Do we know what we are doing?

While we are still awaiting the fliers to announce our BIG fundraiser, ( it's been rescheduled 3 times now and yes I know I promised to tell you by now and I will just as soon as I can. Promise!) I will go on to our second most asked question about our adoptions.

When most people find out we are adopting they have questions.
How much does it cost?
How long does it take?
Why a boy from China, aren't they all girls needing homes there?

And the big one lately that has really thrown me for a loop,
Why adopt a child with special needs?
I've had two people in the past week ask me if we realize what we are doing adopting handicapped children.
REALLY?
You can't possibly be talking about my boys.
I looked up the word handicapped in the dictionary.
hand·i·capped adjective: physically or mentally disabled.
I have to say whoever thinks our boys are disabled are sorely mistaken!
While Liam may not have two legs of equal length he is by no means disabled.
And John may have achondroplasia dwarfism but besides not being as tall as others his age he can pretty much do anything you and I can do.

Why would we choose to adopt these two boys with special needs?

Well to us, their needs are what makes them special to us!
I am inspired daily by ALL of my children who ALL have needs that are different and special than other children just in different variations.

We have three daughters who are 21, 17 and 13 and if you tell me they don't have a lot of needs from us right now, you'd be wrong!

I've been reminded that it isn't the same as we are "older" and taking on children with medical needs.

Yes.
We know.
We CHOSE these boys for all they have to offer this world.
We CHOSE them because they are wonderfully and perfectly made.
We CHOSE them because they will be a gift to our family and to so many others whose lives they touch.

I always welcome questions about our adoption.

I only hope that by my answers, others may understand how these children are NOT a burden to us and our family but a true GIFT.

APPROVED!!!

Whew!
After two, yes TWO RFE (Request For Evidence) we were finally approved today through Immigration!

What's next.
I hope to receive the approval in the mail on Friday.
It then needs to be copied, notarized, certified and then taken to the Secretary of State for State Certification.
Once that is done I will send that and the other two necessary documents (home study and CCCWA letter) to a courier who will take them to the Chinese Consulate to be Authenticated.

After this we send all of our paperwork to our agency who looks it over and will send it to China!
This is big because we are reusing our dossier we only have until March 7th for these documents to be logged into China.
Once we are DTC (Dossier to China) it can take 1-4 weeks to be logged in.
I think we can make it and I will remain hopeful!

John is loved!

I am unable to know who is adding precious funds to John's account but I want you to know it means the world to us.
Every time I see the funds rise I want to tell John, "See how much you are loved!"
There are so many people that have been praying for John and truly helping us bring him home and I wish he could know that.
If you have donated or prayed and want to make yourself known, please leave a comment below as I'd love to add you to MY prayer list!

We should have the last bit of information Immigration needs to our Officer by Monday so we hope we are approved this week.
From there I will rush around getting all the necessary papers notarized, certified and authenticated before they are sent to our agency to check over and send to China.
Please pray that this next step is one without bumps as we have a deadline for reusing our Dossier and we don't want anything to keep us from our son one day longer than necessary.

Small setback

Well it seems that walking in for fingerprinting early didn't save us any time at all.
It was worth a try!
Our actual fingerprinting date was Dec 27th and that day came and went without an Immigration Officer for our case.
I called again yesterday and we had just been given an Officer who was looking over our paperwork.
Unfortunately we got a RFE (request for evidence).
This will slow us down but not by much we hope!
Our home study agency is working on fixing the error now and we will have the corrected paperwork to USCIS hopefully today!

I thought a lot about John over the holidays and how next year he will be with us.
There are so many firsts we can't wait to share with John.
Step number one is to get our boy home!
Thank you so very much for all your love and support.
It truly means alot to know John has so many people that want him home as much as we do!

I was down and then I was up!

Today was a good reminder for me to look around and not focus on what is not happening in John's adoption but what is happening.
I have been waiting for our Immigration approval so we can move onto the next step in John's adoption which is getting the paperwork to the Secretary of State and then onto the Consulate.
After that we are DTC or Dossier to China!!!!

I called Immigration today since we walked in for our fingerprinting appointments weeks early.
We even went back in when my Mother's prints failed.
The 27th was our actual appointment date but still we have no Officer assigned to us to even look at our application.
I felt a bit down thinking it is taking too long and my sweet boy is waiting and waiting.
However, someone. Some dear sweet soul was also thinking of my little boy!

I was checking the timeline of my Immigration paperwork when I scrolled through and thought I saw the donation amount for John's fund have an 8 in it.
No, it had been at $568 for so long now.
I scrolled back up and I stared at the screen, blinking.
It read $818.00!My eyes didn't see much more for a few minutes as I became all weepy but I just want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart whoever you are, John's special angel.

Happy New Year from the Hemmes' with love!

Fingerprints ~ Check!

I was surprised and thrilled to have received our fingerprinting appointment letter in the mail last Monday.
The appointment date was for Dec 27th although once you are in the system you can walk-in if your particular office allows it.
My family was all on board for this and we made plans to leave the next day.
I had heard the Atlanta office was good about this so I hoped for the best as we drove the two hours to their office.
DH was still in his military uniform as an extra incentive to let us fingerprint ahead of appointment as I had heard active duty military don't need an appointment.
In the end we walked right in and everyone there was so pleasant and helpful.
We were in and out in under 30 minutes!
I've since called USCIS to let them know we walked in early and let's hope this speeds things up.
With Christmas right around the corner I am wishing that our approval comes in time to have it sent to the Chinese Consulate before the week's break.
My timeline is not always His timeline so I know to be patient but always hopeful.

Just sitting around waiting

These days we are just sitting around waiting on our fingerprinting appointment for Immigration.
It should be within the next two weeks and then we will drive to Atlanta to be fingerprinted early.
Sometimes it speeds up the process and sometimes it doesn't.
We'll pray it does!
Since we are reusing our dossier we only have a few documents this time to be notarized, certified and authenticated.
Our home study which I had to mail away to another county to be certified, our Letter of Commitment which is already done and then once our Immigration approval comes, a copy of that will need to be notarized and certified as well.
Then those 3 papers will need to be sent by courier to the Chinese Embassy to be authenticated.
I am going to guess that all will take about a month, so just after the new year we should have all our paperwork ready to send to China to meet up with our dossier which is already there.
I'll go into more detail as things happen but that's a quick version of where we are.

We still have our BIG fundraiser reveal but sadly I can't give out any more clues until our funds go up.
Just $20.00 will get you one more clue and $32.00 will reveal the entire secret!
A teaser I will throw out there, the actual fundraiser will be on January 25th and it is going to be in the newspapers and t.v.
Now don't you want to know more?