese specific content produced in China, but in the English language. We can also take our children back to China on one of their guided tours! The best part was the journal the children receive on this tour. There is info. about each city they visit, including a place for them to write their own memories. Each child also receives a gift after visiting each city. For example, they got a stuffed panda bear after visiting a panda bear rescue camp! It was so neat!