LOI to China!

We have made some progress this past week. Our Letter of Intent (LOI) left for China on April 14th and arived in China on the 18th! Now we can settle in for the wait for the Prior Approval (PA) which is China's indication that we have been approved to adopt Brogan and can submit our dossier.

This past week we got both birth certs off to the Chicago and NY consulates. No word yet on the marriage cert coming from Hawaii but the process is so different there and as I recall last time it took awhile. We also completed our medical exams but they forgot to take our heights and give us a vision exams so we had to both go back in. Somehow I seem to have shrunk an inch since my last visit, or maybe since the nurse could not even reach my head on her tiptoes she just measured wrong?

We also had our last visit with the Social Worker this week and she now has all the documents so that she can write up the homestudy for China and for our USCIS. Speaking of which we finally got our official reciept from the USCIS. It only took them 17 days. It must have taken a few extra days to staple that receipt to the extra documents that they now provide on what needs to be included in the homestudy (?). I hope its not an indication of what to expect with the turnaround on the I-171.

Richard is very proud to have found not only a Brogan Vineyards but Brogan's Irish creme. We are now the proud owners of a 1998 bottle of Cabernet bearing our new son's name and a Fedex package arrived Saturday with the Irish Creme. If I could only harness the energy and enthusiasm for the papershase which my husband expends in searching for spirits named after our son!

And if there was any doubt about Pierce needing a brother just take a look at the photo of him with the girls that says it all! We did get the bunkbeds up finally in his room and the kids are loving them. So far the uper bunk is blocked until we get a proper ladder as he simply is not trustworthy yet but he loves his pseudo fort in the bottom.

Plodding along with another week of paperwork.....