The journey so far....

A lot of people have been asking how the adoption process has been going. I thought I spend a little time going over details and such. I'm not quite ready to turn this into a " baby blog " just yet, but I will post updates periodically.
The time line so far has been as follows.......

• July 26, 2006 - General information meeting at Wide Horizons for Children in Waltham, MA.They had an excellent presentation that over viewed all of their programs.
• July 26, 2006 - Over dinner at Naked Fish in Waltham, MA Brock and I decide to apply to the China program at WHFC.
• July 28, 2006 - We mail our " application " with a nonrefundable check to WHFC. I put applications in quotes because this was the first of many, many applications had to fill out.
• August ?, 2006 - We get the real " application " for WHFC. Holy Cow ! We had packet A and packet B to fill out. I adoption circles this is called " paper chasing ". We had to get copies of our birth and marriage certificates. We had to get records of the cats shots. We had to get a carbon monoxide detector. We had to get forms filled out at the Dr. And so on and so on.
• Sept 2006 -Our completed packet A went back to WHFC.
• Sept 2006 -We are assigned a social worker, Jane.
• October 20, 2006 - We have our first in office meeting with Jane.
• October 27, 2006 - We attend the ( mandatory ) pre-adoptive parents group meeting.
• November 3, 2006 - Brock has his 1 to 1 meeting with Jane. He was a little bleary-eyed as we had gone to see the 10:30 p.m. Carlos Mencia show the night before.
• November 3 - 5, 2006 - We went to Austin, TX for Ryan and Sara's wedding. Very, very lovely wedding.
• November 6, 2006 - My 1 to 1 meeting with Jane. I was a little bleary eyed as we had gotten in very late from TX.
• November 10, 2006 - We complete packet B and return it to WHFC. Technically you are not supposed to start work on packet B until after you home study, but it is not like WHFC has spies. I had this done waaayyyy ahead of time.
• November 17, 2006 - THE HOME VISIT ! If you really want to see two usually very calm freak out, send a social worker to their house. We were, sort of, bleary eyed as we stayed up very, very late cleaning the house the night before. I have to tell you, our house has NEVER been as clean as it was on this day. Jane gives us the thumbs up ( we are suitable adoptive parents ) and instructs us to call the China program in Waltham for the dossier .
• November 2006, - We get the China program dossier instructions. We were able to get this done fairly quickly as most of the papers were copies of things we had already filled our in the initial application.
• December 2006, - I returned our I-600A application to WHFC. An I-600A is a Citizenship and Immigration application for the " Advanced processing of an Orphan ".
• January 17, 2007 - Little glitch with some papers and our I-600A is held up. We get all of our other papers notarized.
• January 23,2007 - Glitch fixed - our I-600A goes to the Citizenship and Immigration Office in Boston.
• January 31, 2007 - We get CIS approval ! Now we can get fingerprinted.
• February 9, 2007 - We get finger printed at the CIS office in Boston.
• February 14, 2007 - We are approved to bring an orphan into the U.S. !
• February 22, 2007 - Brock takes all of our documents to the Mass Secretary of States office for certification. Brock also picks Paula up at the airport.
• February 23, 2007 - We pick up our papers from the Secretary of States office, and freeze Paula to death in the process.
• February 25, 2007 - Brock runs a 10K in Hyannis. He was 3 minutes faster than he was last year !
• February 26, 2007 - We are at the last step ! Send our documents off to the Chinese Consulate in NYC for authentication. Or so we thought. We called WHFC only to find that the deadline for dossiers is MARCH 15 ! The turn around time for the Chinese Consulate is 1 to 3 weeks ! PANIC !!!!!!!!!! WE WILL MISS THE DEADLINE ! Upon further investigation we find that if you appear in person at the Chinese Consulate you can get your documents back in the same day. For a hefty fee.
• February 27, 2007 - Erica takes the first train out of Providence, RI to NYC. I was a little bleary eyed as we had to get up and get going at 4 a.m. I was successful in getting our documents certified and was able to take an earlier train home.
• February 28, 2007 - My sister comes over to take more pictures of us for our dossier. Brock gets them printed off at CVS while I compile our dossier.
• March 1, 2007 - Brock brings our completed dossier to WHFC. We got an email from the China team giving us extra bonus points for " creativity and neatness ".
• March 2, 2007 - Our dossier is mailed to China. Yeah ! WoooHooo !

And now we are waiting...................................

Why China you ask ? We both got a really good vibe when they described the program and we felt it was the right one for us. It was a very concrete and predictable program.

Why Lahela ? I liked this name from the beginning. However, Brock did not. We really struggled for a long time over a name. At one point I was even reading the boy name section in baby books for ideas. We wanted something unique, but not weird. One day Brock decided he liked this name. So, her name will be Lahela Bliss ( orpahage name ) Rafferty.

XXOO

Bunny