Category Archives: Adoption

USCIS has entered our I600A application into their system! Woohoo!

It’s such a tiny little step but at least it’s a tiny little step forward. They emailed us a case file number so that we can check the status of our application online.

The I600A is a preapproval for adopting a foreign born child and bringing them into the United States. We did not specify a child on our application. They look only at us as potential parents to decide if we are allowed to bring a child to the US.

Once the I600A is approved and we receive the appropriate approvals in Taiwan, we submit an I600 form which requests permission to bring a specific child into the US.

Lots of steps! At least now we can constantly refresh the USCIS website to see our current case status.

Current estimated wait time: 2.5 months.

We still don’t have good news, but we’ve mailed off another batch of paperwork! Hubby has been wanting to submit our I-600A: Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. This application, if approved, will give us pre-approval to bring an adopted child into the United States. Before looking into adoption, I had no idea we would have to request approval from the United States to bring a child into the country. It makes sense, now that I think about it. But it’s something I wasn’t expecting to do!

They required a stack of paperwork:
-A contact form to be notified that they received our application.
-A 3 page application.
-An original copy of our home study
-A copy of both of our birth certificates
-A copy of our marriage license
-Two checks, one for the application fee and one for advance payment of fingerprinting and background checks

Whew! We sent it off priority mail. They should have it on Thursday and then we wait for fingerprinting appointments to be mailed to us. After that, I’m not sure exactly how the process works!

Once we are officially matched with the girl we want to adopt, we submit the I-600, which requests approval for that specific child to be allowed into the United States. The pre-approval that we submitted today should shorten the wait for the actual approval. I can’t wait!

Today has been another flurry of paperwork, FedEx deliveries, and emails between ourselves, our agency, and Taiwan. I can’t post any specifics yet but I hope to have positive news soon!

Last week we realized that we were very low on printer ink and ordered cartridges from Amazon.

Yesterday, our printer ran out of ink and refused to print another page. Our Amazon order was scheduled to be delivered this Friday.

Today, three days early, our printer ink was delivered.

An hour later, we received a supplemental questionnaire from our adoption agency that needed to be printed, signed, scanned, and emailed back.

God’s timing is always perfect.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted an adoption update, mainly because we have had very little news lately.

The biggest news we received last week is that our home study is complete. Hurray! Our social worker finished it, had us fact check it, and sent it to her agency to get notarized. Our agency now has a copy of the home study and it is being translated.

Once the home study is translated, it will be handed to the orphanage director. He or she will then read the entire thing and decide if we are to be officially matched with the child we want to adopt. This process can take up to six weeks.

Now that the excitement of our home study finalization is over, we wait. And wait. And wait some more. Hopefully the next news we receive is that “she’s yours!”

We were surprised today to be notified that we will be allowed to Skype with our daughter once the dossier is submitted. That won’t happen for a few months yet, but at some point we’ll be able to see our daughter and hear her voice for the first time. I am thrilled about that but also nervous. If we were to “meet” for the first time in person, we could go out to eat or to the zoo or play games. We could do something while getting to know each other. Instead, we’ll be sitting in front of a computer, thousands of miles away! I can’t wait.

Tonight our social worker came over for our second home study interview. This interview only took two hours, much shorter than the last session. We talked about various special needs and challenges in adoptions. We also covered the parameters of the child we’d like to adopt – age, special needs, gender, etc. We also talked some more about marriage and child schooling.

We are almost done with the home study process! All that’s left is for the social worker to run our state child abuse checks and to write the actual home study document. We should have a copy in our hands by the end of the first week of September!

After that, we send the home study to the orphanage to get approval to be matched with our daughter. We can’t wait to receive the email that says she’s ours!