I800A

We left off at the end of the last post with an approved home study (woohoo!). Next up we completed an I800A application and sent it in along with a copy of our completed home study (and a fat stack of cash...j/k, it was a check).

So what’s an I800A? It’s an Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country. It’s basically asking the United States for permission to bring in an adopted child.

The process for this step goes:

1. Mail application, home study, and payment to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) Lockbox Facility in Texas

2. Receive notification that package was received (by text or email if you remember to include the form that allows them to text or email you...if not, you get a letter in the mail like we did)

3. Check is cashed and everything is packaged back up and mailed from Texas to the National Benefits Center (NBC) in Kansas (bureaucratic red tape...amiright?)

4. Receive notification that paper work was received in Kansas

5. Receive an appointment time to be fingerprinted at the local (Des Moines) USCIS field office

6. Once fingerprints have cleared, NBC will issue I800A approval


As of today we're waiting on our notification of receipt from NBC (Step 4).      

So that's our little update! Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support you've shown, it's truly so uplifting.

Oh, also...I was thinking about doing a Q&A. We get tons of questions about our adoption and we love answering them but thought it might be nice to do a Q&A to answer a bunch at once for anyone who's interested. So if you have any questions let me know (comment, message me, email me, text me, whatever)!

Adoption - The Beginning

Over the last several years I've semi-regulary sent Jeremy profiles of kids from a website called Rainbow Kids who are waiting to be adopted. I know it drove him crazy and he didn't want to adopt but I have ALWAYS wanted to adopt and something would just pull me to these kids. I figured it was always worth a shot so I'd send him pictures and heart eye emojis. Jeremy, bless his heart, would respond with something nice about how cute they were and never told me to just quit sending them already...though I'm sure that's what he wanted to say.

In the fall of 2017 I was on a kick and sending Jeremy pictures of waiting children every few days. We would occasionally talk about adoption and he started asking more questions. He had practical concerns...paying for MORE daycare...paying for adoption...parenting three kids - two with special needs (basically ALL kids adopted from China now have special needs).

One evening we were sitting at soccer practice and talking about how we could make it work and it just clicked. Like, "Ok, I guess this is happening now." Jeremy will tell you there were actual rational reasons for this...maybe we'll go into that later.

We had our eye on a sweet little girl with cerebral palsy and we requested her file from Heartsent Adoptions, Inc. We also applied with them at the same time. It turned out that child had more complex needs than we were able to handle but we knew there would be a child that was right for us.

We had seen a little boy around the same time on Rainbow Kids and tried to get information on him but the agency listed didn't have his file any longer. Heartsent couldn't find him either. We were bummed but again, knew whatever was meant to happen would happen.

A few days later I spotted his picture on the Great Wall China Adoptions waiting children site. I emailed for more information and received a response super quick that they had his file! Another family was also reviewing it but they sent it to us as well. We instantly felt like he was "ours." We had a doctor who specializes in international adoption review his file to look for any issues or medical needs that might not be listed in his file. She determined he looked healthy and while he was listed as being premature his weight when he was found at one month of age was over 10 pounds indicating he likely wasn't premature (or his estimated age/birth date was wrong). Overall he was healthy with possible cerebral palsy and we decided he felt like he would fit perfectly in our family.

Our Letter of Intent to adopt him was sent to China on 11/13/17 and we were pre-approved on 11/20/17!

Next up...the paper chase.We gathered ALL the documents, had things notarized, had physicals and tried to stay organized. Once we had everything together we were assigned a case worker and scheduled our first home study visit. We had to wait on one more document before we could schedule our second visit and finally had that on 2/16/18. Holt sent our home study to our agency for review. It was ultimately approved on 2/22/18.

I wanted to keep track of this process for myself but decided to share it as well in case anyone wants to follow along on this journey!

More to come!