Home Study DRAFT Complete!

We are happy to announce that our home study has been emailed to the placement agency in WA and they are in the process of reviewing it for accuracy.  At the same time, they are beginning the process of authenticating our dossier documents as this must be done in each state and locality of origin for each respective document.  For those of you who don't speak "adoption", that means that if we submit a birth certificate from Michigan, and I turn in a certified copy, the agency must return it to the MI secretary of state to authenticate that it did indeed come from them and that the signature on the document was duly authorized to certify it.  Talk about thorough!

We also received word today that our passports are finished and being sent overnight, so we anticipate seeing those tomorrow sometime.  This is another key milestone as the dossier can not be completed without copies of our passport pages.  At this point, we have received assistance from Senator DeMint's office to expedite our FBI clearances and hope to have those early next week.

Once all those little pieces are tied together neatly, then the home study and I-800A can be submitted to USCIS (Immigration) for their processing and approval.  We will wait for them to send us an appointment letter to schedule our next set of fingerprints.  (yes, one last time...)  After Immigration comes the final piece of the dossier and then it can be sent to the Adoption Authority in China.

While I can not yet say what a perfect timeline looks like for all of these steps, I can say that we have met our initial goal which was to have a completed home study done by "mid-May".  Thank you all for walking with us through this process and for your consistent support!  Don't forget to help us spread the word about our fundraiser on June 11th and make sure you clean out your closets and garages to see what you might have to donate for the community sale!  Love, The Rylands