Still Waiting & Perhaps $12,170 Poorer

Our notarized copies of the home studies were received last Friday, after they were over-nighted to us via FedEx on Thursday by my social worker. I took one copy to the Secretary of State for certification yesterday morning and then FexEx’d it to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, along with a cashier’s check, to be authenticated for use in the dossier we’ll eventually send to China.

Unfortunately, what I have still NOT received is the endorsement letter from DCFS. It was supposedly mailed to me late last week by the Illinois office of our adoption agency. That means I have not yet been able to move forward to the next step, which is to submit an I-800A to USCIS. This form is an “Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country”. It will be accompanied by an $830 check ($670 application fee, plus $80 for each of us to be fingerprinted).

Since the dossier cannot be submitted to China until we get approval from USCIS, and I cannot even apply for that approval until I receive that endorsement letter from DCFS, I am still sitting here, frustrated that we cannot move on, even though DCFS supposedly finalized our endorsement on June 23.

By the way, the USCIS fingerprinting is one of many redundancies in this process…as we’ve already been fingerprinted for the state police and FBI. However, USCIS wants to do their own fingerprints and it will have to be done in their facility, which I believe is in St. Louis. I’ll know for sure when I get a response from them that will include a fingerprinting appointment.

I was reviewing another family’s blog recently. They are traveling on July 19 to go get their daughter, who is a “Waiting List” child like Shaling. Their process began in May 2009, so instead of the 6-8 month estimate, it took them 14 months. As that’s looking more and more realistic for us as well, I’m realizing that we may be out not only time, but also money, thanks to the DCFS delay. If our adoption completes in 2010, we will qualify for an adoption tax credit of $12,170. However, under the Health Care Reform Act, it appears that tax credit is going away in 2011.

One of the people who receive the automatic emails whenever I update my blog pointed out that since I included our timeline as a sidebar, she was not able to see it in her email. The timeline will always appear on the side of our blog, with me updating dates as appropriate. However, I’m also going to include it here at the bottom of today’s blog only, just to make sure she sees it.

Family Info/LOI: 1/15/2010
Application: 1/18/10
Locked In: 1/20/10
Pre Approval: 1/26/10
Home Study Visit 1: 1/31/2010
Home Study Visit 2: 1/31/2010
Home Study Visit 3: 3/6/2010
Home Study Visit 4: 3/24/2010
Home Study Visit 5: 4/8/2010
Final HS Documents: 5/7/2010
HS Sent To DCFS: 5/10/2010
HS DCFS Approved: 6/23/2010
Endorsement Letter:
I-800A Filed:
Fingerprints:
I-800A Approved:
DTC:
LID:
LOA:
I-800 Filed:
I-800 Approved:
Cable:
NVC Letter:
Article 5:
TA:
CA:
Travel Dates:
Gotcha: