Our official countdown has begun

August 10 is our official LID (log in date) at CCAA so, our 6-7 month wait to referral has begun!

So, what does all this mean? For those of you who are going through this frustrating, aggravating, exciting, stressful, wonderful process, no explanation is necessary. But for those of you who are just along for the ride, let me explain what has happened to date, and what will be happening. So that you stop asking me daily if we have our daughter yet.

On Valentine's Day 2005, we were approved by our agency CCAI to adopt a child from China. We have spent the intervening *205* days proving that we were born, documenting our marriage, submitting to having our lives, values, ethics, marriage and home critiqued, scrutinized and inspected. We have been poked, prodded, investigated, fingerprinted, and inspected. Both of us needed to have our passports updated.We have met with local officials to get signature after signature on all of our documents. We have dealt with four different Secretary of State offices as well as three different Chinese Consulates in both the UK and the US. We have trusted the USPS time after time and have been pleasantly surprised with their efficiency. In addition, we survived our dealings with the USCIS, submitting form after form after form, patiently waiting for their response.

On the plus side, we have learned a few very important phrases in Chinese, obsessed over appropriate names and I have purchased just a few outfits for our little girl. We have met other wonderful families and bloggers who are also adopting children from China. Our blog detailing all of these events was listed on China Adoption News as their featured blog. And even though I failed homeEc years ago, I am learning to sew, hoping to make the 100 Good Wishes Quilt for our daughter...All of this in 205 very long and stressful days.

Now, we wait, wait and wait. It will be approximately 6 months before we get our next piece of news, which will be a big one. Hopefully in February 2006 we will receive our daughter's referral photo and a medical report. Once we accept the referral, we will hopefully travel to China 6-8 weeks later, making all the work, stress and grief worth it, when we finally hold our daughter in our arms.